Who Really Owns Minecraft? The Story of Mojang Studios
The full final version of Minecraft was released in November 2011. Jans “Jeb” Begensten would then replace Persson as the lead designer taking over the creative world of Minecraft in 2012. The game was sold and received overwhelmingly positive responses, and Mojang would release further free updates over the years to those who already purchased the game. Apart from this, there were also many other versions of Minecraft that were released.
Before we go into the ownership details, let’s talk a bit about the game. Minecraft was created as a sandbox video game, meaning it gave the player almost infinite creativity to do whatever they wanted to do. It was one of its kind and the first to be released, which saw it scaled heights so quickly. In Minecraft, you must use the resources around you to try and survive as long as possible without dying. It let the player create everything from an ax to a castle of their own and defeat enemies. It had a level of creativity that no game had at the time and served as an inspiration to the genre and many more games that followed its footsteps in the coming years.
In 2020, Mojang released an updated game with better visuals, utilizing the graphic drivers, and implementing ray tracing, physically based rendering, and many more improvements. The game continues to receive updates for the near future and has a well-established server system to support many players. It was made possible by Mojang initially hiring the server company Bukkit to enable server modifications. Mojang would then go on to buy the entire Bukkit server and full ownership of the server. This sparked some controversies, as Bukkit was open-source software, meaning it was free to everyone and was managed by multiple people.
The game also came to consoles, first on Xbox 360, which enabled cross-play between the PC players and the console players. The game was designed differently for consoles, with a more suited interface and easier crafting system. Though owned by Microsoft, the game also eventually came to its rival console, the Sony-owned PlayStation 3, and eventually to PlayStation 4. The console versions are named Legacy versions of Minecraft.
Video games and the video game industry has grown quite significantly over the past few years. Super Mario Bros., which was released on the Nintendo console way back in 1983, saw the beginning of the growth of video games as an industry. From iconic releases such as Mario, Age of empires, the video game industry started to bloom. 2011 saw the release of Minecraft, one of the biggest games to be ever released. It rocketed up in sales, and even after a decade of its release, it still rests in the top 5 games played on YouTube every day. It is currently the best-selling videogame of all time, with over 200 million copies sold worldwide and 120 million active players by 2020. So, who owns Minecraft? Who created the game?
Minecraft was created with the intent of forcing players to obtain crafting materials so that they could later go on to build structures. This gathering process would later become a focal point of major survival games such as Ark: Survival Evolved, Conan Exiles, and even Fortnite.
Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time. Since its release on May 17, 2009, the game has continued to see massive success. Minecraft revolutionized gaming, and specifically, it revolutionized the conception of the survival genre as a whole. Prior to the release of Minecraft, survival games were largely very different. Many mainstream survival games lacked a crucial element — an element that Minecraft creator Markus Persson implemented into his game.
Markus “Notch” Persson rocketed to success with the release of Minecraft. The game sold extremely well and has never really shown any signs of slowing down. According to Forbes, Perrson sold 15 million copies of the game across various consoles before Sept. 2014, when he signed over the game rights to Microsoft for a whopping $2.5 billion dollars.
Although Minecraft has done well, money may not always be the key to happiness. At least in the case of Persson, $2.5 billion was apparently not worth the flooding sense of isolation.
Markus Persson is a Swedish video game programmer who is credited for being the creator of Minecraft and a founder of Mojang Studios. But just how much is the creator of Minecraft really worth?
Following the sale of Minecraft, Markus decided to start enjoying his life more as he said: “Partying is not a sane way to spend money, but it’s fun.
Markus Persson – also known as Notch – is a Swedish video game programmer and designer born on June 1, 1979.
The project was first created as part of his hobby, but as soon as it was released, it gained popularity.
In his spare time, he still programs new games but he also expressed on Reddit his feelings of loneliness.
Persson bought a $70million home in Beverly Hills following the sale of his successful video game, in December 2014, and he said that most of his money is spent on computer gear and travelling.
FAQ
Who owns Minecraft now in 2021?
Is Minecraft still owned by Mojang?
Is Minecraft owned by Microsoft?
