Microsoft acquires Minecraft
Developer Mojang bought for $2.5 billion as Notch and other co-founders depart studio
Microsoft today announced the acquisition of Mojang, including the studio's blockbuster Minecraft franchise, in a deal worth $2.5 billion.
Mojang's Owen Hill confirmed the news in a posting on the company's website, explaining why Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson consented to the sale.
"He's decided that he doesn't want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance," Hill said. "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."
Additionally, Hill said that Notch, along with Mojang co-founders Carl Manneh and Jakob Porsér, would be leaving the company, with no indication on what any of them would be doing next, suffice to say that it wouldn't be Minecraft-related. Beyond that, the "vast majority" of Mojang employees are expected to remain with the company.
Microsoft also announced the news with a statement from Xbox head Phil Spencer explaining the company's motivation and reassuring fans it doesn't plan to change course too much.
"Minecraft adds diversity to our game portfolio and helps us reach new gamers across multiple platforms," Spencer said. "Gaming is the top activity across devices and we see great potential to continue to grow the Minecraft community and nurture the franchise. That is why we plan to continue to make Minecraft available across platforms - including iOS, Android and PlayStation, in addition to Xbox and PC."
Spencer also said Microsoft would be bringing back the Minecon convention next year, and will work on additional ways to foster community among Minecraft fans.
"We're excited to welcome Mojang to the Microsoft family and we are thrilled to support the success and longevity of Minecraft for years to come," Spencer said.
Notch used to his personal blog to shed light on his decision, saying he recently reassessed the connection he had with Minecraft fans. He had become a symbol to them, he said, and that's a role he had no interest in fulfilling.
"As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments," Notch said. "If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I'll probably abandon it immediately.
"Considering the public image of me already is a bit skewed, I don't expect to get away from negative comments by doing this, but at least now I won't feel a responsibility to read them.
I'm aware this goes against a lot of what I've said in public. I have no good response to that. I'm also aware a lot of you were using me as a symbol of some perceived struggle. I'm not. I'm a person, and I'm right there struggling with you."
(1) Buy one game for $2.500.000.000
(2) Give away eight million Xbox One consoles for free
(x) Press to not die
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Lewis Brown on 15th September 2014 3:01pm
Revenue itself is $300 million. And MS claims to break even by fiscal year 2015?
How is that even possible?
But I agree with you Barry, I would hate to see this restricted to MS platforms only.
1) Wring all the money you can out of Minecraft.
2) Sell to Microsoft for $2.5 bil.
3) Usually here is where it says Profit, but the text size does not go high enough to do it justice.
Mojang only have one notable property and that's Minecraft - a game that will continue to be on other platforms. So where is MS to go from here?
Minecraft doesn't have any of the hooks necessary to build a sequel on: No narrative to expand, no set-piece spectacle to top. And on top of that Minecraft is highly modularly expandable which makes a sequel a tough propositon overl simply expanding the current game with DLC.
Given the general apathy of its target audience towards the PS4/X1 upgrade programme I'm inclined to think the all important 8-15 age demographic isn't that bothered (this is anecdotal though) about continuing their Minecrafting into the new generation.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Shehzaan Abdulla on 15th September 2014 10:37pm
I also have noticed in the last week that Project Spark has gone to a 12/31 release date. Might they be thing to rejigger it as "Minecraft Worlds" or something like that? It's a great kit, shame it gets so little press
I wonder if Satya Nadella is more acquisition friendly then Ballmer was? I wonder if Satya even has anything to do with the the Games Division with his heavy cloud tech background? I guess with the recent announcement of browser based streaming games via the Azure cloud I imagine he is intimately involved.
Could the Mojang acquisition really be as simple as Nadella really liking the idea of Minecrarft servers running on Azure?
Edited 7 times. Last edit by Shane Sweeney on 16th September 2014 2:20am
Thats a pretty big bombshell itself. Not so much the last two platforms but keeping the other three signals that Microsoft really intends on making a return on their investment as soon as possible. And as already mentioned, they will also make a whole lot of money on merchandising. As for making the franchise exclusive, I see only one realistic scenario. Microsoft will keep Minecraft multiplatform because every sale is more money in their pocket. This has to be most gratifying for them with the Playstation sales.
However, as soon as they are ready to make Minecraft 2(it's inevitable) the franchise will return to being console exclusive to the Xbox brand with a PC version tagging along for the ride. After all, Minecraft 2 would most likely be a pretty big system seller based on the brand alone. And for that reason they should probably hold off on the PC version for atleast a year after the Xbox One version drops. Or atleast thats what I would do.
.
If Microsoft want to make a sequel, the thing they really should look at adding is a way to mod on Microsoft consoles (maybe in a Little Big Planet way).
Most of his friends play more on the Xbox, and but spend hours watching videos on PC mods. If there was a way of making and sharing these on console the would go crazy. If there was an option to give mods free or charge with the creator and MS splitting the cut, it would be a massive revenue opportunity. This could be functionality they omitted on everything other than 360, X1 and PC (missing it on 360 would be a mistake).
Allowing persistant servers on X1 would also be a big draw.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Andrew Goodchild on 16th September 2014 8:15am
in short: probably more about azure than xbox, hence promise of cross platform.