Microsoft doesn’t own the rights to Minecraft’s ending — no one does, its author claims

The poem at the end of the best selling video game of all time was written by someone. The player is told how the universe loves them by the game's unseen gods, and how the player is the universe, dreaming of itself.

He put his name in the poem and the game studio put his name in the credits, so we know it's him. We didn't suspect that Microsoft might not actually own the rights to the game's ending until we read an epic 10,000-word post by Gough on his website.

He said he didn't sign the contract with Microsoft, which bought Mojang for $2.5 billion. He decided to give the ending away for free and make it public domain by tacking on a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license.

He announced a lot of this on December 7th, but it didn't get a lot of attention. Several national newspapers and a global news organization are sitting on the story because Microsoft decided not to respond to their request for comment and they were too afraid of Microsoft.

It's hard to prove a story is true without Microsoft's help, as a newsroom editor with a decade of experience. My request for comment was not responded to by Microsoft.

The Washington Post can see photos of unsigned contracts, but how is it possible that the author of the poem didn't sign a different one? It is not possible to prove that a piece of paper with a signature on it is not real. Someone else who would have been in the path of the contract is what the editor wants Microsoft to play ball with.

They can write a factual headline, which is much stronger than the author claims headline. News orgs like that for a number of reasons.

The source might be unreliable. There was a huge controversy recently when Bayonetta's original voice actor called for fans to boycott the game, claiming she was offered an obscenely low amount of money to reprise her role, but it quickly got overshadowed by the revelation that she was offered more than she She misled fans even though she drew attention to a real problem in the industry.

He contributes something huge to a game that has sold more than 200 million copies around the world and he claims he is barely getting by.

We don't need absolute proof to bring you this story, partly because Gough's tale is well worth reading even if you hold some doubts, and partly because he isn't asking for anything.

He made it clear that he didn't want you to blame Microsoft, Mojang, or Notch, and that he used his sole 20,000 payment well. He says he has no one to blame but himself if he didn't hit it rich with his contribution to the game.