The rumors are true: Microsoft has just acquired Mojang, the Stockholm development company behind the addictive and iconic game Minecraft.
According to a press release, the Mojang team agreement came with a $2.5 billion price tag. With 2 billion hours played on Xbox 360 alone in the past two years, Minecraft is already the bestselling game on Microsoft’s platform.
With over 100 million downloads, Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time. Since its invention in 2009, players have used the game’s sandbox elements to create inventive and monumental in-game masterpieces.
At first glance it appears Mojong owner Markus Persson—known to the online gaming community as “Notch”—has gotten over his distaste for big companies. In 2012, he accused Microsoft of attempting to ruin PC gaming. Earlier this year, Mojang backed out of developing Minecraft for Oculus Rift after the virtual reality startup was acquired by Facebook. According to Persson, “Facebook creeps me out.”
“He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance,” the Mojang team wrote in an official blog post. “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 only option was to sell Mojang.”
While his company is going to Microsoft, Persson won’t be coming with it. In a Pastebin post, Persson said that the pressure of running the Minecraft community had become too great for him to handle.
“I’m aware this goes against a lot of what I’ve said in public. I have no good response to that,” he wrote.
The immediate reaction from fans has been less than stellar. “RIP Mojang 2009-2015,” reads the top Reddit comment on the news. However, (aside from the inevitable changes Notch’s departure will bring,) Mojang’s blog post assures fans that nothing will change post-acquisition:
“Minecraft will continue to evolve, just like it has since the start of development… Stopping players making cool stuff is not in anyone’s interests.”
