Mojang

**Mojang** is a Swedish video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Stockholm. The studio was founded by Markus Persson in 2009 as **Mojang Specifications**, inheriting the name from a venture of the same name he left two years prior. Mojang began development on the sandbox video game *Minecraft* in 2009, which would become the best-selling video game of all time and establish a successful multimedia franchise. Mojang Specifications became Mojang in 2010. With a desire to move on from *Minecraft*, Persson sold Mojang to Xbox Game Studios (then called Microsoft Studios) in 2014, after which the studio developed the spin-offs *Minecraft Earth* and *Minecraft Dungeons*. In addition to the *Minecraft* franchise, Mojang developed the 2014 digital card game *Caller's Bane* and the 2016 turn-based strategy game *Crown and Council*, along with various games in Humble Bundle game jams.

As of 2016, Mojang employs 70 people in its Stockholm offices, including the leadership team composed of Jonas Mårtensson (chief executive officer), Vu Bui (chief operating officer), Karin Severinson (chief financial officer), and Rikard Herlitz (chief technology officer).

## ***History***

### *Minecraft* and formation (2009–2010)

Swedish video game designer Markus Persson began working on a clone of *Infiniminer* in 2009, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson used assets and parts of the engine code he had created for an earlier project, *RubyDung*, and presented first prototypes of the game through videos uploaded to YouTube, starting in May that year. The first alpha version of the game, now titled *Minecraft*, was released on 17 May 2009, followed by pre-orders for the full release being accepted from 13 June 2009, with Persson using the name "Mojang Specifications" for the game's release. All sales ran directly through *Minecraft*'s website, wherefore Persson did not have to split income with third parties. In less than a month, *Minecraft* had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job to dedicate more of his schedule to developing *Minecraft*, and by May 2010, he was able to quit his day job entirely.

In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, for "a cup of coffee".  At the offices, Persson took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company.  He turned down the offer, instead calling Jakob "JahKob" Porsér, whom Persson had known for five years, via Skype to ask whether he wanted to help him establish a business out of Mojang Specifications, to which Porsér replied that he would quit his job the following day. Subsequently, Persson and Porsér incorporated Mojang Specifications as Mojang AB.[4] As both wished to focus on game development rather than business, Mojang hired Carl Manneh, the manager of jAlbum, Persson's previous employer, as chief executive officer.[4][10] Other significant hires included Daniel "Kappische" Kaplan as business developer, Markus "Junkboy" Toivonen as art director and Jens "Jeb" Bergensten as lead programmer.

### Continued growth (2011–2013)

On 12 January 2011, *Minecraft* reached one million registered accounts, a number which rose to ten million within the next six months. The continued success led Mojang to start development of a new version of *Minecraft* for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility with *Minecraft*'s Java framework on mobile devices, the new version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios and also created using C++. In March 2011, Mojang announced *Scrolls*, a digital collectible card game. Mojang's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a lawsuit with ZeniMax Media, who owned the trademark for *The Elder Scrolls* series, over the two titles' similarity. In August, Mojang hired artist Henrik Pettersson.  *Minecraft* was finally released out of beta in November 2011, with the announcement taking place on-stage at MineCon, the game's dedicated convention event.

In August 2011, Mojang announced plans to publish its first third-party game: *Cobalt* from Oxeye Game Studios. An early version of the game was available on 16 December 2011, while the full game was released on 2 February 2016, for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off of *Cobalt*, titled *Cobalt WASD* and also developed by Oxeye Game Studios, was released for Microsoft Windows by Mojang on 30 November 2017, following a phase in early access.

In 2011, Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, offered to invest in Mojang, but was turned down. Mojang ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain the independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to *Minecraft*'s success. By March 2012, *Minecraft* had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, the company had 25 employees. In total, Mojang earned $237.7 million in revenue in 2012. In 2013, Mojang released an education-focused version of *Minecraft* for Raspberry Pi devices, and, after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms expired, announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Manneh's twin brother, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling game company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. For the year 2013, Mojang recorded a total revenue of $330 million, including $129 million profit.

### Sale to Microsoft (2014–present)

By 2014, Persson wished to no longer have to bear the pressure of being the owner of *Minecraft*; in a tweet published in June 2014, he asked whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang so he could move on with his life.[4] Several parties expressed interest in buying the company, including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts, but Mojang chose Microsoft as a result of the two companies' previous partnerships. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella also stated that HoloLens was a major reason for Microsoft to acquire Mojang. Microsoft announced that they were purchasing Mojang for $2.5 billion on 15 September 2014. The deal closed on 15 November, with Mojang joining the Microsoft Studios label.[4][24] Persson, Porsér and Manneh left Mojang alongside the acquisition, of which Manneh was succeeded by Mårtensson. Every employee who stayed at the company for six months following the sale was awarded a bonus worth roughly $300,000 after taxes.

*Scrolls* was released out of beta on 11 December 2014. Development of additional *Scrolls* content ceased in 2015. On 22 April 2016, Mojang released *Crown and Council*, a game entirely developed by Pettersson, for free for Microsoft Windows.  An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions of the game. In February 2018, Mojang stopped support for *Scrolls*' online services. In June 2018, the game was re-released as a free-to-play game under the name *Caller's Bane*, adding support for player-run servers. In September 2018, Mojang announced *Minecraft Dungeons*, a dungeon crawl-style spin-off of *Minecraft* to be released for Microsoft Windows in 2020. In May 2019, Mojang announced the release of *Minecraft Classic*, the original browser-based version of *Minecraft* from 2009, available free-to-play, as well as *Minecraft Earth* an augmented reality spin-off in the vein of *Pokémon Go*. By this point, *Minecraft* had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time.