Microsoft may have been the company that ended up buying Minecraft, but EA and Activision were also interested in purchasing the franchise too.
Forbes had a chance to interview Minecraft creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, on his life after the franchise was bought out by Microsoft. Persson revealed a few more details on the whole thing.
Persson admits that Activision and EA along with several other companies also wanted to buy Minecraft from him. Persson didn’t reveal much, but said the deal with Activision “petered out“. He didn’t reveal anything specific about why he didn’t choose EA.
Persson said that Microsoft offered the best deal. After all, Minecraft was sold for a cool $2.5 billion last year. One of the deals from the buyout was that Microsoft wasn’t allowed to layoff any staff from Mojang. Also, Mojang’s three founders had to get a “clean break” from the company.
Microsoft is a bigger company than both EA and Activision, so it would have been able to bid higher for Minecraft than those two companies. It would have been interesting if Persson gave more reasons why he chose to turn those two companies down. It’s likely he’s choosing to stay quiet in order to not offend anyone.
Feel free to comment below on how Minecraft’s future would have been like if EA or Activision bought out the franchise.
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