Minecraft developer Mojang takes its promises seriously – after stating that they would release their first third-party published game, Cobalt, on Friday, they’ve gone ahead and done it – despite Mojang developer Jens Bergensten spending his weekend working on a patch to fix issues he knows exist, but can’t solve before the Friday deadline.
Bergensten however, doesn’t see this as a problem, as long as fans are made well aware that what they’re getting is a game in its alpha stage. Speaking to Gamasutra, he says, “How we want to work with it, it doesn’t really matter. If we have clear communication that the game is not finished.”
The side-scrolling, 2D, multiplayer platformer has been developed by indie studio Oxeye, and will be Mojang’s first foray into third-party games publishing. But Bergensten says he likes to avoid the various negative connotations and presumptions that come with that.
“It’s just a word that when people hear ‘publishing’, they have some preconceptions of it, and we don’t agree with all of that,” he says. “It’s so loaded, and the word breathes ‘old model’, and we want to reinvent the publishing model in a way that fits for Mojang.”
However, he says, “from the very beginning we saw this massive opportunity of people who are interested in Minecraft, and we thought we want to make more games. And it would even be possible to accelerate the amount of games, and add to our portfolio, if more people make them.”
According to Bergensten, their release model of alpha, beta, full release is non-negotiable when publishing another game. “We believe in a certain way of developing games, and releasing games, and especially engaging the community in a way like we did with Minecraft,” he says.
The game can be accessed now at www.playcobalt.com, and you can use your Minecraft account to purchase it. According to the Mojang release, “The full game will sell for $26 and it will be discounted 50% to $13 during Alpha. The Beta will have a 25% discount tag.”
Rumblings are already going out over the internet that this pricing model is a bit aggressive for an indie title, with many fans seemingly unhappy about being asked to pay $13 for the alpha build of an indie title. Do you think the game is costed too highly?
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