The creator of Minecraft, Markus “Notch” Persson, has recently Tweeted his thoughts on the title, firmly stating that it’s a dead game in his eyes. The 2009 3D sandbox title is the most successful of Persson’s creations thus far, and his studio Mojang was sold to Microsoft in 2014 for a whopping $2.5 billion.
Since Persson’s departure from Mojang and Minecraft, the Swedish developer has been involved in a plethora of controversies due to his musings on Microsoft to remove any mention of the developer from the game, and all splash screen text which mentioned Persson, including the quote which stated “Made by Notch!” was silently removed during a patch in 2019.
In a recent Tweet by Sonic The Hedgehog DLC pack for Minecraft, with Persson retweeting the announcement, and stating “I’m not even gonna apologize for this one.” The Minecraft creator had previously Tweeted his displeasure on the inclusion of microtransactions for DLC packs in Minecraft Dungeons, quitting the game after playing it for an hour.
Despite Notch’s remarks, Minecraft is incredibly far from being considered a dead game. In a Minecraft Franchise Fact Sheet released by Microsoft in April this year, the company revealed that the game had recently hit an all time record of over 140 million monthly players, with the Minecraft Marketplace selling over 1 billion mods, the profit totaling approximately $350 million. These statistics appear to directly contradict Persson’s sentiments, showing that the game is more alive than ever.
While it is understandable that Notch may be upset that his creation is heading in a direction that he had not envisioned, it is also fair that a 12 year old game such as Minecraft may include the option for paid DLCs to keep fans interested. Besides providing fans with the option to purchase DLC content, the game has also recently received part one of its 1.17 Caves & Cliffs free update, which brought with it new blocks, mobs, and items. Part two of the Caves & Cliffs update is expected to release later this year, its addition will no doubt help with Minecraft's continued longevity.
Minecraft is available on Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Android, and iOS platforms.
Source: Notch/Twitter
