2014, when Manneh reached out to Gough with an intent to tie up loose ends and get the original contract from 2011 signed. In the end, Gough decided not to pursue confrontation, however, as he was happy to let millions of players enjoy his creation through the medium of Minecraft. Of course, Gough's frustration at the entire situation persisted throughout this period, especially as Persson and other Mojang Studios shareholders massively profited from Minecraft's undeniable triumph. So, the contract went unsigned, Gough resumed his other work, and Mojang Studios remained busy with the launch of Minecraft and its immense success. "How could I give meaningful consent to a contract I didn’t even get a chance to see before they’d used my story?" ".the game was already out over a month, with my ending, and I felt completely railroaded," Gough wrote. In haste, Gough agreed to a lump sum of €20,000, a vague promise to promote Gough's other work to the Minecraft community, and a nonexistent contract that Gough did not get a chance to review - let alone sign - before Minecraft had already released and was in the hands of many millions of players.īy the time Gough received the contract for his work on the End Poem, it was already late December and Minecraft had exploded in popularity. Miscommunication between Gough and Manneh continued to sour negotiations, until Manneh eventually threatened to drop Gough and his End Poem entirely if an initial agreement wasn't met. "Carl was there to negotiate the best outcome for Mojang’s shareholders, who happened to be three people Markus his friend (and Mojang co-founder) Jakob Porsér and Mojang’s CEO, who happened to be… Carl." "Carl was indeed Markus’s friend, but that didn’t automatically make him my friend," Gough stated. It soon became clear, however, that this was not the right approach to negotiating a fair compensation for authoring Minecraft's End Poem. Not negotiate ruthlessly work out what was fair."
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I felt we were all friends, making art, and that the point of the conversation with Carl was to, as friends, work out what was fair. "But this is where things went wrong," Gough wrote, "because I was so thoroughly in art mode, making art with Markus, that I didn’t change gear when talking to Carl.