Microsoft announced on Monday that they will be acquiring Mojang, the studio behind the popular Minecraft computer game, for a total of $2.5 billion. Mojang will be joining Microsoft’s stable of game developers at Microsoft Studios. Along with the purchase of Mojang, Microsoft will gain the full intellectual property rights for Minecraft, including game and merchandise licensing.
If you’re unfamiliar with Minecraft, that would be slightly surprising. Minecraft can be summed up a single phrase: digital LEGOs. However, a more accurate description would be a global pop culture phenomenon that spawned from a quirky 2009 Java game.
Kids these days aren’t growing up with video games like Mario or Pac-Man anymore. Minecraft is the Mario for a new generation. It’s a game that hands the player a randomly generated, ever-expanding world and gives them free reign to explore, build, and create almost anything their imagination can come up with. With the robust creation tools that the game offers, people have built everything from fancy mansions to fully functional computers in the world of Minecraft. The growth of video services like Twitch and YouTube can be attributed to the extreme popularity of Minecraft videos online. If you look at any app store, you’ll find hundreds of clones trying to piggyback off of Minecraft’s success. Minecraft has even expanded into the physical world, with entire aisles of toy stores dedicated to Minecraft merchandise.
And now Mircrosoft owns all of that with the purchase of the company behind it, Mojang. Microsoft previously worked with Mojang on the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft in 2012. Minecraft on the Xbox 360 was the first console version of the game, and it continues to lead as the most popular game on Xbox Live, with more than 2 billion hours of playtime shared amongst its ever-growing community.
Other console versions followed the Xbox 360 version, including games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In the portable market, a version for the PlayStation Vita is still in development, and the iOS and Android versions seem to have a permanent spot in the “Top Paid” lists on their respective app stores. Of course, the original PC version still remains kings.
Despite Minecraft’s appearance on a number of competing platforms, Microsoft says that they have plans to continue maintaining availability across all systems.
Phil Spencer, Head of Microsoft’s Xbox Division, expressed Microsoft’s excitement over the deal, saying, “Minecraft is one of the most popular franchises of all time. We are going to maintain Minecraft and its community in all the ways people love today, with a commitment to nurture and grow it long into the future.”
Microsoft is confident in their purchase and believes that they will be able to make back the $2.5 billion “on a GAAP basis” by July 2015. In a panel at the Games Beat 2014 conference in San Francisco, video game analyst Michael Pachter translates this for the layperson, “When they say ‘break even,’ they don’t mean they’re going to get $2.5 billion back. That’s sunk costs, they don’t care…They will make more from from Minecraft than they lose from not having that money in the bank generating interest.”
Following the purchase of Mojang, the founders of the company, Markus “Notch” Persson, Jakob Porser, and Carl Manneh will be leaving the company.
Bloomberg reports that it was actually Notch who first approached Microsoft about the deal. A post on Mojang’s website states, “[Notch] decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. 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.”
Despite Minecraft’s overwhelming success, Notch doesn’t necessarily enjoy the spotlight that’s been put on him. In a statement on his personal website, Notch said, “I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.” In regards to the Microsoft purchase, he stated, “As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.” On a more light-hearted note, he ended his thoughts saying, “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.”
Microsoft’s purchase of Mojang will be finalized following regulatory approval later this year.
By Alfredo Dizon, eParisExtra