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[Kasumin]

ITT: People who think empathy automatically equals "feeling sorry for." So what? What does that even mean?

Having suffered from depression before, I acknowledge his feelings and hope he can find a way to deal with it whether it's through therapy or some other healthy means. If that's "feeling sorry for" then fine.

He got to where he is because of the decisions he made. Ultimately it's up to him to find peace but at they very least I can understand that feeling of hopelessness and isolation. That's something that goes beyond money.

I'm not interested in making comparisons. I shook off that habit after I used to guilt trip myself for seeking therapy because I figured other people needed it more. Comparisons like that get us nowhere.

In any case, I'm not aware of Notch doing anything overly dickish aside from selling Minecraft. I can at least wish him luck in finding happiness.

Some of the attitudes I've seen in this thread are just sad.

 

[daTRUballin]

Notch initially made Minecraft himself in his basement. He sold the game as an unfinished alpha for the Swedish equivalent of around $15. I don't know what made it so popular when Notch himself will admit to you it was entirely a clone of Infiniminer, a game that already existed and wasn't in alpha, but it did, and he made so much money that he made Mojang to handle the problems of general unprofessionalism surrounding the development of Minecraft* - I mean, it did single-handedly destroy the common developer's definitions of "alpha and beta."

Judging by the fact that they hired their PR person based on the fact that they liked her Let's Plays, I'm not entirely sure that move really worked. In any case, Notch stepped down from Minecraft development a month after its "finished" "release" and handed lead development over to Jeb. Jeb saw nothing out of the $2.5 billion deal except for the contract mandated bonus where 2% of the money was distributed amongst the entirety of Mojang. At this point, he had been the lead developer on Minecraft for three years, and Notch was the lead developer for two and a half.

*At one point Minecraft had a free weekend not because of it being scheduled marketing, but because so many people were trying to buy the game that Notch's servers couldn't handle the authorization checks, so he threw the game up on Mediafire while he fixed the servers.

Hmm. Very interesting. Thanks for all the info!

It's crazy to think that Minecraft was created by one guy in a basement, and look where it is today.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

Notch isn't like traditional rich people. This huge shift in his life is obviously taking a toll.

Actually, Notch's entire problem is that he never took the time to learn how to be anything like anyone other than traditional rich people.

It's crazy to think that Minecraft was created by one guy in a basement, and look where it is today.

Yeah, a still-unfinished game marketed to children by the one corporation that's worse with datamining than Facebook, leaving the creator a depressed husk of the person he used to be. Capitalism!

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Huh? I thought this thread was locked yesterday :/

 

[Dilly]

Damn straight.

It's time you stop posting.

If money made depression a non-issue, it should be virtually inexistent in the first world.

 

[nephilimdj]

Noticed its been picked up by media now, pop'd up on my fb

http://www.news.com.au/technology/h...ad-twitter-spree/story-e6frfrt9-1227504735868

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

I could have used GAF 3 months ago. Of course I should have gone into a support system and used my resources to get better! It's all so obvious! I mean lying in bed and thinking of my bleak future? I should have just cured myself.

This thread is actually making me depressed now.

I guess I feel disturbed by how many depressed people are still envious assholes.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

I hope everything works out for him. Depression sucks.

 

[Odrion]

Yeah, a still-unfinished game marketed to children by the one corporation that's worse with datamining than Facebook, leaving the creator a depressed husk of the person he used to be. Capitalism!

God damn.

 

[TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared]

Poor sod. Hope he feels better soon.

 

[Flintty]

Yeah, a still-unfinished game marketed to children by the one corporation that's worse with datamining than Facebook, leaving the creator a depressed husk of the person he used to be. Capitalism!

And that's enough NeoGAF for me today! SMH.

I hope he works his problems out. Perhaps he should dedicate his life and vast fortune to helping people. That's what I would do.

 

[RandomTiger]

I don't understand Notch, he could have scaled up Mojang massively, accelerated Minecraft development and polish, explored all of its still imo untapped potential of that game, he could have created all kinds of new games for decades, he could have taken any position technical or creative he wanted to take in whatever process he chose. He probably just should have kept himself busy and grounded.

 

[kevm3]

I don't know what you mean. Money would certainly solve my loan problems. Hell, the whole reason I'm in college in the first place is so that I won't be stuck in poverty working in some dead-end job like my parents.

You're looking at this from the perspective that you'd get to maintain your current lifestyle as is with just a bunch of extra money into the mix. Money might help you pay off your loans, but there are a lot of NEW problems that end up coming along with it. How about all of your friends become envious of you and now look at you as a stingy outsider because you aren't slapping millions into their palms because you 'have all that money, you constantly have family hounding you for dough, every single move that you make is analyzed with a microscope, the interaction you have with the vast majority of people will end with a pitch for some money, etc.

It's easy to say you'll give everyone some cash, but then again, they will be mad since it's not enough because 'you have all that money.' Once they burn through all that cash, they come back and ask for more and get angry because you're not giving them more money. A lot of people around you start taking it easy, quitting their jobs and start spending your money for you because they figure you got a ton of money and you'll finance them.

He can take all these trips with, but guess who he'll be taking them with... himself because everyone else is working or has families. Sure, he can give a few friends millions, but then again, he creates the problem alluded to earlier. He'll have created a haven of dependents and he'll have a lot more people jockeying for cash, using the fact that he gave this or that friend millions as leverage to get cash on his own.

A bunch of cash solves one set of problems, but introduces a completely new set of them. One only has to look at lives of athletes. Mike Tyson is happier now than when he had all of that cash and was the heavyweight champion of the world. There's one blessing here that most people have that they are completely overlooking and that's the ability to walk outside and be under the radar. Once you've got a ton of money, it becomes 10 times harder to determine which interactions are genuine and which are a pitch for cash. It is also a blessing not to have every single move you make in public being scrutinized.

 

[Prozel]

Grow a pair Notch

 

[SoCoRoBo]

Yeah, a still-unfinished game marketed to children by the one corporation that's worse with datamining than Facebook, leaving the creator a depressed husk of the person he used to be. Capitalism!

Presumably in the socialist utopia of our dreams the government would have forced Notch not to sell the game...because it could predict he would end up depressed? Help me out here.

 

[jakonovski]

An answer is, find a pastime where money won't do the work for you.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Jeb saw nothing out of the $2.5 billion deal except for the contract mandated bonus where 2% of the money was distributed amongst the entirety of Mojang.

Notch offered 300k to every employee to stay at mojang for 6 months He did this from his own funds.

 

[GhostTrick]

So... the problem seems to be his lifestyle and not the fact that he has a lot of money then. I mean, nothing prevent him for putting all of that in a bank and just have a normal life style, making a family and taking care of them without the need of working.

A simple yet easy life
In any case, I wish him best luck and most of all, to sort things out !

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

What in the flying fuck.

This thread is full of the most delusional shit ever.

As an individual that has suffered from major depression AND just had a pretty nasty 8 hours, this thread man. If not for some compassion and sanity from 40-70%...

I hope those of you who can't be bothered to drum up some empathy don't find out the hard way just what life can be like. The alternative is to hope you never move beyond a shallow view of life. It's certainly clear that many here haven't had real experience with
1) therapy that is much more often miss than hit (surprise! you have to actually form a trusting relationship with this person, if you want results. the chances aren't all that much better than forming a good relationship with any other person or persons)
2) antidepressants (which have an overstated success rate and success LEVEL due to the economics involved with large pharmaceuticals--they're only mildly better than placebo, only work in about 2/3rds of people, and are most successful in mild to moderate cases, rather than severe depression) and
3) that by far the most important aspect of getting over these difficulties isn't found in the above 2 themselves, but in making changes in your life. The therapy can help immensely with that. The medications can help kickstart things often enough. But they are only the beginning, and they are the EASIEST part.

Mr. Persson, and any others that feel similarly isolated and hopeless, I don't know what I can say in the right way. But as a person that has difficulty with trust, I hope that you can believe I'm sincere in what I'm about to say.

I wish I could just hang out with you some time. I wish I could make you believe I have the closest thing humanly possible to zero interest in your wealth. I wish I could find out if you and I could be friends, not because of some shallow worthless motivation, but because I want to have good friendships, and I want others to have them too. I hope you keep trying, and try to keep in mind one very important thing: It doesn't matter how many times you don't follow through on your next goal; what matters is that you keep trying. When you succeed, the number of attempts won't matter much, except in spreading your wisdom as Edison did regarding the lightbulb. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

First of all I'd like to say I think the second part of your post is sound and good hearted advice that anyone should follow, and that your a good person for caring.

But addressing the criticisms in the first part of your post, as someone who is very much familiar with all 3 points you bring up as well as other equally important points that you do not bring up, I think calling out people for having little or no sympathy for Notch is somewhat hypocritical. Notch is a stranger to practically everyone in this thread, who based on his tweets is clearly not in a happy place right now. That much is easy enough to understand. But the truth of the situation is that Notch's position is very rare and unfamiliar to most if not all of us, and as such it should come as no surprise that most cannot identify with and do not understand the difficulty of his situation. And make no mistake, the thing that makes Notch's position unique has much more to do with the money than the depression. This thread has shown that depression, including the severe and chronic kind, are relatively common. And as some have pointed out strong lack of motivation or lack of caring in general is perhaps the most obvious symptom of this condition. So when reading posts saying "I wish I had Notch's problems" or "Notch has it better than he realizes" or something similar, one possible interpretation is "these posters are assholes", but another equally valid interpretation is "perhaps some of these people reacting this way really do have it hard". Perhaps they have it hard enough that the additional burden of understanding someone who's problems are so vastly different from their own is too much for them.

 

[pelican]

I find it difficult to have any real empathy.

He didn't need to move to LA and buy the ridiculous house.

 

[nephilimdj]

edit: removed

 

[SprachBrooks]

Lol cry me a fucking river Notch –– invest your money or start making another game: you're talented enough. Sorry but I understand the complexities of mental health and how the exponential shift in income can change someone –– but it's just a case of him needing to find that next passion project I think. He'll be fine –– he can afford a psychiatrist I'm sure.

 

[RipperGrim]

I think people put too much stock in tweets, it's so easy to type things out for everyone to see in seconds and we have seen it before thousands of times when someone is feeling emotional they just tweet shit without thinking, sure Notch could be depressed or he could just be feeling down for today and tomorrow he could be back to feeling awesome.

Edit: Also if I had that much cash I would have set my friends up for life as well so they didn't have to work and hang out a lot more, these things are a lot better when shared.

Yeah, a still-unfinished game marketed to children by the one corporation that's worse with datamining than Facebook, leaving the creator a depressed husk of the person he used to be. Capitalism!

Lol my god the cynicism Neogaf shows sometimes is something to behold.

 

[orava]

Seems like he needs a hobby.

He should try that programming thing i keep hearing about.

 

[Kadayi]

If I was Notch and had that much money on hand I'd start up my own game publishing business, or get in with someone like Paradox and help them take their kind of games to the next level. Dude is clearly bored to tears sitting around all day doing nothing.

Take Mount and Blade for instance. It's a great game mechanically, but with a decent budget behind it it could be truly amazing. Better engine, more platforms.

Or Crusader Kings. Again great game mechanistically, but nothing that couldn't be improved upon with some investment with regards to appearance, UI etc.

 

[HariKari]

I find it difficult to have any real empathy.

He didn't need to move to LA and buy the ridiculous house.

If you are already unhappy and then suddenly find yourself with newly found money, sometimes buying things is an attempt to distract from that unhappiness. Or perhaps he thought living the life would bring him some sort of new life/happiness.

The ridiculous house isn't really ridiculous at all given that he likely makes more off of his investments in a year than what that house is worth.

There is no undoing that money coming into his life. It changes everything.

If I was Notch and had that much money on hand I'd start up my own game publishing business, or get in with someone like Paradox and help them take their kind of games to the next level. Dude is clearly bored to tears sitting around all day doing nothing.

He seems bitter about the industry, otherwise I think that would be great for him. Start a company that shelters promising smaller titles or whatever. But he seems to loathe the idea of returning to the industry.

 

[BokehKing]

Am I really supposed to feel sorry for a billionaire?

I... Ugh...

Some people here were just not raised right

It's not like he was a billionaire all his life.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

There's plenty of replies saying Notch should just return to game development. But I don't think it's that easy for him.

Minecraft's success will forever haunt him. Anything he does will be compared to it by the public. I can imagine that's a huge pressure. I recall he suddenly stopped development on his space game, which seemed to be going fine, and quite interesting to me.
From his last blog post:

What I hadn’t considered was that a lot more people cared about my games now. People got incredibly excited, and the pressure of suddenly having people care if the game got made or not started zapping the fun out of the project.

And I'm saying this without judgement but most of us know Minecraft was based on a game concept that was already done. He struck gold on building and refining that concept, but does that make him the genius designer who's able to come up with solid game concepts by himself?

People also talk like opening a game studio is the easiest thing in the world. You actually need skills other than programming and a solid business plan.
Does Notch have the experience and background to do that? I'm not sure considering how he runs his life atm.

 

[Jobbs]

I can only dream of the amazing work I'd do as a developer if I had limitless resources to found my own AAA studio, or at least the ability to try to make some amazing AAA work. That he has the unique opportunity to do anything, not just as a developer but as anything else, and what he does is sits on the money in LA partying with famous people like a douche and bitching on twitter I find kind of pathetic.

 

[CryptiK]

He should start helping people like himself. Search for a project he is interested in and work with them on it help them get their product out there. Thats what I would do if I had nothing else to achieve and had that kind of money.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

I'm far more concerned about the amount of assholes on NeoGAF than I am about Notch at this point.

Whats wrong with some of you people?

 

[Jackpot]

Being rich doesn't eliminate depression but as many posters have pointed out, for the specific feelings he's listed there is plenty he can do about it to resolve them.

 

[Kadayi]

He seems bitter about the industry, otherwise I think that would be great for him. Start a company that shelters promising smaller titles or whatever. But he seems to loathe the idea of returning to the industry.

I think if he just plays the role of being the money versus being the developer then it would be considerably less toxic a pursuit, that's why I figure investing/partnering with an existing small publisher like Paradox makes sense. It provides them with more funding to raise their game quality and invest in new ventures and it also means he doesn't have to manage the day today.

 

[Beefy]

I'm far more concerned about the amount of assholes on NeoGAF than I am about Notch at this point.

Whats wrong with some of you people?

Yep. There does seem to be a hell of a lot of people that don't get how a rich person can suffer aswell. Just because Notch is rich doesn't magically prevent him getting depression or anyother mental illness.

 

[Bartholomuse]

Surprised at some of the comments here...especially after it was already locked once. Depression or depressive thoughts don't really pick people based on socioeconomic factors. You just slowly but surely find yourself doubting your own abilities, and slowly but surely end up loathing yourself, even the things that make you successful.

It's a horrible, self-esteem destroying black mass that makes it very difficult to view yourself as anything other than a piece of crap.

If any of the people in here slating Notch have actually gone through rough patches they'd know that one of the absolute worst things to hear...is to try and express your thoughts and to be rebuked for doing so, rubbish like; "You have no right to complain" and "There's nothing wrong with you, just smile" is absolutely confidence shattering, and only makes it harder to talk to people.

I only wanted to type a few quick words, but I'm really annoyed at some of driveby nonsense being posted, especially since this place was already locked and I'm guessing...reopened with the intention of driving better discussion.

 

[Lord Panda]

Man, I have a hard time managing my two cars, motorcycle, and house and all the other useful crap. And I have help, thanks to my lovely partner load balancing it with me.

Notch has that behemoth of a 'facility', that he calls home, that's probably mostly dormant most of the time, and his fleet of vehicles and other bullshit. I'm assuming he has house staff and a grounds keeping team because managing the scale of that of all that stuff would probably add fuel to my depression too.

No joke. Look if he has done wrong by people, and it's eating away at him, then maybe he should reach out and mend things. Probably one of the first steps towards recovery.

 

[Oddduck]

There's plenty of replies saying Notch should just return to game development. But I don't think it's that easy for him.

Minecraft's success will forever haunt him. Anything he does will be compared to it by the public. I can imagine that's a huge pressure. I recall he suddenly stopped development on his space game, which seemed to be going fine, and quite interesting to me.
From his last blog post:

Instead of developing his own games, maybe he should just get into the publishing business, which Kadiya mentioned earlier in this thread. There are so many cool game projects that he can help support or fund.

The man obviously seems very bored with his lifestyle, so he needs to find something to keep him busy.

 

[HariKari]

Notch has that behemoth of a 'facility', that he calls home, that's probably mostly dormant most of the time, and his fleet of vehicles and other bullshit. I'm assuming he has house staff and a grounds keeping team because managing the scale of that of all that stuff would probably add fuel to my depression too.

That house costs nothing to him, relatively speaking, and neither does a small army of staff to wait on him. Someone on reddit posted what happens when you progress through the tiers of wealth (beyond the obvious) and it's pretty interesting. Of note is that money doesn't buy happiness, even at the top.

 

[Fbh]

Yep. There does seem to be a hell of a lot of people that don't get how a rich person can suffer aswell. Just because Notch is rich doesn't magically prevent him getting depression or anyother mental illness.

Sorry, but if I'm supposed to be incredibly affected and worried about a depressed rich guy how am I supposed to react to all the depressed people living on the street that don't even have enough to feed themselves?
Should I go cry in my room the whole day?

But Don't get me wrong. I hope he can look for help and get better.

 

[BokehKing]

Grow a pair Notch

If notch killed himself tomorrow due to depression would you still be acting like a dick?

 

[Sun Bather]

Sorry, but if I'm supposed to be incredibly affected and worried about a depressed rich guy how am I supposed to react to all the depressed people living on the street that don't even have enough to feed themselves?
Should I go cry in my room the whole day?

But Don't get me wrong. I hope he can look for help and get better.

Certainly not, I don't expect anyone to have great sympathy and pray for him at night. It's not like it matters much to me either. But posts like "grow a pair" and gifs of crying with lots of money are stupid, people who are rich as fuck are not immune to these things, we have seen enough examples of that over the year. So yeah: I don't expect people to be more or less sympathetic towards notch than any other person, but I do hope people aren't ignorant assholes about it. Clearly that is too much to ask for though with the apparent acceptance of it in here.

 

[beril]

I find it difficult to have any real empathy.

He didn't need to move to LA and buy the ridiculous house.

He didn't. As far as I know he still lives in Stockholm most of the time. But he wanted a place in LA as well and somewhere to hold extravagant parties. The house is a tiny chunk of his fortune in a relatively safe investment, so it's not really ridiculous.

 

[Woody Invincible]

I'd imagine becoming a billionaire in the town I live in would make me king of it. I would become the evil real estate grabbing bad guy just to pass the time.

I'd hope for superheroes to appear rather quickly in my utopia.

 

[fluffydelusions]

Am I really supposed to feel sorry for a billionaire?

Terrible comment.

 

[levyjl1988]

The problem with people and too much money is that they don't know what to do with it.

If I had that extra cash flow I would make the passion project of my dreams and you can't do that without the backing and support of that money for that polish and advertisement.

He can potentially fund a triple AAA production title with that.

 

[Izuna]

http://game.notch.net/drowning/

=(

oh my god

 

[Beefy]

Certainly not, I don't expect anyone to have great sympathy and pray for him at night. It's not like it matters much to me either. But posts like "grow a pair" and gifs of crying with lots of money are stupid, people who are rich as fuck are not immune to these things, we have seen enough examples of that over the year. So yeah: I don't expect people to be more or less sympathetic towards notch than any other person, but I do hope people aren't ignorant assholes about it. Clearly that is too much to ask for though with the apparent acceptance of it in here.

Exactly.

 

[Aselith]

Yeah, a still-unfinished game

Always hilarious when someone takes a positive (developers continue active development on a game) and spin it to the worst possible interpretation lol

Diablo 3, the still-unfinished game, just got some new content fml this cruel old earth just keeps shitting on me

 

[Kiriku]

He seems bitter about the industry, otherwise I think that would be great for him. Start a company that shelters promising smaller titles or whatever. But he seems to loathe the idea of returning to the industry.

Yeah, pretty much my impression as well. Or rather, based on what I've heard from people who work/worked at Mojang, he never had any interest in running a company or anything related to that.

 

[BokehKing]

Yeah, pretty much my impression as well. Or rather, based on what I've heard from people who work/worked at Mojang, he never had any interest in running a company or anything related to that.

Sounds like he was forced into things from the moment he started mine craft.


Temporary fix?

Move to North Carolina, get a normal house, normal car, get an office job, keep occupied, make friends, meet a girl, one day quit and give those regular everyday people that finally brought happiness and normalcy into your life some money for being what people should be with out incentive...... Decent human beings.