Can i trust markus persson

Soul food and the stories it tells about America By Jamil Smith. The Taliban, explained By Sam Ellis. Facebook is quietly buying up the metaverse By Peter Kafka. Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for The Weeds Get our essential policy newsletter delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. Any appearance on a Minecraft server was akin to an Elvis sighting. Notch also gave followers a figure to root for, a sharp-tongued icon in a fedora that stood up for independent game companies.

Through this alter ego, Persson amassed more than 2 million followers on Twitter, loyal folks who read his diatribes against the "cynical bastards" of Electronic Arts, who deigned to release an indie gaming bundle, or virtual reality device maker Oculus VR, for selling out to the "creepy" Facebook.

Persson didn't spend a single krona on marketing, and Minecraft grew virally, with Mojang adding Android and iOS smartphone versions that to this day rank among the top-three paid downloads in the U.

In May Mojang released a version for Microsoft's Xbox that sold more than 1 million copies in the first week and 15 million copies to date. Then came the licensing agreements. Minecraft-branded apparel marketed through San Diego-based J! NX became a top seller among young fans, while books on the game became immediate bestsellers. Egmont Publishing International, which has published only a few titles on the topic, has sold over 7.

Last year Warner Bros. With only 30 or so employees, Mojang was earning profits that seemed endless. He quickly bought the most expensive apartment in Stockholm. Investors circled feverishly. Manneh says he talked with more than venture firms in that time, including blue-chip Silicon Valley outfits Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but never considered taking money because Mojang simply didn't need it.

They still turned down his money. It wouldn't be the last. As a private company with no outside investors, the flush firm commissioned Renaissance-style oil paintings of its Mojangstas.

To celebrate 10 million downloads, they took the whole staff to Monaco for three days of champagne-fueled partying and yachting. But even with the world at his feet, Persson sometimes felt like it was on his shoulders. Following Minecraft's official release in late at the first "Minecon" convention in Las Vegas, Persson stepped down as head developer, ready to explore new game ideas and life with his girlfriend-turned-wife, whom he had wed that summer.

That bliss was short-lived. Persson's father, still battling substance abuse and depression, committed suicide before Christmas that year. With his father's death weighing on him, Persson proceeded through daily life as a man who didn't know what he wanted. He divorced his wife after a year of marriage. And when Persson returned to work after a short sabbatical, he felt pressure to re-create the magic of his first hit.

At the same time, Persson remained the face and voice of Minecraft. It didn't matter if he had stepped down from everyday development, Notch was still the figure players e-mailed for a new code modification or tweeted at if they thought something was wrong with the game. Something as minor as alterations to the mechanics of virtual boats triggered barbed messages directed at Notch, who had nothing to do with the changes.

Peruse Persson's Twitter replies or any YouTube video featuring the Minecraft creator and you'll likely find comments like "Notch has always struck me as being a giant tool" or "Notch is a fat loser. And so Persson began pondering an exit. It was June 16, , and Persson bunkered in his penthouse apartment with a cold. Minecraft users had been up in arms that week about the company's decision to start enforcing its End User License Agreement, which barred players from charging others for certain game-play features, such as stronger swords.

As hundreds of tweets an hour flowed in, Persson, feverish from his cold, tapped out a character outburst that would change his life forever.

Within 30 seconds of his reading it, his phone rang. A Microsoft executive who coordinated with Mojang wanted to know if Persson was serious. While Persson originally wrote the message as a half-joke, the realization that he could disassociate from Mojang took hold.

The man who once publicly pledged that he would not sell out to evil corporations now had his head turned. In the week that followed, Manneh's phone rang constantly with interest from Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard and others. Talks with Activision petered out. Persson, cryptically, won't discuss what happened with EA but says that Mojang ruled out potential buyers "who did game play in a way we didn't like. The motivator for Microsoft, ultimately, was a tax dodge.

So Manneh dictated the sale terms: the three founders wanted a clean break and no attachments to the company. Also, given Microsoft's massive staff consolidation following its purchase of Nokia, no layoffs. With just 47 employees that wasn't a material concern for the buyer. The software giant's CEO, Satya Nadella , never set foot in Scandanavia for what remains the largest acquisition during his tenure. While lawyers worked around the clock to close, there were few clues of the multibillion-dollar deal afoot.

Microsoft kept relatively quiet, though Nadella did say in a July letter to employees that he was investing in gaming, calling it the "single biggest digital-life category, measured in both time and money spent, in a mobile-first world. The usually vociferous Persson remained silent, too. He spent his days chasing small ideas for new games and learning programming languages. How come? But also crossness.

You see, Minecraft and Persson hitherto embodied all that was great and pure and noble about computer games. In just a few years, they have formed a vast community of mutually supportive hobbyists. How lovely. Yes, and Persson himself became a champion of small, independent companies and free-spirited game-making.

Is it just me or do computer people take random stuff really seriously? They do. The creator of the building-sim game has cashed in his virtual blocks — and angered fans who held him up as an indie champion standing against the giants of the computer world.

Markus Persson: 'I'm aware this goes against a lot of what I've said in public.