‘Minecraft’ Creator Shares The Ups, Downs, Other Buyers, Microsoft’s Acquisition And Life After The Blocky Hit

Between creator Notch’s opinion of Facebook’s Oculus Rift buyout and Microsoft’s acquisition of “Minecraft,” the blocky building game has continued to enjoy the spotlight since its inception in 2009. But the event leading to the acquisition was anything but uneventful.

In an interview with Forbes, Markus “Notch” Persson revealed what had happened, starting with the one tweet and everything else in the background that put everything in gear. It seems that even before he had tweeted the infamous message asking if anyone was interested in buying his share in “Minecraft,” there has already been compounding events that led to it.

Persson traced it back to the issue on End User License Agreement in “Minecraft,” which had been a big deal in the company during the week of the tweet. And after Persson put his two cents’ out through Twitter, the interest starting pouring in. Microsoft was not the only company that had expressed interest, as Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard were among the big names that had expressed interest.

Everything else after that is history. Save probably for the surprising fact that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did not personally come down to Scandinavia during the negotiations or the interesting debate on the direction of the gaming industry that Persson had with Spencer over Swedish liquor. For now, “Minecraft” has not experienced any major modifications after changing hands. But it would be interesting if Spencer’s thoughts on the direction of the gaming industry will have some sort of influence on future steps of the franchise.

Minecraft” has come a long way for fans. Just recently, the complexity of projects and maps being recreated in blocky goodness has seen the addition of the famous Crota’s Raid in “Destiny.” Gamerant spotted the new creation, which has been recreated in detail, except maybe the Hive enemies. However, since it is “Minecraft,” there are a couple of mod-spawned enemies along the way to enjoy the map even more.

In addition, “Minecraft” has also become the first title to be experimented on the use of Kickback, a Y Combinator-backed program that allows “Minecraft” players a venue for competitive gaming. TechCrunch reports that the initial release of the program is built on “Minecraft,” where the startup acts as the system that hosts matches, designs maps for the competitive games and tracks the overall activity of player wins and losses.

Currently, the Kickback matchmaking system is offered for free. But an interesting point in its system is that “Minecraft” players can up their game with money. For confident players a $1 bet per match allows gamers a chance to win money using their skills in “Minecraft” and helps Kickback in the process to earn back their keep.

Even with the changing of ownership of the game, “Minecraft” may still see a lot of activity in the future. Earlier reports have noted that Microsoft will not be stopping the production of the title for other platforms, ensuring that players who are not on the Xbox One or Xbox 360 will still enjoy the long-time favourite “Minecraft” for a while.