Mojang, the company behind the widely popular game Minecraft, has been acquired by Microsoft for a massive £1.5bn ($2.5bn).
The company was launched in 2009 by Markus “Notch” Persson and the full Minecraft game was released in 2011 which has since sold around 54 million copies across all platforms. In addition to earning the praise of critics and fans alike, Minecraft has won various awards and has even spawned its own merchandise.
As a game with no strict goals, Minecraft has become hugely popular due to its open-world gameplay granting players almost complete freedom. The game involves mining and placing cube-shaped blocks which players can use to construct their own buildings, which can be anything from small houses to huge mansions. Some of the more devoted fans have even dedicated their time to building exact replicas of famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Christ the Redeemer.
Somewhat surprisingly, this is not Microsoft’s most expensive purchase as just last year they handed over $7.17bn to acquire the mobile phone business of Finnish company, Nokia. Nevertheless, Mojang will no doubt be content with obtaining such a large sum for a company which is barely 5 years old.
Nonetheless, not all fans were happy when they heard about the sale. Many are concerned about the game’s future with a large corporation such as Microsoft at the helm rather than the successful independent company that got the game to where it is today. On the other hand, supporters of the acquisition would argue that being managed by a company with as many resources as Microsoft have available to them can only be good for the game.
Opponents to the purchase can only look to Microsoft’s past experience with the company Bungie, and hope that the acquisition doesn’t last. Bungie was bought out by Microsoft in the year 2000 but split off and became a privately held limited liability company in 2007. Bungie are still going strong today and are in fact behind the highly anticipated game Destiny which was released earlier this month.
However, whether or not Mojang will follow in Bungie’s footsteps or stay with Microsoft for the long haul is still to be decided.
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