Microsoft acquires Mojang and Minecraft for $2.5 billion and Co-founders are out

After lengthy and cordial discussions, Microsoft has acquired Mojang AB, the Swedish company who makes the Minecraft hit game. The impressive growth of the Minecraft brand left the founders including “Notch” Persson with insufficient time to pursue other interesting projects and eventually this led to the decision to seek a buyer. As a result of the acquisition, several of the co-founders are expected to be leaving with immediately effect.

The sale was predicted last week by the respected Wall Street Journal. Microsoft ultimately confirmed the purchase of Mojang AB and Minecraft in a post of their XBox blog and the Mojang AB team also confirmed the sale rumors by posting that they had sold for a “smooth 2.5 billion dollars”.

Everyone seems pretty happy about it too. In fact, Persson actually joked to The Verge a few years ago that he would sell if he was paid $2 billion to do so. Ultimately that didn't end up being too far off the mark, in his favor too.

Microsoft Control

The big question is whether Microsoft will do anything to upset the apple cart which is the open platform style that Minecraft thrives on. A large community of livestreams actually monetize their game play and would not want to see significant changes to the game that would fundamentally modify their position most likely not for the better.

On the plus side, Microsoft have acquired the company for its Minecraft intellectual property including the embedded user base of enthusiastic gamers who enjoy building worlds and making them work. The egalitarian nature of Minecraft game play would not be well suited to significant meddling on the part of the corporate owner.

Minecraft is extremely cross platform with versions of the game running on the Windows PC, the Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Vita, PS3 and PS4, and mobile platforms iOS and Android. So far Microsoft hasn't said much about their latest acquisition other than they plan to continue keeping Minecraft available across many platforms, which is in keeping with the CEO's strategy to be on as many platforms as possible with their software products.

Stabilizing Development

The buyout by Microsoft may actually help the team at Mojang AB. Development has been choppy since 2010 with new features being added without sufficient testing towards viability, bug testing or likely popularity with the players themselves. The gaming resources within Microsoft could help create a better organizational structure conductive for game development and sensible new features in the future.

It is understood that the staff will be remaining except for senior staff like the original founders who will be moving on to their other active ventures. A smooth transition and clear lines of communication could help with the issues the game has had in recent years where odd features have been added like a strange ending of a sort, while ignoring the loud voice of the community whose requests for popular features like a modding system have so far fallen on deaf ears.

If Microsoft can tap into that community voice and perhaps remove the quirks that have crept into the game lately, it could win considerable support from the Minecraft gaming community. A period of consultation with key Minecraft gaming groups to get their feedback before making changes wouldn't be a bad show of support for this huge gaming community either.

Persson was originally quite against dealing with Microsoft and was pro open-source platforms. This view seemed to soften in recent years when the weight of running the Minecraft gaming business became a heavy burden and it began to become obvious that a larger corporation may be a better developer and custodian of the Minecraft brand going forward. Perhaps therefore things have worked out for the best.