If you’ve been checking the internet for Minecraft-related news the past couple of days, “Mojang bought by Microsoft!” will probably have been a rumor you’ve heard, and today, the day that many Minecraft fans feared came to be as those rumors were confirmed to be true in an official blog post.
Mojang (and the rights to Minecraft and everything else produced by them) have been sold to Microsoft, for the incredible sum of 2.5 billion dollars!
Such an ungodly amount of money is hard to even imagine, and saying no to that amount even harder!
What this means for the future of Minecraft is unknown, but in the aforementioned blog post, Mojang says that no major changes will occur. We’ll see if this holds true in the future.
The reason for the sale is stated to be that Notch, the creator of the game and the company, didn’t want the responsibility of owning such a huge game and company anymore, and wanted out. The massive amount of money probably helped with the decision too.
In the blog post it is also stated that Notch never intended for his small indie game to become such a smash hit, and as such, didn’t expect the kind of pressure he faced. Understandable really, as the fans of Minecraft have been known to be demanding at times.
As for the various versions of Minecraft, so far they will keep being developed and sold, but what Microsoft intends for them in the future is yet to be revealed.
About whether the game will change, and if people will still be able to create mods, videos and such, the answer is that Minecraft will continue to evolve, however the specific plans are unknown, but that “stopping players making cool stuff is not in anyone’s interests”.
The staff of Mojang will continue to work at Mojang for the time being, and the vast majority is expected to continue working there, but the founders of Mojang, Notch, Carl, and Jakob, are all leaving the company to pursue new projects.
The fate of other Mojang projects, such as scrolls, are unknown at the moment.
A very interesting day for Minecraft indeed, lets hope it turns out well in the long run!