Minecraft creator on Microsoft deal: 'It's about my sanity'
Shortly after it was announced that Microsoft was buying Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5bn (PS1.5bn), the Swedish developer behind the title Markus Persson - known as Notch - posted his own personal statement on the acquisition. We reproduce it below in its entirety.
Mojang is leaving me
I don’t think I can be a real game developer. I make games for fun and because I love programming. But I don’t intend to make them huge hits. I also don’t want to make a difference in the world.
Minecraft was a huge success. People tell me that it has changed their lives. It was not what I intended. It's flattering, and it's interesting to slowly get in the public spotlight.
I decided to leave Minecraft development quite a while ago. Jens was the perfect person for the job, and I was excited to try new things. At first, I failed by trying to make something big again, but since I decided to just stick to small prototypes and interesting challenges, I've had so much fun with work.
I wasn't exactly sure how I fit into Mojang where people did actual work, but since people said I was important for the culture, I stayed.
A few weeks ago, I was suffering from a bad cold at home and the internet went wild with hate about me for a EULA situation that I had nothing. I was confused. I didn't understand. I tweeted this out of frustration.
Later, I watched this This is Phil Fish video online and realized that I wasn't connected to my fans as I thought. 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. MINECRAFT I'm a geeky computer programmer who loves to tweet my opinions.
I will soon be leaving Mojang, and I will return to my small web experiments and Ludum Dares. I will probably abandon any project that I accidentally create that gains traction.
Given that my public image is already skewed, I don’t expect negative comments to disappear by me doing this. However, at least I won’t feel any responsibility to read them.
This goes against a lot I've said publicly. I don't know how to respond. I am also aware that many of you used me as a symbol for some perceived struggle. I'm not. I'm a person.
I love you. All of you. Thank you for making Minecraft what is it today. However, there are too many of them, and I am not able to take responsibility for something like this. It is Microsoft's property now in one sense. It's been a part of your lives for a long time and will continue to be yours.
It's not about money. It's about my mental health.