After a week of rumours, it has been confirmed that Microsoft is buying Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5bn (€1.93bn), along with Minecraft itself.
In a blog post, the Mojang team writes that "please remember that the future of Minecraft and you – the community – are extremely important to everyone involved. We can only share so much information right now, but we’ve decided that being as honest as possible is the best approach."
The developers say that they plan on keeping the hugely popular game available across platforms, including Xbox rival Playstation - a sentiment echoed by Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox division.
They also confirm that Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson is leaving the company along with the company's other founders, stating "we don’t know what they’re planning. It won’t be Minecraft-related but it will probably be cool." They also state "over the past few years [Notch has] made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle", which inspired the decision to sell.
The developers say they are not yet sure what will happen with other Mojang projects such as digital card strategy game Scrolls.
Mr Persson himself has released a frank statement explaining the motivations behind the sale, saying "it's not about the money. It's about my sanity." He explains that he does not "want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand, that I don’t want to work on, that keeps coming back to me. I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter."
He also says "as soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang... If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately."
Released in 2009, Minecraft has sold more than 100 million copies on PC alone, with versions also available for Mac, Xbox 360 and One, PS3/4, Android and iOS. A Playstation Vita version is also due for release soon.
Originally published 2:40pm
