An epic deal has been reached between Microsoft and the flourishing young company just a short five years after Markus “Notch” Persson released the original alpha stage of Minecraft to the public in 2009.
Minecraft’s evolution over the years has been massive and it’s popularity grew rapidly from it’s early simplified days of just digging and placing blocks, to the newest iteration of the game with intricate machines, CPU villages, and magical elements all creating a game that goes beyond just the creativity the user has alone.
Markus Persson has always said the price of Minecraft would be high — even jokingly mentioning that he wouldn’t settle for anything south of $2B in a tweet from 2012. But Microsoft seems confident in their acquisition of Mojang not just for Minecraft the game itself, but also for the demographics that are attracted to the game — which is virtually everyone. While kids seem to be flocking to the game in droves the charm of 16 bit world is loved from gamers of all ages.
The news for Microsoft is exciting, but the future for Minecraft on Playstation Vita and Playstation 4 is questionable. Mojang’s official statement on the game’s future doesn’t solidify anything as they leave the future of the company to Microsoft, but no imminent major changes are to come as of yet.
“There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft to stop. Of course, Microsoft can’t make decisions for other companies or predict the choices that they might make in the future.” (Mojang.com)
The future for the founders also remains unknown, though they have attempted other projects they have struggled to have the games gain as much traction as they would have liked and Mojang’s other developing projects (Scrolls and Cobalt) don’t quite have a definitive future right now.
What’s happening to the other Mojang projects, like Scrolls?
“We don’t know yet. We’ll share any news as soon as we do.”
Notch and the other Minecraft founders (Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser) will surely appreciate the extra $2 billion in their pockets after the sudden burst of extreme popularity and they’ll enjoy being able to step out of the spotlight now.
“I love you. All of you. Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it has become, but there are too many of you, and I can’t be responsible for something this big. 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.
It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.” – Markus Persson