Xbox purveyor Microsoft has splashed out $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion, approximately) to buy Minecraft creator Mojang, and the Swedish studio’s three co-founders, Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser, are set to leave the company off the back of the deal.
“Minecraft has grown from a simple game to a project of monumental significance,” said Mojang. “Though we’re massively proud of what Minecraft has become, it was never Notch’s intention for it to get this big… He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle.”
Crafty business
It sounds like an awful lot of money: to put it in perspective, just a month earlier Twitch was picked up by Amazon for just under $1 billion. But if you look at the wider picture, now is the ideal time if Mojang, and Notch in particular, are looking to sell.
Minecraft is up and running on all formats (except PS Vita), so Microsoft won’t be able to put too much of a dampener on its spread across consoles. Plus the big M claims that it expects to break even on that $2.5 billion by the end of this fiscal year (that’s July 2015 to you and us).
Big business aside, what does this mean for the Minecraft we know and love? Luckily PlayStation and mobile users needn’t be worried, but we’d put money (not $2.5 billion, mind) on a Minecraft 2 being bankrolled at some point. And what a coup that would be as a platform exclusive.
“Minecraft has grown from a simple game to a project of monumental significance,” said Mojang. “Though we’re massively proud of what Minecraft has become, it was never Notch’s intention for it to get this big… He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle.”
“the pressure of owning Minecraft becaMe too Much for notch to handle”
Crafty business
It sounds like an awful lot of money: to put it in perspective, just a month earlier Twitch was picked up by Amazon for just under $1 billion. But if you look at the wider picture, now is the ideal time if Mojang, and Notch in particular, are looking to sell.
Minecraft is up and running on all formats (except PS Vita), so Microsoft won’t be able to put too much of a dampener on its spread across consoles. Plus the big M claims that it expects to break even on that $2.5 billion by the end of this fiscal year (that’s July 2015 to you and us).
Big business aside, what does this mean for the Minecraft we know and love? Luckily PlayStation and mobile users needn’t be worried, but we’d put money (not $2.5 billion, mind) on a Minecraft 2 being bankrolled at some point. And what a coup that would be as a platform exclusive.