Notch In Protest of SOPA

Published on January 13, 2012, by Marcus - Posted in Gaming News 12

Today Notch, the creator of Minecraft and his company Mojang, has decided that in protest of SOPA, he will take Minecraft.net offline. This move will be certain to garner some of the attention of the 4 million people who have purchased Minecraft once they realize they can’t connect to their favorite online servers. The players will flood to the creator’s website to find out why it’s down. There they will be met, hopefully, by notices telling them exactly why the game is offline, spreading awareness even further. So if on the 18th, your Minecraft won’t allow you to log-in, blame SOPA, not Notch and Mojang.

@Notch: Decided. We’ll silently take downhttp://minecraft.net andhttp://mojang.com on the 18th in protest of SOPA.

Can’t say that this is a surprising move Notch is not a new face on the whole Piracy debacle. He himself has even encouraged piracy of his own game. His views being that if people are going to pirate the game, there isn’t much he can do to stop them, so he figures that some people pirating the limited version of the game will spur a few more legitimate sales for people who want the online feature. A unique view of piracy to be sure, not one you’d expect a game developer to have.

Author: Marcus View all posts by Marcus

I have been gamer since I first laid eyes on the NES and Sega Genesis. I consider myself a very passionate gamer with a life of experience playing everything from RTS to FPS. I play mainly PC games, but am a fan of playing consoles for the exclusives. Typically the Xbox 360. ~Twitter~

12 Comments on "Notch In Protest of SOPA"

corycombs16 January 13, 2012 at 2:40 pm - Reply

SOPA
Ian January 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm - Reply

Hmm the fact that Notch said “silently” kinda brings up some irony, BUT I applaud for his protest even though he’s in Sweeden. That and Mojang probably knows that alot of the US purchased Minecraft, so he kinda owes us.
pistol January 13, 2012 at 5:45 pm - Reply

About time notch allies him self with a community i mean like comeon no need to go all out and leave minecraft and then say sopa is wrong (which it is) but i currently dont have much respect for notch but welcomeback
- Feral January 14, 2012 at 1:50 am - Reply
  
  He left Minecraft because he didn’t want to work on it anymore, you can’t hate a man for making something great, building it to where it can stand on it’s feet and moving on to something else. Minecraft is at the point where he isn’t needed anymore, he wants to go and challenge himself with new projects. Minecraft still has a team working on it, and it will also have a mod API soon. So, yea. I think it’s ok without Notch.
  - lolwithtim January 14, 2012 at 3:09 am - Reply
    
    Yeah, it isn’t like he stepped away from Minecraft and didn’t let anyone work on the game, and just left the game. Jeb is still working on the main game and I’m glad he is.
lolwithtim January 13, 2012 at 6:02 pm - Reply

To be fair, I think he tweeted later about having to do it loudly now .

But yeah, I’ve always seen Notchs take on pirating / copyright very interesting. Kinda knew that he would be against SOPA with the views that he has .
easy12314 January 14, 2012 at 11:04 am - Reply

I agree with Notch’s views on pirating, SOPA is a really odd bill that shouldn’t and probably wont be passed. I would shutdown my gaming website if I had one.
Littlejoe547 January 14, 2012 at 3:20 pm - Reply

SOPA!!!D:
Matt January 14, 2012 at 4:36 pm - Reply

ive been bored of minerat lately and only been using multiplayer now bs happens
- Feral January 14, 2012 at 5:58 pm - Reply
  
  Blame SOPA.
Littlejoe547 January 14, 2012 at 6:12 pm - Reply

This is another reason why we love notch. Minecraft + SOPA protester = AWESOME PERSON! When ever i want to say something like that guy is boss. I will say that guy is such a notch
Mrcheez211 January 17, 2012 at 4:42 pm - Reply

Notch is the coolest developer ever dude, and lol that he encouraged people pirating his own game