snoochybooch

"People who buy minecraft buy to play as it is, NOT to play at some hypothetical future state"

Evidence?

This might be a tenable position, except according to this interpretation of the Terms of Purchase they have not fulfilled their end of the bargain, since they do not provide me with a link to download the version of the game that was released at the time of purchase. This is really just a clumsy attempt at removing liability, not a reflection of reasonable expectations. Notch actively cultivates the expectation of continued and active support.

Nope. If I buy the game, and then download it a week or two later I do not necessarily get the correct version. Furthermore, any reasonable person expects that if you are truly only purchasing some specific version then you would be able to download it into the future. You can't have it both ways.

It looks like Mojang don't actually provide you with a download for the game as it is when you pay for it. So they are in violation of their own Terms of Service. Of course, the ToS is just a clumsy attempt to absolve them of liability, and does not reflect the impression they have actively cultivated on the Internet. If you are going to apply a legalistic standard to Notch you should also apply that standard to Euclideon, in which case Notch is not justified in calling it a "scam".

Notch made specific promises that have been broken. And as far as what I am "entitled to", Mojang are in violation of their own Terms of Service by not providing me with a download of the version as-is when I paid for it. So what am I entitled to for my $15? Look, I understand some people are happy to throw away $15 and have Mojang do whatever they want. I think they have an ethical problem when they make promises but don't deliver upon them (such as SMP being ready before Beta), and furthermore generally treat their users with contempt.

If I send you money to work on project A, and you invest that money on into some other project B while paying lip service to project A then yes, I would say you have a bit of an ethical problem.

Notch's criticism is hypocritical, and invalid on the grounds that he doesn't have enough information to say that the project is a "scam".

I don't care whether you are happy with it or not. It is a poorly written product with many problems. There is a zero-day exploit in SMP allowing people to take over servers that they haven't bothered fixing in the months they've known about it, for example. So what if they are paying lip service to Minecraft development?

If Notch wants to be picky about ethics, let's talk about spending money hiring for the development of a new game (Scrolls) before finishing a game players have essentially advanced him money to complete (Minecraft). Or about sitting on critical security holes for months. Euclideon may not deliver on its promises (it probably won't), but for all Notch knows they do have a novel technique and labeling it a "scam" is just irresponsible.