Microsoft is closing in on a deal to acquire Mojang AB for $2 billion, roughly a year after the indie company's profits swelled to $128 million due largely to the continued success of Minecraft, according to reports from anonymous sources that leaked details of the agreement to the Wall Street Journal.
Minecraft is a block-building, sandbox game in which players build structures during the day to ward off monsters during the night. The game also includes a creative mode, in which play focuses more on building, and an adventure setting, which allows players to explore maps created by others. It's graphics look like Lego blocks, and indeed there's a Minecraft Lego set. The game is available on Xbox One, Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3 and 4 and Vita.
Markus "Notch" Persson, creator of Minecraft and co-founder of Mojang, has embraced the indie lifestyle and has been outspoken against the business practices of large publishers. Back in July, Notch stated in a blog that Mojang's primary objective isn't making money.
"Mojang does not exist to make as much money as possible for the owners," stated Notch. "As the majority shareholder, I'd know. Every time a big, money-making deal comes up that would make a lot of money, it's of course very tempting, but at the end of the day we choose to do what either makes the most sense for our products, or the things that seem like fun for us at Mojang."
In the blog post, Notch was speaking out against users who charged for structures created in Minecraft.
In March 2014, Notch rebuked Occulus after the virtual reality company was acquired by Facebook -- though he has recently softened his stance. Notch said he had been in love with VR tech and the team behind it, but he indicated that Facebook had little interest in gaming and a lot of desire to turn the product into a cash cow.
"I have the greatest respect for the talented engineers and developers at Oculus," said Notch. "It's been a long time since I met a more dedicated and talented group of people. I understand this is purely a business deal, and I'd like to congratulate both Facebook and the Oculus owners. But this is where we part ways."
Also adding to the shock effect of Microsoft's alleged buyout of Minecraft are the sentiments of another of Mojang's founders, Carl Manneh. In 2013, Manneh said a buyout would be tempting, but Mojang has more money than it needed and its staff was living the dream.
"We've always felt that the independence we have is one of our core strengths," said Manneh. "We can take decisions by going into a room and in 15 minutes we're done. We try to be extremely agile, to release games quickly."
