Minecraft developer Mojang has been acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. Not surprisingly, the founders will all be stepping down, including Markus Persson, Minecraft creator and majority shareholder. Persson will still be playing with “boxes.”
Late night comedian Conan O’Brien was actually there when Microsoft made the offer to Persson, who looks exactly like the characters in his apparently uninspired game. The billionaire immediately celebrated the financial windfall by building his own strip club complete with nude dancer! You can tell it’s a classy joint by the flower arrangement, at least I hope that’s a flower.
Persson says the money was not the reason behind the sale. It was the result of being subjected to personal attacks when the game’s end-user license agreement (EULA) was updated to limit third-party monetization. He responded by facetiously offering to sell his shares.
“I’ve become a symbol,” Persson said in statement. “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. As soon as this deal is finalized, 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.”
