Screenshot: Courtesy Mojang
The other day, I finished a new book on the history of Star Wars . It paints a picture of George Lucas as a man who always wanted to resume creating small, weird independent films, but was held back by the yoke of the vast empire that grew from the against-all-odds success spawned by that youthful flight of fancy.
As I was reading this, the founders of Minecraft publisher Mojang were finalizing the sale of the company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion—and their immediate exits. “As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments,” Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson wrote on his blog. “If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.”
This is the right exit at the right time. We have reached peak Minecraft. Persson may have stepped down as lead designer of the game in 2011, but as long as he owned Mojang he would forever have a pixelated pickaxe over his head.
Minecraft was a fluke. Notch seems to feel this way, judging by the introduction of his valedictory blog post. I don’t mean it was a fluke in the sense that another game won’t accomplish what it did. Indeed, I believe we will see many, many more Minecrafts, by which I mean small games that catch lightning in a bottle with some new mechanic and turn tiny developers into global phenomena.
No, I mean it was a fluke in that Mojang attempting to replicate its success—which it would have to, if it wanted to continue operating in the manner to which it has become accustomed—is not going to work. Not to dismiss the talent and ingenuity of the team, but trying to create a second Minecraft-level success would be like winning the lottery, deciding this meant that you were an exceptional lottery player, and trying to win the lottery again.
Making more games with bigger budgets is the logical next move after scoring a hit, and that’s what Mojang did. It unveiled 0x10c , a ridiculously complicated outer-space sim game (canceled), Scrolls , a collectible card game (never got out of beta) and action game Cobalt (still in alpha). The Minecraft-successor avenue keeps hitting dead ends.
So why not continue pouring that effort into Minecraft? Oh, I know it may seem like Minecraft will last forever, but it won’t. The democratization of development and the miracle of digital distribution giveth, but also taketh away; Minecraft too will pass when the next flavor of the month appears. Yes, the brand will continue on for awhile and see moderate success, but only in the sense that while they still make Tomb Raider games, Lara Croft is no longer fêted as the It Girl of the new digital culture.
By selling now, at what could be Minecraft’s zenith, Notch will never, ever have to worry about this situation: “New Rovio CEO Faces a Host of Challenges,” AdWeek writes, coming late to the inevitable conclusion that Angry Birds may be a flash in the pan on which its publisher may not be able to build a sustained business. You don’t say!
Three years ago, Rovio reportedly turned down a buyout offer from Zynga of $2.5 billion, which is exactly what Microsoft is spending on Mojang. Now its profits are declining and its CEO has stepped down. Mojang won’t become another Rovio. Who can begrudge its founders this exit? Disney paid Lucas $4 billion for Star Wars. To not sell Minecraft for $2.5 billion would be foolish. How much bigger was it really going to get, especially shepherded by tiny Mojang with its 40 employees?
With Minecraft no longer his concern, Notch can return to tinkering with small projects, truly and fully divested from the monster he unleashed.
The fans wring their hands and worry: Will Microsoft kill Mojang and Minecraft? Ha ha, what a silly question! Of course it will! That is what Microsoft does; it buys game developers, then it kills them. But by then, Minecraft fever likely will have broken on its own. Microsoft doesn’t need to kill Minecraft, it’s just taken on the task of managing its decline. If it plays its cards right, it can squeeze more money out of fans than Mojang could, and it can lure diehard Minecrafters to Windows mobile platforms.
Time will tell whether the $2.5 billion investment was a shrewd move for Microsoft. But for Notch? It was the right play, at perhaps the perfect moment.
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