FortressCraft dev blaming Notch for DDoS attack on Minecraft XBLA launch day

Quote :

FortressCraft developer Adam Sawkins has called the police after suffering a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on his game's website the day voxel rival Minecraft launched on Xbox Live Arcade.

FortressCraft.com was crippled yesterday after the XBLA port of Minecraft launched to critical and commercial acclaim. Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson tweeted to say the 360 version, developed by the Dundee-based 4J Studios, was profitable after just an hour on sale.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Sawkins refused to name check Minecraft fans, but, reading between the lines, it's clear who he believes is responsible. "F**k you and your 'community', @Notch," he tweeted.

"We know *who* it was, but sadly we didn't get a note in the post saying WHY," Sawkins told Eurogamer. "We've sailed over our cap for the month so far, and are going through the process of talking to the police about it.

"Under British law, yes [the police can act on the attack]. Hacking is a fairly serious crime over here, and it's not a personal site, it's a business site. Loss of earnings, all that crap. I personally wouldn't have bothered, but the guy who does my website is FLAMING over it!"
Sawkins' FortressCraft is the most successful Xbox Live Indie Game ever (Or is it? After this article was published Total Miner got in touch to claim 810k units sold). Earlier this year it notched up its 750,000th sale, and it's on track to hit one million sales in the next 10 months. But his success has been dogged by accusations that FortressCraft is merely a Minecraft clone - a claim he rejected in a recent interview with Eurogamer.

Perhaps predictably, Sawkins isn't in favour of Minecraft on Xbox 360, and over the past 24 hours has faced heated discussion on Twitter with those who have taken issue with his verdict. He expanded on those tweets with Eurogamer.

"The poor (relative) quality and alleged success of Minecraft 360 has confused me," he said. "4J had no budget restrictions, unfettered access to Microsoft, and a solid, world-class game as a template, and still managed to ship a game with a tiny world, no working skins, and no dedicated servers - and even that was a port of a 14 month old snapshot of the MC source base."
He continued: "[Minecraft has] a bunch less simultaneous players than FortressCraft has. And that's just muggins here doing that! I guess it's the old thing though, deliver minimally, promise a lot, and hope people forget; Kinect support went for a wander, and their track record for patching Android and iOS is.... uh... less than stellar."

Sawkins said the true impact of Minecraft's launch on FortressCraft won't be known for a few days, when data updates. But he expects sales will be "quieter".

"I haven't actually gotten any sales figures, but I can safely say that I've lost eight Twitter followers so far. I suspect sales will be quieter for a week, then people will get bored of the novelty of (a very old version of) Minecraft, and hopefully wander back.
"If nothing else, I've bumped 'finishing split screen' up my priority list."
In the meantime, FortressCraft.com remains offline.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-10-fortresscraft-dev-calls-police-after-suffering-ddos-attack-on-minecraft-xbla-launch-day

The audacity to release such a blatant rip off is laughable. Trying to cash in on the success of MineCraft, lazy bastard.

^
Yeah fucking Notch trying to rip off fortress craft.
We'll always remember that fortresscraft came first.

Poor FortressCraft dev had its feewings hurt.

Not that I endorse ripoffs but it is pretty pathetic for Majong to do a DDOS attack on FortressCraft. Off course anybody will support doing something illegal or underhanded against someone or something they hate...

Stigma wrote:

Not that I endorse ripoffs but it is pretty pathetic for Majong to do a DDOS attack on FortressCraft. Off course anybody will support doing something illegal or underhanded against someone or something they hate...

Wait Mojang didn't DDoS them where did you get that from? It were just some random guys who play minecraft.

Toxicmaniac wrote:

Stigma wrote:

Not that I endorse ripoffs but it is pretty pathetic for Majong to do a DDOS attack on FortressCraft. Off course anybody will support doing something illegal or underhanded against someone or something they hate...

Wait Mojang didn't DDoS them where did you get that from? It were just some random guys who play minecraft.

My thoughts

Toxicmaniac wrote:

Stigma wrote:

Not that I endorse ripoffs but it is pretty pathetic for Majong to do a DDOS attack on FortressCraft. Off course anybody will support doing something illegal or underhanded against someone or something they hate...

Wait Mojang didn't DDoS them where did you get that from? It were just some random guys who play minecraft.

Well the guy made it sound like they did. My bad if they didn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

^^

You wouldn't be surprised if Notch and Co. don't have better things to do with their millionaire lives than DDoS an XBLA game?

Also, this guy is a complete idiot. He boasts how his game, FortressCraft (a blatant Minecraft ripoff) has more users online than a game that has been up on the store for a week. Not to mention that the statement itself is false, seeing as Minecraft sold 1 million copies in a week and FortressCraft JUST REACHED 750k. This guy is a fucking dumbass and he should be ashamed of himself for bashing the game he ripped off.

Greg Jennings wrote:

^^

You wouldn't be surprised if Notch and Co. don't have better things to do with their millionaire lives than DDoS an XBLA game?

Also, this guy is a complete idiot. He boasts how his game, FortressCraft (a blatant Minecraft ripoff) has more users online than a game that has been up on the store for a week. Not to mention that the statement itself is false, seeing as Minecraft sold 1 million copies in a week and FortressCraft JUST REACHED 750k. This guy is a fucking dumbass and he should be ashamed of himself for bashing the game he ripped off.

I'm not defended him. I just remember reading an article before where Notch flipped shit after finding out about FortressCraft so I wouldn't be surprised if he would try to get revenge somehow. I wonder why Majong didn't sue him though.

^^

They didn't sue because Mojang was like 4 people at the time and they were dealing with a lawsuit of their own...

Stigma wrote:

Greg Jennings wrote:

^^

You wouldn't be surprised if Notch and Co. don't have better things to do with their millionaire lives than DDoS an XBLA game?

Also, this guy is a complete idiot. He boasts how his game, FortressCraft (a blatant Minecraft ripoff) has more users online than a game that has been up on the store for a week. Not to mention that the statement itself is false, seeing as Minecraft sold 1 million copies in a week and FortressCraft JUST REACHED 750k. This guy is a fucking dumbass and he should be ashamed of himself for bashing the game he ripped off.

I'm not defended him. I just remember reading an article before where Notch flipped shit after finding out about FortressCraft so I wouldn't be surprised if he would try to get revenge somehow. I wonder why Majong didn't sue him though.

Does Notch really need revenge? He's rolling in cash, I think that's enough.

TheCinemaJack wrote:

Stigma wrote:

Greg Jennings wrote:

^^

You wouldn't be surprised if Notch and Co. don't have better things to do with their millionaire lives than DDoS an XBLA game?

Also, this guy is a complete idiot. He boasts how his game, FortressCraft (a blatant Minecraft ripoff) has more users online than a game that has been up on the store for a week. Not to mention that the statement itself is false, seeing as Minecraft sold 1 million copies in a week and FortressCraft JUST REACHED 750k. This guy is a fucking dumbass and he should be ashamed of himself for bashing the game he ripped off.

I'm not defended him. I just remember reading an article before where Notch flipped shit after finding out about FortressCraft so I wouldn't be surprised if he would try to get revenge somehow. I wonder why Majong didn't sue him though.

Does Notch really need revenge? He's rolling in cash, I think that's enough.

Even if I was rolling in cash, I'd still be pissed off.

750K is a good deal of copies for an indie game but in the scheme of things, compared to how much Minecraft sold across PC, Mac, iOS, and now 360, it's nothing, especially when you consider the fact that FortressCraft is what, like $2.99? $3.99? Even MineCraft: Pocket Edition costs more.

Stigma wrote:

Greg Jennings wrote:

^^

You wouldn't be surprised if Notch and Co. don't have better things to do with their millionaire lives than DDoS an XBLA game?

Also, this guy is a complete idiot. He boasts how his game, FortressCraft (a blatant Minecraft ripoff) has more users online than a game that has been up on the store for a week. Not to mention that the statement itself is false, seeing as Minecraft sold 1 million copies in a week and FortressCraft JUST REACHED 750k. This guy is a fucking dumbass and he should be ashamed of himself for bashing the game he ripped off.

I'm not defended him. I just remember reading an article before where Notch flipped shit after finding out about FortressCraft so I wouldn't be surprised if he would try to get revenge somehow. I wonder why Majong didn't sue him though.

Not sure about that...

http://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/115752966702628864

Seems like hes flipping shit over FortressCraft... Eh right?

Anyway I doubt Notch has anything to do with this due to that fact that he left minecraft deving to jeb 3-4 months ago for a new game.

http://vvgtv.com/2011/04/15/voice-of-indie-xblig-news-minecraft-sues-fortresscraft/

Enjoy kiddies

Sheogorath wrote:

Hey, at least he's polite about it ^
Not like that prick Sawkins who told him "Fuck you and your community".

Indeed

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/03/07/shuhei-yoshida-psn-attacked-literally-every-day

Quote :

"We are always always working against these attacks," Yoshida said. "Actually, an attack happens every day. Literally every day. Some days are bigger and some days smaller. Some days they devise new means, new ways - it's like cat and mouse. We have a partner company we work with, and we always update the new ways the attacker might deploy, so it is a constant battle."