To the uninitiated, this may sound bizarre - and it should. ![]() Almost immediately, after seeing a blog post saying the Xbox One edition had launched, I abandoned my desk for the Xbox One to spend my $5, like a wallet-opening reflex. So far, I’ve spent $20 on the Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft, $5 to upgrade to the just-released Xbox One edition, $7 on the Pocket Edition for my iOS devices and $3 on in-game purchases on Xbox 360. I’ve heard anecdotally from multiple parents that their kids have to buy Minecraft for each gaming platform (PCs, consoles, etc.) wherever they find it’s available, and, as an adult player of the game, I’m much the same way. In Minecraft’s case, that ponying-up often means buying the same game multiple times. ![]() And in a world of free and cheap videogames, Minecraft’s players are ponying up real money to play - to the tune of $126 million in profits last year. In a world of abundantly free and cheap online video content, Twitch’s users are spending tens of millions of dollars on mostly pointless subscriptions. In a world overrun by things that play games, Oculus’ advocates are raring to give VR another shake, despite the general failings of the technology in the past. These companies’ products are totally different from one another, but they’re attractive to acquirers because their consumers think and act differently from other groups. One is a virtual reality technology company, the second is a video-streaming media platform and the third is just a really, really popular game.īut common to Oculus, Twitch and Mojang is an audience - more specifically, a trend-bucking subset of that ethereally defined group, “gamers,” who tend to be young and, more importantly, are harder to reach through traditional media like TV, or even Facebook. On the surface, Facebook’s purchase of Oculus for $2 billion, Amazon’s purchase of Twitch for $1.1 billion and Microsoft’s likely deal to buy Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5 billion would seem to have little in common. In less than half a year, we’ve seen three gigantic acquisitions in the gaming world that altogether have exceeded $5 billion.
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