Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

"Progress has been achieved! at the end of liberation."

Since its launch in 2011, "my World" has been divided into two models: creation and survival. It is also since then that the survival mode in the game has an accepted "ending" similar to customs clearance. Although some players do not think this is the end, it is just some kind of new beginning, but when it is triggered, it will pop up a long list of conversations and a longer list of production staff.

The process leading to this "ending" may vary from game to game, but the destination is the same: The End. Players need to defeat the Boss Last Shadow Dragon here and finally enter the portal to return to the main world.

A conversation between two people will be scrolled on the screen of the official promotional picture of the final place and the last shadow dragon. This 8-minute conversation is like a dream, as if judging the player's performance. Players do not know the identity of the interlocutors and can only guess that they are creators independent of the world, or creatures in the higher dimensions of the universe.

As more and more players come to the end, players begin to uniformly call the dialogue "final poem" (End Poem). As the saying goes, "there are a thousand Hamlets in the hearts of a thousand readers", players also hold mixed attitudes towards the final poem and have made countless interpretations.

The author of the final poem is Julian Julian Gough, an Irish poet, novelist and lyricist.

On December 7, Gough posted a lengthy blog post on his Substack, left a message on his Twitter and posted a post on Reddit's "my World" section. This is the first time that Gough has used Reddit.

With so much fanfare, Gough announced his big decision: he gave up his copyright on the final poem and published it in the public domain. Including Microsoft, the current publisher of "my World", and all "my World" players, anyone is free to use or quote the final poem, whether for commercial purposes or not.

In the article, Gough tells the story behind the final poem and the reason why he made this important decision.

He said he had never transferred the rights to the final poem to Mojang, the studio that developed my World, nor to Microsoft. He also said that he wrote the final poem for "a friend", but this "friend" did not regard Gough as a friend. It broke his heart.

"and this player runs through the story from a forest of information seeds planted by a man named Julian, and an infinite world created by a man named Marcus."

In 2009, Gough met Marcus Persson (Markus Persson) at an independent game show in Berlin. Players may be more familiar with Persson's screen name: "Notch". At that time, "my World" was still under development, and Persson used it as an after-work adjustment, but it was so popular that he shifted the focus of his work.

Two years later, on November 18, the official version of my World 1.0 went on sale. But a month before the release, Persson didn't come up with a suitable ending for the game. He believes that killing the Last Shadow Dragon is supposed to trigger some kind of narrative that ends the game, but he doesn't know how to tell a story.

As a result, Persson openly solicited articles on Twitter: "are you a talented writer (famous is a bonus: d)? do you want to write a stupid text that comes out of nowhere when you hit" my World "?"

On that day, an acquaintance recommended Gough to Persson. At this time, Gough had already written dozens of novels, one of which won the British BBC short story award, which can be regarded as a little famous.

That night, Persson emailed Gough, asking if he was willing to write an ending to my World. Gough sent back a short story called "The iHole", which satisfied Persson and regarded Gough as the most suitable person for the job.

Gough enjoys complete creative freedom. He asked Persson several technical questions, such as whether he could call the player by his first name, whether some words could be encrypted in some way, or obfuscated, and Persson gave a "no problem" answer.

Then Gough began to play "my World" day after day, often with his daughter, until he thought he had grasped the nature of the game.

According to Gough's recollection, the creation of the final poem was an unusual experience, feeling like some non-existent force determining the end of "my World". "I have a strong feeling that the universe seems to want to talk directly to humans, and it does so through me."

The text of the final poem mentions "Universe" Gough's traditional handwriting 27 times. "my wrist sometimes speeds up, I watch the words simply appear on the page in front of me, and my mind doesn't know what the next word will be."

Many players believe that there is some important truth behind the garbled code left by Gough or Persson in the final poem. Gough said in another blog post that the "garbled code" was only caused by the collapse of his "knowledge system". "I want to make room for all the things I don't know in the final poem. Admit how small and one-sided the truth I can share is."

Gough slightly polished the poem from the Universe and gave it to Persson. Persson immediately replied and praised that Gough expressed his philosophy of life more clearly than he did. He didn't even want to move a word, so he stuffed the poem into "my World" and got the final poem we saw in the game.

Persson is reluctant to offer any option to skip the final poem because he thinks the ending is "meaningful". In fact, it wasn't until 2021, seven years after Persson's departure, that my World introduced the option to speed up the scrolling of the ending text. Gough is still grateful for this.

"A story that tightly wraps the truth in a text cage. Not a naked truth that can be seen at a glance."

Overjoyed, Persson wanted to talk to Gough about compensation, so he asked Carl Manneh, then chief executive of Mojang, to contact Gough by email. No way, we can talk about this for three years.

Gough did not see his conversation with Persson and Manny as some kind of business negotiation, but as a casual exchange between artists or friends, so he was so absent-minded that when talking to Manny, he "did not negotiate like an adult" and did not ask his own agent for help. Manny, who studies finance and has a master's degree in business and management, finds it hard to understand the chatter of an artist.

Poor communication between the two men led to an impasse in the negotiations. In the end, Manny had to threaten Gough that if a preliminary agreement could not be reached, he would give up using the final poem altogether and find someone else to write the ending. Stunned by such threats, Gough agreed to Manny's preliminary proposal, because "friendship is more important than money." Under the proposal, Mojang will pay Manny an one-time payment of 20,000 euros, and Manny has vaguely promised to extend Gough's other works to the "my World" player community.

For comparison, at the proposed juncture, only a $15 test version of "my World" was sold, but millions of copies were sold, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Mojang. In the second year of the game, Persson received a dividend of $3 million from Mojang's stock, which he divided equally among 25 employees, or $120000 each.

However, Gough needed the 20,000 euros at that time, and he soon received the reward. Previously, he was addicted to writing an unpaid novel, spent all his savings, maxed out his credit cards and owed a lot of debt. He paid off all his bills with half his pay, leaving the rest to pay the rent for the next six months.

Perhaps because "my World" sold so much that Mojang was so busy, Gough received Manny's contract in late December, more than a month before the game was released, and tens of thousands of players beat the final Shadow Dragon, saw the final poem, and gave mixed reviews. Gough said he received marriage proposals and death threats from players almost at the same time.

Players who love the final poem do not hesitate to tattoo the poem on themselves. Source Reddit:u / syceried: "before they use my story, I don't even get a chance to see the contract, so how can I give a meaningful consent?" Still dissatisfied with Manny's way of doing things, Gough was annoyed when he saw the contract, let alone signed it, but just put it away. Manny also failed to make good on his promise to promote Gough's work, and Gough asked Persson about it, but Persson knew nothing about it, which made Gough feel very embarrassed.

Since then, the Mojang side has nothing to say, while Gough had to divorce because of his emotional defects and financial pressure, and the dispute between the two sides was shelved for some time.

But in August 2014, Manny came back. He e-mailed Gough and asked him to sign the original contract from three years ago. Gough turned out the contract and read it carefully, and he was half angry.

The contract states that Gough must "voluntarily" permanently waive all copyright in the final poem and transfer it to Mojang. The contract was accompanied by a confidentiality agreement to prevent Gough from publicly discussing the contract and its contents, and if Gough had signed it, he might not have today's article. "it's worse than I thought. It's horrible."

The contract that Gough refused to sign but remained was puzzled by the sudden pressure from Mojang until the news of Microsoft's intention to buy Mojang leaked that it dawned on him that Mojang needed to smoothly transfer everything used in "my World" and its copyright to Microsoft.

Persson and Manny are both shareholders in Mojang and the biggest beneficiaries of the acquisition. In Gough's view, the two men are luring themselves into signing a contract they have never agreed to, for the sake of Microsoft's $2.5 billion acquisition fee, which they can't afford to buy their children's clothes. This is the standard procedure for the operation of the company, which is perfectly legal, and Manny fully understands it. But he could not accept the fact that the two men deliberately concealed the acquisition. "they don't treat me as a friend."

Gough e-mailed Persson and Manny as an ultimatum. The email to Persson enthusiastically wrote, "if you need me, I'll sign the contract now," or because "friendship and love are more important than money." The email to Manny was much colder: "Fuck Microsoft, I've never signed your bad contract, and if Microsoft can't come up with an acceptable contract, I'll take back my story."

Three hours later, Manny was relieved to admit that the acquisition existed, but gave a unilateral response: the emails they negotiated three years ago were enough to persuade Microsoft to complete the acquisition.

In the end, Gough still didn't sign the contract. Microsoft continues to use the final poem in my World, but this poem is only lent by Gough to Persson, and its ownership is firmly in Gough's hands.

"the universe says that the darkness you fight is in your heart. The universe says that the light you seek is also in your heart."

After the acquisition, Persson received 71 per cent of the acquisition fee, or $1.775 billion. When he left Mojang, Persson paid another $300000 each to the studio's 47 employees, and then bought the most expensive Beverly Hills mansion in Los Angeles for $70 million, four times the price of a toilet in the mansion alone.

After leaving office, Persson led a full-time life, throwing private parties at home every few days and occasionally spending a lot of money in Las Vegas casinos.

Persson lost contact with everyone he followed on Twitter, including Gough, when his mansion came with a large swimming pool in 2016. A year later, Persson began to post comments with sharp political views or racial and sexist views, which sparked a number of online debates until the account was voluntarily deleted in 2020. Microsoft had to take the initiative to cut contact with Persson, deleting a large number of references to Persson and "Notch" in "my World".

Slogans related to Persson were removed by Microsoft in 2019, but Persson became a billionaire despite scandals. While Gough is still trying to earn next month's rent, such a gap will inevitably make Gough feel depressed. Gough's self-thought friend hoped that he would give up his right to the final poem, and this betrayal deeply hurt Gough.

These two things almost became the demons of Gough, but Gough never filed a lawsuit on copyright issues. He was angry, but he didn't know where it came from. He always thinks he's angry about money, but he doesn't want to pursue the money Microsoft owes him. He has always believed that the reason for not signing a contract is still friendship, not money, and that prosecution will turn everything into money, which is "a bad karma". Such a contradictory mentality tortured Gao Fu for seven years.

But there is a bright side to Gough's life. After reflecting on his first failed marriage, he married for the second time, had a second child and regained a happy family.

At the end of 2021, Gough, who had entered middle age, had the opportunity to travel to the Dutch town of Apperdoren. In the woods around town, he collected some kind of poisonous mushrooms that were "locally legal" and ate them. He claimed in the article that he did receive some advice "from the universe" in the hallucinogenic effects of poisonous mushrooms.

Mushroom Pot in my World the stars shone overhead that night. The universe told me that I could not accept love, but refused to accept it. It was just fake humility, another form of arrogance and self-centeredness. I had to get people to say thank you and have to accept any gift they might want in return. "

Gough recalled the sentence of the final poem and found such a sentence: "the universe says, I love you, because you are love." He realized that the cause of his annoyance was never money. Even money is an expression of love, an appreciation of what he has created and liked by so many people. He just took the initiative to avoid love from people.

According to the suggestion of the Universe, Gough reached a reconciliation with his heart. He decided to waive the copyright of the final poem, as well as any potential claims.

Gough opened the final poem to the knowledge sharing license and introduced it into the public domain, in short, everyone in the world can use it for free, even if this person has never heard of "my world". He said that he regards the final poem as a gift to Microsoft, and Microsoft's return gift is the continuous spread of the final poem around the world.

"it is the universe that wrote the final poem, so the universe really owns it. In other words, no one owns it, we all own it."

Before Gough gave up the copyright, there were countless products printed with the final poem on the market. "it's time to wake up."

The tale of "chatter" in the final poem echoes several economic disputes in the gaming industry so far this year. For example, the creator of Paradise Disco filed a lawsuit against the current owner of the ZA / UM studio; the predecessor of Angel Hunter called for a boycott of the new series.

Unlike these cases, Gough did not make business demands or fight, and he did not want to file a lawsuit with Microsoft at all. He just wants to come up with an elegant solution, no one will get hurt, and the "my World" game itself will not be affected.

Admittedly, as a writer, Gough's blog articles contain a large number of obscure descriptions and subjective judgments of the stream of consciousness, which, to put it bluntly, cannot rule out the suspicion that he unilaterally beautifies himself in the story. His deliberate use of poisonous mushrooms for answers to what he called the "universe" is not worth advocating and imitating.

However, Persson, Manny and Microsoft did not comment on Gough's article, which may verify the authenticity of Gough's account, or they just don't care. after all, there are no business disputes, and "no one was hurt" except Gough himself.

Gough personally does not want readers to blame Persson and Manny or anyone else involved in the matter. "they are just following the rules of capitalism, which many of us have internalized as if they were the laws of nature."

But at the end of the article, Gough turned his words back to reality, sending the most unkind words to the rules, as well as "unfriendly corporate middlemen" such as Disney, Sony, Universal Pictures and Microsoft.

He believes that there is a huge power imbalance between rich companies and poor artists, and that companies can easily deprive artists of their copyright and keep them poor. Copyright law was introduced to help artists make a living, but it has been distorted by these companies and become a tool to legally destroy the lives of artists. Artists voluntarily use their time to work to subsidize the company, earning only poverty-stricken wages.

To solve this problem, artists need to establish relatively direct contact with the audience, so as to eliminate the interference of large companies. Gough admires small platforms "built by artist lovers", such as the Substack blog he is using, platforms like Patreon that allow fans to transfer money directly to art, and crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter. If the audience subsidizes artists through these platforms, they can earn more income, and "the power to do good has increased at least tenfold."

This initiative cannot be applied to the final poem, but what Gough eventually did with the final poem shares the same principle as his initiative: to separate art from a unilaterally exploited corporate economy and into a mutually beneficial gift economy.

Gough left a paid subscription and sponsored link at the end of the article. After Gough's blog post was published, his email and Twitter messages flooded with news, and the number of readers willing to pay to subscribe to Gough's Substack blog tripled. In order to "respond to love from people", as he said, Gough was still responding to messages from all directions one by one before the deadline for this article.

-- "you did it (at the end of liberation)." -- "Yes." This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Zhaoyue

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