Minecraft has sold nearly 5 million copies of the game since launching in it’s unfinished form some years ago, and with the money that comes along with that type of succes, Mojang has blossomed into a much bigger entity in the gaming scene. The company’s biggest success is Minecraft, and what was once considered an “indie” title, may be losing that moniker.
According to Notch, the company may have graduated from the realm of “indie”. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Persson explained his reasoning. ”
“I don’t think [Mojang] are indie in the sense of how I used to work any more, because we have a payroll to worry about and we need to do stuff to ensure the company lasts,” he said. “We have other stuff which influences what we do other than trying to focus on the games. We make sure me and Jacob are only focusing on game development so the founders are still developing. But as a company, I don’t think we are indie in the sense that I used to mean it. But in the other sense of indie – as in we make games we want to play without having any external dependencies – then yeah, we’re indie.”
“Back in the day it wasn’t called being an ‘indie developer’ but a ‘garage programmer.’ You weren’t expected to charge for your game so you couldn’t do it. People never charged. It was just a hobby.”
