Markus "Notch" Persson, better known as the man who made Minecraft, has been working on a new project called 0x10c. The game is said to be some sort of space ship simulator with massively multiplayer functionality.
Persson says the game will allow players to have their own spaceships, and potentially allow for players to form up into crews.
“The idea is kind of to allow for both. It’s still not clear how we’re going to monetize the game – but the rough idea I have right now is to have an MMOish part called the multiverse,” he said in an interview with PC Gamer.
Persson explained that there's a chance the game may have a monthly subscription due to server costs.
“It’ll probably be monthly subscription because of the cost of running all the CPUs on the server. The idea is that one subscription gives you one generator. If a CPU in the game costs us this much money to emulate then it has to consume an equal proportion of the wattage from the generator. So several people could play on one ship with one generator if they wanted. I think that’d be the most fun, but I know a lot of people just want to pilot their own ship," he said.
“That part of the game kind of grew stronger after we played the Artemis Ship Simulator.”
Persson was quick to say that nothing is set in stone right now, but having a monthly subscription is something the team is currently throwing around. He offered that the studio may decide instead to change its business model should players request a free-to-play system instead, citing Valve's Team Fortress 2 as a potential business model.
Persson says that monetizing the game will help the studio keep the game off Kickstarter, which he believes is an avenue best left to new developers and not established ones.
