From PC World: Microsoft has agreed to buy Mojang, the Swedish developer of the Minecraft PC and console game, for US$2.5 billion, the companies announced Monday.
The deal comes two weeks after Mojang released a version of its world-building game for Microsoft’s Xbox One game console. A version for the PlayStation 4 came out a few days earlier.
Minecraft is the most popular online game on Xbox, while PC users have downloaded it 100 million times since its 2009 launch, according to Microsoft. It touted the loyalty of Minecraft players, saying that 90 percent of paid customers had signed in on the PC version within the last 12 months.
That loyalty may make the acquisition a rough ride, though. When rumors of the Mojang-Microsoft deal began circulating last week, some Minecraft fans reacted angrily, accusing the independent software developer of “selling out.”
They recalled Mojang CEO Markus “Notch” Persson’s response to Facebook’s plans to acquire Oculus, the maker of a virtual reality headset for which Mojang was developing a version of Minecraft. Persson initially suspended development of Minecraft for the Oculus Rift, although he later posted a message to Twitter saying he was “officially over being upset about Facebook buying Oculus”, raising hopes that development had restarted.
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