Microsoft Buys Minecrafts Mojang For $2.5bn ift.tt/1Db9cFq Microsoft has confirmed it is buying the maker of Minecraft, with the games creator leaving the company because he is a nerd, not a CEO. The US tech giant is stumping up $2.5bn (£1.5bn) for Sweden-based Mojang. Minecraft lets users build and explore a virtual Lego-like world and has been downloaded 100 million times on PCs alone since it launched in 2009. It is also the most popular online Xbox game and is the top paid-for Apple and Android app in the US. The hit game will continue to be available on all its current platforms. Markus Notch Persson, writing on his blog, said he never made the game to have a huge hit and expressed frustration at having become a symbol. Im not an entrepreneur. Im not a CEO. Im a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter, he said. Notch said he intends to go back to small web experiments. Addressing criticisms from some fans that he is selling out, Notch signs off: Its not about the money. Its about my sanity. All three of Mojangs founders are to leave the company. Microsoft said its cloud and mobile technologies would bring richer and faster worlds, more powerful development tools, and more opportunities to connect across the Minecraft community. Mojang CEO Carl Manneh: As the founders move on to start new projects, we believe the high level of creativity from the community will continue the games success far into the future. The scale and flexibility of the game have seen users create scale replicas of the UK and Westeros, from the Game of Thrones series. Considering the multibillion-dollar purchase of Mojang, Microsoft will almost certainly be looking for its developers to create for a new hit game exclusive to Microsoft platforms, said Ryan King, editor of Video Games at Imagine Publishing.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 16:12:23 +0000
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