Minecraft creator distributes nearly 3 million dollars to fellow employees

[anywherenotes]

Just thought I would share, as it's quite the contrast to recent Blizzard announcement: http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/01/mi...low-employees/

[Deleted]

$120,000 each? nice.

[Deleted]

Notch, now HE is a great boss!

[Boogums]

I bet if Blizzard ONLY had 250 employees, they'd get massive bonuses every year too.

[Swiftblaze]

I bet if Blizzard ONLY had 250 employees, they'd get massive bonuses every year too.

Exactly. Blizzard also has an obligation to shareholders and such. Large companies lay off workers as business needs shift. That's old news. It doesn't make a company evil or anything. It's simply good business to reduce expenses from business units that may not be performing as well as others.

[Necrolepsy]

Stop justifying Blizzard. Who cares seriously.

OP I think this guy must be a great boss.

[Swiftblaze]

Stop justifying Blizzard. Who cares seriously.

OP I think this guy must be a great boss.

It's not justifying Blizzard (they don't need justification), it's simply stating business tactics. Two different things entirely. Maybe I should have elaborated, but it's a lot easier for a someone in Markus Persson's position to share money with a small team of employees (250) than a much larger company that has many other obligations. I know my company sure as hell wouldn't do something like that, but we also have over 45,000 employees.

With that said, he's still an awesome boss for doing so and should be commended for it. I know I'd love to work for someone like that.

[Deleted]

I bet if Blizzard ONLY had 250 employees, they'd get massive bonuses every year too.

He could have kept the money for himself.

[eriseis]

He has 250 employees. Silicon Valley is so competitive when it comes to hires to the point that Facebook, Twitter et al hire people who take statistics on what to give employees to keep them. Blizz does not need to make sure its talented people don't go to other startups, their key people are secured for now.

I am sure the video game market is similar in this sense. When you have 250 employees and you're raking in millions of dollars, it means that you have 250 VERY talented people. Companies of this size and income cannot spare any employee because they lost talent with it. It's different than losing a mere customer service rep or mid-level manager.

Blizzard is getting rid of redundancies, people do that all the time. Sorry, businesses are not charities.


If a company is benevolent when it throws money at employees, then Facebook is the best company ever since it's giving its employees a tremendous chunk of change in stock and some of its employees are gonna earn hundreds of thousands of dollars when it goes IPO.

And Google is God with a 70k compensation for an analyst after 401k contributions and all that fancy stuff.

Blizzard is a business, God forbid they wish to make money.

Why is it not old yet to vilify Blizz for caring about shareholders?

[Deleted]

Why do you guys even add blizzard to this? It's about minecraft, not blizzard. You butthurt or something?

[Deleted]

that's quite nice of him, well done


And regarding Blizzard and their "obligations", the question is, are stock brokers and others like that the ones from which the money comes or are we? I think it's us.
Are the stock brokers the ones making the content for which Blizzard gets money? I don't think so. Then what to these stock brokers do? Simple, they're like leeches, they eat the money and cut content for them to eat more money. And cut the "it's a business". Minecraft is a business as well yet I see them doing ok. I could get other companies as well to justify my point, Tirion seems to still be pushing content, GW2 will be even free of subscriptions!

[Vladinator]

Let's not start on this subject, about how business work and such. Most common it's some boss screwing over someone else. In contrast to that, I am glad to see how the minecraft creator acted with his money, brings warmth to my heart. Kudos.

[eriseis]

that's quite nice of him, well done


And regarding Blizzard and their "obligations", the question is, are stock brokers and others like that the ones from which the money comes or are we? I think it's us.
Are the stock brokers the ones making the content for which Blizzard gets money? I don't think so. Then what to these stock brokers do? Simple, they're like leeches, they eat the money and cut content for them to eat more money. And cut the "it's a business". Minecraft is a business as well yet I see them doing ok. I could get other companies as well to justify my point, Tirion seems to still be pushing content, GW2 will be even free of subscriptions!

Your own satisfaction has nothing to do with how Blizzard decides to run its operations.

And stock holders are not leeches, with no stock holders you have no company. Period. Someone's gotta put money in to make anything.

[Bassch]

I bet if Blizzard ONLY had 250 employees, they'd get massive bonuses every year too.

According to a person that I know that works in Account and Management, whenever Blizz make over 1million USD on an in game item, they get a bonus.

OT: Yeah. Notch is a really goddamn good boss to have :3.

[Greennunu]

Why do you guys even add blizzard to this? It's about minecraft, not blizzard. You butthurt or something?

Because the original post compared it to Blizzard? Are your blind or something?

[Sunshine]

Closing this since it's just a company flame war. Feel free to make a new thread to discuss things.