Microsoft has announced that it will acquire the Minecraft franchise, and its Swedish developer Mojang, for $2.5 billion. Microsoft asserts that it “plans” to continue distributing Minecraft across PC, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, and Android, but obviously the game’s cross-platform future is called into question by this acquisition. Markus “Notch” Persson, and Mojang’s other two founders, will not be staying with Mojang/Microsoft and will “move on to start new projects.”
Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang and Minecraft is savvy for two primary reasons. First, Minecraft makes a lot of money (MSFT says the deal will break-even in fiscal year 2015). Second, Minecraft is the most popular online game on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One — and so having Minecraft in-house guarantees continuing support. I’m sure a big part of this was bringing Minecraft to Windows Phone, too — it’s the most popular paid app on both iOS and Android, and it’s one of the major apps that’s still missing from the Windows Phone ecosystem.
The big question now, of course, is how the acquisition will affect Minecraft in the long term. From a purely financial point of view, I seriously doubt Microsoft will withdraw support for iOS, Android, and PlayStation — Minecraft makes a lot of money, and Microsoft will be keen to recoup some of that $2.5 billion.
The other option, of course, is that Microsoft will use Minecraft as a carrot, to lead gamers towards Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox. This could be as simple as discontinuing the other versions of Minecraft — but more there are “nicer” alternatives, though, such as releasing new content and DLC exclusively for Xbox and Windows Phone. Both Microsoft and Mojang make it clear that things should stay mostly the same, but that there’s certainly space for some maneuvering further down the line. With Windows Phone still struggling to make an impression in the smartphone market, and Xbox One lagging behind the PS4, some top-notch game IP could be exactly what the doctor ordered.
As far as Minecraft’s creator, Notch, is concerned, he decided to sell out to Microsoft because the game and the community simply became too big for him to handle. On his blog (mirrored on Pastebin), Notch laments that, “I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.” For a long time now he has been overwhelmed by the massive success of Minecraft — and indeed, he hasn’t been actively developing Minecraft for sometime. Moving forward, Notch says: “I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.”
EXtreme Tech
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