In the fall of 2014, Microsoft shocked the game industry when it revealed plans to acquire Mojang, the team behind the hit sandbox game Minecraft, for $2.5 billion. Now a new book excerpt reveals more details surrounding that buyout and how it affected Mojang's employees.
Wired has posted the excerpt from the book, "Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus Notch Persson and the Game that Changed Everything: Second Edition", from authors Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson, which will be published by Seven Stories Press on June 16. It offers some behind-the-scenes reactions from employees after they learned about Mojang's buyout by Microsoft. It also offered an account of when the general manager of Microsoft Studios, Matt Booty, made his first appearance at Mojang's officies in Stockholm, Sweden:
"According to people present at the meeting, Matt Booty misspoke several times when discussing Mojang's future. Instead of saying Mojang he referred to the company simply as Minecraft, quickly correcting himself. For the others in the room, it was awkward to say the least. Less than half of them worked directly with Minecraft. Every time the man from Microsoft confused the name of the company he'd acquired with the game it was known for, he inadvertently pointed to the elephant in the room. Yes, Microsoft had acquired all of Mojang. But it was only really interested in Minecraft."
The full excerpt from the book is definitely worth checking out, including how Mojang employees were feeling out of touch with the company's three co-founders even before the Microsoft acquisition.
Source: Wired