Microsoft Has Acquired Minecraft for $2.5 Billion

Microsoft today announced that Mojang and Minecraft would join its ranks. However, it will continue to make the game accessible on Xbox and PC as well as iOS, Android, and PlayStation. Microsoft claims that they initially spoke about bringing the title to Xbox and then discovered their immense success and decided to acquire Mojang to "diversify the games it offers."

Founders Markus "Notch" Persson, Carl Manneh and Jakbok Porser have left the company following the acquisition that the team announced. Mojang's official website also confirmed the previously reported acquisition price of $2.5 billion. In their post the Mojang community team says that Notch was hesitant to control such a globally influential company, and would prefer to work on smaller projects. The decision was made to allow Minecraft to continue to grow while allowing the founding team to pursue other interests.

Mojang has not provided any assurances regarding the future plans for Minecraft but it has stated that it will continue business as normal. Microsoft states that it "respect[sthe brand and the spirit of independence" of Minecraft and will continue to work on projects like MINECON, the annual convention focused on the game launched by Mojang in the year 2010.

The reaction of the community to this announcement is likely to be mixed, and the most dedicated Minecraft players who have been playing the game since its infancy beginnings are likely to be skeptical of the new owners of the company, but reasoning behind the purchase is sound. We'll get the chance to examine if Notch can do it again and also to determine whether the next generation's Lego version.

Here's Notch's thoughts on the deal, and his thoughts on leaving the company he started, from his blog which had crashed at the time of writing. :

I'm leaving Mojang

I don't consider myself to be a real game developer. I make games because it's fun, and also because I am a gamer and love to program however I don't create games with the goal of them becoming huge successes, and I don't try to change the world. People are raving about how Minecraft has changed the world. I never meant for it to change anything. It's flatteringand interesting to slowly get in the public spotlight.

A while ago, I made the decision to step down from Minecraft development. Jens was the ideal person to run it and I was looking for new ideas. Although I tried to make it big initially but it ended up failing. But, since I decided to stick to small prototypes, interesting challenges, and I have enjoyed so much at work I've never looked back. I wasn't certain how I would fit into Mojang where people do actual work, but because people said I was important to the culture, I stayed.

I was home with a bad cold a few weeks ago when the internet went wild with rage against me due to an EULA situation which I had nothing to deal with. I was confused. I didn't understand. That was my frustration. Later, I saw the This is Phil Fish video and realized that I didn't have the relationship I believed I had with my followers. I have become a symbol. I don't want to be a symbol. I don’t want to be accountable for something I don't understand. That I don't want to work on. I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm not an executive director. I'm a geeky programmer who loves posting my opinions on Twitter.

After the deal is concluded and signed, I'll leave Mojang to go back to web-based experiments and Ludum Dares. I'll probably end any project that I accidentally create that gains traction.

Given my public image, which is already a bit disorganized, I don’t expect to be able to ignore negative comments, but at least I won't feel the need to read them.

I'm aware that this is in contradiction to a lot of what I've stated in public. I don't have a solid answer to this. I also know that many of you have used me as a symbol to represent an apparent struggle. I'm not. I'm a human being and I'm struggling with you.

I am so grateful for you. You are all amazing. Thank you for making Minecraft into what it has become, but there are too many of you, and I'm not able to be the sole person to be responsible for something this massive. In one sense, it's a part belonging to Microsoft now. In a much bigger sense, it's been owned by everyone for a long time, and that will never change.

It's not just about the money. It's about my mental health.