There is only one piece of written narrative in Minecraft. It happens right at the end, after you've beaten the Ender Dragon. It is about 8 minutes long — almost as long as the entirety of the world record speedrun of the game — and it consists of a scrolling text poem written by an artist named Julian Gough.
Gough got the gig by replying to a tweet put out in 2011 by Minecraft creator Markus Persson: "Are YOU a talented writer (famous is a plus ;D) who wants to write a silly over-the-top out-of-nowhere text for when you win Minecraft?" Gough's friends and fans put him forward, and the rest is history.
But Gough never signed away the rights to the poem, which is an unhinged-on-purpose, bizarre conversation between two unknown people talking about and to you, the player.
The fact that Gough never signed away the rights — despite pressure from Persson, and later, Microsoft — left a rift between the two parties. "I wrote a story for a friend" is how Gough describes it, "but in the end, he didn't treat me like a friend, and I'm hurt." But, as Gough said in a comprehensive 10,000-word story of events (which you can read in full here):
"The contract was for a comprehensive buyout, signing away all my rights forever, which was exactly the thing I’d told Carl [Manneh, former Mojang CEO] that I never did with my work."
But legalese and 10,000-word stories aside, what does this mean?
It means that Gough has the sole rights to the text of the end poem of Minecraft, and neither Mojang nor Microsoft can sell anything to do with that poem. They can't use it for commercial purposes. They can't print T-shirts with it on. Only Julian Gough can profit off it.
Until today, that is, because he's giving it to everyone.
"I wrote the End Poem for Minecraft, the most popular video game of all time. I never signed a contract giving Mojang the rights to the End Poem, and so Microsoft (who bought Minecraft from Mojang) also don't own it. I do.
Rather than sue the company or fight with my old friend, who founded the company and has since gone off in the deep end, I am dedicating the poem to the public domain. You'll find it at the bottom of this post, along with a Creative Commons Public Domain dedication.
Anyone can now play with it. Have fun."
In return, Julian Gough isn't asking for much, although he has opened up his PayPal to donations if anyone wants to say thank you for his work. He also hopes that, when it comes to art, people will consider what they're buying and where they're buying it from.
"Five global corporations should not own all the characters in our dreams," he says. "To fix that, simply make direct connections with the artists you love... You have no idea how powerful you are: how profound a difference you can make, just by doing that."
What do you think of this news? What would you do with the End Poem of Minecraft? Talk to us in the comments (which are a type of end poem, too).
[source theeggandtherock.substack.com]
Comments 29
that title confused me for a sec 😅
I thought the game would go free to play
It's fitting that the poem he wrote for Minecraft was as unhinged as possible because the wording this guy uses feels like the most passive-aggressive s*** I have ever seen. Also TEN THOUSAND WORDS!?
Wasn't the ending always up to you?
The problem with the end text in Minecraft is that it speeds by way too quickly to read it properly, at least on the Switch. I ended up hammering the screenshot button and capturing pretty much all of it because it took me 3 years to kill that dragon on my own terms, and I'd be damned if I was going to loop back onto YouTube or Wikipedia in order to experience my reward.
Oh yeah and the text itself is wonderfully mysterious and inspiring, in my opinion.
"Five global corporations should not own all the characters in our dreams."
This is tragically true. In an age of multiverses and crossovers and corporate meddling, art has become increasingly commercialized and therefore increasingly taken for granted.
Our own dreams are being sold back to us piecemeal by mutlimega conglomerates.
It feels like more and more, there's nothing we can do.
Except to keep dreaming, keep creating, keep sharing.
As Gough said himself, "You have no idea how powerful you are: how profound a difference you can make, just by doing that."
what am I, a random person gonna do with 10,000 words? make a shirt???
@EaglyTheKawaiiShika To be fair, corporations are not people with feelings or a soul, and their entire existence is to make as much money as possible, and they are acting according to this goal.
Though, I won't defend Markus Persson and their views on gender equality, among other things ...
I miss Notch. I miss the secret Friday updates. Those were fun.
@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Notch doesn't work for Mojang anymore, Jeb still does and he's a treat.
Public domain means those five big corporations (and all others) can now profit off the poem. Too bad he didn't use a copyleft license, Creative Commons has plenty.
@nintendoknife Copyleft? I thought it was Copyright. What's the difference?
@Kirbyo At the risk of looking like an idiot (though I already do), I believe this was a joke.
@Astral-Grain He's not said anything about gender equality and I thought gender didn't exist nowadays according to Westerners so even if he did, that shouldn't be relevant.
He did however promote white supremacist talking points and promote QAnon. Of course it's natural for Microsoft to drop references to him after that, surprisingly some people still don't understand why. Microsoft did the right thing.
As for the poem, it sucks. I don't think anyone thinks or talks about it anyway for it to be merchandised.
@Astral-Grain No. Corporations are people. They are run by people, to make money for other people. They are not some uncontrollable entity. They are run by scumbag people making scumbag decisions to rip you off, because they only care about themselves/money. We shouldn't ever dismiss something awful a corporation does as "they're a corporation, it's to be expected". It didn't happen because the corporation is just doing only what it knows. For any horrible thing a corporation does, someone within it made that decision. Then other people agreed with it. They should be held accountable and shown to be the soulless scumbags they are.
Just my two cents anyway. Sorry, that wasn't a rant directed at you.
Ahh, the best ending for this story. That's really nice to hear.
@RainbowGazelle They also provide jobs and income for millions of people. A soulless corporation like Microsoft also enabled the creation of one of the world's biggest charitable foundations too. So while they're not all innocent and angelic they're also not all run by cut-throat Gordon Gekko types sitting there counting their wads of cash.
@Jacket_p Yeah, some are definitely some good. Sorry, what I meant was that the ones that are bad should be held accountable.
I mean yay I guess? chatGPT has written me more interesting poems in the last week and it didn't require money.
Dude sounds like a passive aggressive crybaby
@Astral-Grain Upon looking it up, Copyleft is indeed real. Huh.
Removed - off-topic
Dumb move. He could have gotten a lot of money.
@bonjong23 who's to say he wouldn't through donations?
First timing reading the Minecraft ending sequence.
It’s nice.
@IronTruth I imagine they were referring to his comments about the trans community but given how you decided to express your thoughts on gender identity you probably have no problem with what he said.
It's important to be honest about what people say and not deflect or, in this case, lie.
@RainbowGazelle We shall agree to disagree on that point.
There may be 200 sailors rowing the large corporate ship, but it's still just an inanimate ship and only 2-3 greedy captains are the ones actually steering it.
Luckily though, these "sailors" can abandon the corporate ship when it starts to head in a bad direction, but none of them can control where it goes.
I went a bit further with that metaphor than I intended lol
@N64-ROX either you a slow reader or you got a lil thing called switch drift
@Kestrel You're pretty much right. Add some anti-trans language to the mix and that's current day Notch.
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