Microsoft Buys Minecraft
Could you imagine developing an independent game, and then have it be worth the GDP of Aruba.
That’s what happened to Mojang and Minecraft. It was speculated last week that Microsoft was going to make an offer to the Minecraft creators, but no one had a lock on how much. The answer was a $2.5 Billion USD deal, that’s right, Carl Sagan billion with a b; and it is making waves across the gaming community. However, this isn’t a deal out of the blue.
Microsoft isn’t a stranger to Minecraft. They helped Mojang launch the game on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Minecraft is the little engine that could. It is built on simple game design, and a strong community base. The online community support for Minecraft has little competition and it could be that core community support that Microsoft is looking to invest in. Although, it isn’t all good new for the game devs of Mojang.
Minecraft creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, is walking away from his creation. Notch had given creative control to Jens Bergensten in December 2011, but still worked with Mojang. He posted on his website that he isn’t looking for a corporate position.
“I’m not a CEO, ” said Notch. “I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.” He goes on to write that he wants to get back into Ludum Dare and web experiments. As credit and tribute to the community that help build Minecraft into the phenomenon that it is, Notch signed off with a big thank you to the community.
“I love you. All of you. Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it has become…In one sense, it belongs to Microsoft now. In a much bigger sense, it’s belonged to all of you for a long time, and that will never change.”
With one final piece of sage advice, Notch said it wasn’t about the money, it was about his sanity.
No one can argue with that. We hope you take a nice long vacation, and enjoy the benefits of a lot of hard work.
Here’s to some time off.
What do you think of the Microsoft purchase? What would you do with $2.5 billion dollars? Lets know on the Facebook page, or in the comments below.
