Minecraft. Image courtesy Mojang
Markus “Notch” Persson has a message for Minecraft fans. “It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.”
On Monday morning, tech giant Microsoft announced that it has acquired Persson’s indie gaming company, Mojang, maker of Minecraft, the hit game that lets you build your own virtual worlds, and Persson took to his blog to explain his part in this highly contentious move. Rumors of such a deal first emerged last week, leaving many of Minecraft’s loyal fans wondering why Persson, who has been a vocal critic of Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR, would sell to a corporate giant like Microsoft.
Basically, Persson is tired. Since it launched in 2009, Persson said on his blog, Minecraft’s explosive growth and the public spotlight that came with it had become overwhelming. Persson acknowledges that as an outspoken critic of corporations, including Microsoft, he became a sort of figurehead for the indie developer community, a role he says he never really wanted in the first place. “I don’t want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand,” he writes. “I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.”
So, he explains, as soon as the deal with Microsoft is finalized, he plans to leave the company to work on “small web experiments.” And if any of those experiments should become as popular as Minecraft became, Persson writes, “I’ll probably abandon it immediately.”
Certainly, the irony of the move isn’t lost on him. “I’m aware this goes against a lot of what I’ve said in public. I have no good response to that,” he continues. “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.”
This decision is not likely to ease fears among Minecraft’s fan base. Many fear that their favorite game will wither under Microsoft’s leadership, or, at the very least, become inextricably linked to Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system. As WIRED pointed out last week, after Halo was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, sequels to the flagship game were launched exclusively for Microsoft platforms. Such a change could alienate a wide swath of Microsoft’s user base. And without its nonconformist leader on board, maintaining creative independence may become even more difficult for the Minecraft team.
In a blog post, Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of Xbox, attempted to offset that fear, writing that Microsoft plans to continue offering the game for iOS, Android, and Playstation, as well as Xbox and PC. He wrote that the company has been interested in buying Mojang ever since Minecraft became the top online game on Xbox Live. “The Minecraft community is passionate and diverse, ranging across all ages and demographics,” Spencer writes. “We respect the brand and independent spirit that has made Minecraft great, and we’ll carry on the tradition of innovation to move the franchise forward.”
Persson echoed that sentiment in his own post, noting that while Microsoft may technically own Minecraft now, “in a much bigger sense, it’s belonged to all of you for a long time, and that will never change.”
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