It's official: Microsoft acquires Minecraft creator Mojang for $2.5 billion

[Jos]

Following reports last week that Microsoft and Mojang were in "serious discussions" about a multibillion dollar acquisition, the two have now made it official. In a deal valued at $2.5 billion, the maker of the massively popular sandbox building game will be joining Microsoft’s game studio division. Mojang also announced that founders Markus "Notch" Persson, Carl Manneh, and Jakob Porser are leaving after the acquisition comes to a close.

The news is somewhat surprising given Persson has been critical of Microsoft in the past, shunning its Windows Phone platform for being tiny and not worth developing apps for. But ultimately it came down Minecraft’s exploding popularity and Notch not wanting the responsibility of running it.

Explaining the reasoning behind the move, Mojang wrote in a blog post:

As you might already know, Notch is the creator of Minecraft and the majority shareholder at Mojang. 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 only option was to sell Mojang. He’ll continue to do cool stuff though.

Persson echoed the sentiment in a personal blog post.

Minecraft is one of the top-selling apps for both iOS and Android, and is also available on PCs as well as Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Mojang said there is "no reason" to stop developing the game for multiple platforms, unless other companies pull the plug, but Microsoft has said it remains committed to all.

The game, which was born as a side project in 2009, has grown to become a cultural phenomenom that’s sold more than 54 million copies to date and brought in over $100 million in profit last year.

Commenting on the deal, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized how games are among the most popular activities on computers and smartphones and recognized the vibrant community behind Minecraft. The company promised to maintain Minecraft and its community in all the ways people love today, with a commitment to nurture and grow it long into the future.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/58066-its-official-microsoft-acquires-minecraft-creator-mojang-for-25-billion.html

 

[Guest]

It will be Removed from PC and will only Work on Xbox 1

 

[VitalyT]

Thanks go to the same genius who revived tile-based UI from the 90-ties.

All's fair'n square is MS's new motto.

 

[techanswers1]

Might want to edit the numbers of copies from 1.75 million to 17.5 million or higher.

 

[Movatheaiur]

Now someone has to tell me what could microsoft do with this company. My imagination comes up with nothing. Can't be because M$ cares about gaming all of a sudden, at least they haven't showed they care on the windows platform.

So break this down for me in layman's. This acquisition for brand or creative talent?

 

[LNCPapa]

Can't really blame him. Can't think of any possessions I own that I wouldn't give up for $1 Billion in my hand. You guys can call him whatever you want but all he'll say is

 

[Jos]

Might want to edit the numbers of copies from 1.75 million to 17.5 million or higher.

That number was way too low, my bad. Updated to combined sales of over 54 million units across all platforms as of June this year (around 17 million on PC/Mac).

 

[wastedkill]

So Markus has what $3/$3.5billion in the bank now? XD

It would be EXTREMELY stupid to say no to that deal as microsoft basically spent what $2.5billion on 3-4 titles and only 1 is actually worthy of anything... Microsoft must really want Minecraft on their phone... like BADLY!!!!

If I had $2.5bill in bank I would seriously consider building a trillion dollar company... its surprisingly easy if you have the ideas and capital

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

So Markus has what $3/$3.5billion in the bank now? XD

It would be EXTREMELY stupid to say no to that deal as microsoft basically spent what $2.5billion on 3-4 titles and only 1 is actually worthy of anything... Microsoft must really want Minecraft on their phone... like BADLY!!!!

If I had $2.5bill in bank I would seriously consider building a trillion dollar company... its surprisingly easy if you have the ideas and capital

I think Microsoft has a plan for making that money back from capitalizing off of the multiplayer servers. Clearly they see something in Minecraft that's worth a lot more than 2.5 billion if they are willing to pay that much for it. Maybe they'll start working on a second minecraft, remodeled and targeted for Xbox and PC. Who knows, all I know is Notch is a rich rich man right now.

 

[rub900]

I just wish Microsoft was not such a bunch of robots. Nothing creative has come out of that company in years. Yes Xbox is not creative.

 

[robb213]

I'm not worried by what MS will do, it's already clear it will remain platform agnostic, but that they may heavily monetize it to hell with DLC and such.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

$2.5 bill wasted on some gaming company right after they laid off 18000 employees, how tactful and discreet of them.

 

[Jamesbrah]

$2.5 bill wasted on some gaming company right after they laid off 18000 employees, how tactful and discreet of them.

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no concept of business whatsoever.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Another plan B to try and save Windows from death? Buy MineCraft and bundle it with Windows 9 for free? I don't know but that's what it looks like to me anyway. And then nickel and dime people into the poor house selling DLC content or a yearly subscription to play.

Seems like way too much money to me. Microsoft needs better negotiation skills.

 

[Holotus]

Microsoft is going to ruin the game. Just take a look at the Xbox version as a prime example.

 

[Emexrulsier]

Microsoft is going to ruin the game. Just take a look at the Xbox version as a prime example.

Yeah just take a look at the xbox version ... the version created when Microsoft weren't even involved in the company. Seriously wtf are you on about?

 

[jishter]

WHAT!!! notch why would u sell minecraft I admit $2.5 billion is alot but think about the community how do u think this action might affect us ;( this will leave a scar in or hearts that u sold the game we loved for years to someone

 

[cliffordcooley]

I'm fairly certain the best interest of the community was never one of Notch's top priorities. One can only hope that MS keeps it as is. But then how would MS get that 2.5 billion back? To pay 2.5 billion, they must have something huge planned for it.

Personally as much as I hate Google, I think they should have bought it. Google should have created an entire planet from the data they've collected through Google Street View.

 

[lipe123]

I wonder if any of these nay saying commenters actually played the game or more to the point tried hosting a server for it.

I've been running a minecraft server since beta 0.8 for about 4 years now and Mojang has been maintaining the game like CRAP.
They release updates without any kind of schedule and each update is massively incompatabile with the previous version of the multiplayer plugins etc.
Then on top of that 90% of the value and fun of the game came from plugins that was developed by the community and butchered into the game by mojang as inferior copies of their former glory before an update broken them.

The API for the server wasn't even developed by mojang, once again this was done by the community and eventually mojang offered them jobs, 6months later and several updates later there was still no working API.

Bottom line is, Notch got a hell of a deal, he sat on a golden egg and couldn't manage it. This is a total win/win situation.
I really wish MS re-writes the server code so servers can handle more than 20 players without the need for 20gb ram and a Xeon CPU with a proper API and supporting the community to keep making amazing plugins for the servers.