Speculation was out of control late last week as rumors began to swirl of some type of impending deal between Microsoft and Mojang, quite possibly a total acquisition by Microsoft. With the weekend now behind us, Microsoft has formally announced an agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion dollars.
Along with the excitement over the planned acquisition, Mojang will also be going through another type of transition as Notch has announced his impending departure from the company he founded. According to an announcement on Notch’s personal blog, it would seem that the Minecraft community itself may be partially to blame for the loss of the game’s creator.
I was at home with a bad cold a couple of weeks ago when the internet exploded with hate against me over some kind of EULA situation that I had nothing to do with. I was confused. I didn’t understand. I tweeted this in frustration. Later on, I watched the This is Phil Fish video on YouTube and started to realize I didn’t have the connection to my fans I thought I had. I’ve become a symbol. I don’t 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.
One of the questions that popped up after the reports of the possible buyout was what exactly would happen to the Minecraft versions currently playable on Playstation, iOS, and Android? As it turns out, they will continue along, despite Microsoft’s rather strained relationship with Sony, Google, and Apple.
What about the other editions of Minecraft? Will they stop being developed?
There’s no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft to stop. Of course, Microsoft can’t make decisions for other companies or predict the choices that they might make in the future.We’re extremely proud of all editions and the awesome things you have achieved through playing together.
$2.5 billion is a rather large sum of money, so the deal may take a while to finalize. Analysts predict the completion of the acquisition to happen some time in 2015.