Markus Persson

What Markus Persson is

Markus Persson is a Swedish game developer. Mojang's own announcement of 15 September 2014 describes him, under his alias Notch, as the creator of Minecraft and the majority shareholder at Mojang. Microsoft's Xbox Wire retrospective of 17 May 2024 states that Persson had begun work on a game he first called Cave Game a week before 16 May 2009, drawing on Infiniminer and Dungeon Keeper, and that the version players first saw became known as the Java Classic Edition.

He was one of the three founders of Mojang. The studio's announcement of 15 September 2014 says plainly that the founders, Notch, Carl and Jakob, were leaving. Microsoft's press release of the same date, announcing the agreement to acquire Mojang, quotes Mojang chief executive Carl Manneh saying that as the founders moved on to start new projects he believed the community would continue the game's success.

Quick facts

Persson began work on Cave Game in May 2009, and the game that became Minecraft launched on PC on 16 May 2009, per Xbox Wire's 17 May 2024 retrospective. By January 2011 the game had a million players and by July 2011 ten million, the same article states, before Minecraft 1.0 released on 18 November 2011. Microsoft announced an agreement to acquire Mojang for $2.5 billion on 15 September 2014. Persson published I'm leaving Mojang on his own site the same day, and Mojang's own post that day said all three founders were leaving.

Why did Markus Persson leave Mojang?

In I'm leaving Mojang, published on his own site on 15 September 2014, Persson wrote that he did not see himself as a real game developer and that he had become a symbol, responsible for something huge that he did not understand and did not want to work on. He wrote that as soon as the deal was finalized he would leave Mojang and go back to Ludum Dares and small web experiments, and he closed by saying it was not about the money but about his sanity.

Mojang's announcement of the same date gave the company's account. It described Persson as the creator of Minecraft and the majority shareholder at Mojang, and said he had decided he did not want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. The pressure of owning Minecraft had become too much for him, the post said, and selling Mojang was the only option.

How the sale of Mojang to Microsoft was announced

Microsoft's press release of 15 September 2014 announced an agreement to acquire Mojang, described as a Stockholm-based game developer, for $2.5 billion, subject to customary closing conditions and expected to close in late 2014. The release said Minecraft had more than 100 million downloads on PC alone since its launch in 2009, and that Microsoft planned to keep the game available on PC, iOS, Android, Xbox and PlayStation.

Writing on Xbox Wire the same day, Phil Spencer said Microsoft's relationship with Mojang began when the two talked about bringing Minecraft to the console, and that the game had become the top online game on Xbox Live, with over two billion hours played on Xbox 360 in the previous two years. Mojang's own post confirmed the price as $2.5 billion.

Minecraft's development under Persson

Xbox Wire's 2024 retrospective describes Minecraft as starting as a one-person creation. It states that the Java Classic Edition split into Creative and Survival modes during 2009, that a crafting system was added in late January 2010, that minecarts appeared by June 2010 and that the first version of multiplayer in Survival mode appeared in August 2010. Minecraft 1.0 released on 18 November 2011 during Minecon 2011, according to the same article.

The same retrospective records the growth the game saw before that release: a million players by January 2011 and ten million by July 2011. Persson's own departure note says he had decided a relatively long time before 2014 to step down from Minecraft development, and that Jens was the person to take over leading it.

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