The Technomicon

Over the last few days the updates on Minecraft creator Notch’s Twitter account have centered around issues with the accessibility of the Minecraft servers. Late yesterday he posted an update that this was the result of a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack, and today popular gaming blog Kotaku reports that this is the work of angry Minecraft users who are frustrated with the lack of updates to the game.

The sense of entitlement here is staggering.

For those who don’t know, Minecraft is currently in its alpha stages. It’s a build-your-own world game that is the result of ONE man’s work. Think of the game like playing with virtual Legos, used to build whatever you can think of. Landscapes are generated on the fly. If you happen to venture out into the world after dark, monsters attack you. The game has over 1 million registered users, and has generated enough revenue that its creator is able to grow his company from the success of alpha sales alone.

There’s that word again: alpha. The game still hasn’t graduated to a beta release, and is still far off from hitting RC0 (release candidate zero; shippable code) status. It’s not finished yet. It’s not supposed to be finished yet. And in addition to continuing his work on the game, Notch is dealing with lawyers, searching for office space, and doing the the things that someone in his position should do. To help fund the project, a discount pricing plan was offered that allowed folks to buy and play the game for roughly ten bucks. They won’t have to pay again when RC0 hits. They’ll have the full game for no additional cost.

And yet some of these people feel like they’re owed something, like they deserve something they’re not getting. They either don’t understand how software development works, or they simply don’t care. This is the internet at its worst, where relative anonymity means you can try and brute force someone into conceding to your demands. It means that a group of people can dictate the rules to hundreds of thousands.

Again, this is a game built by one person. There is not a team of developers churning out code here. There’s no change control board to deal with. There’s no publisher backing. And now it’s all being held hostage by the collective immaturity of the internet. Belligerent children have kicked, and screamed, and stomped their feet, and now they’ll hold their breath until mommy and daddy give in.

What should be an inspiration and source of motivation to programmers now serves as a warning of what can happen if you get too successful, and that’s a shame.