Markus Persson


Markus Alexej Persson, better known as Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is best known for creating the sandbox video game Minecraft and for founding the video game company Mojang in 2009.
Persson's principal venture for founding Mojang was Minecraft which gained popularity and support since its tech demo in 2009. Since then, he has gained significant notability within the video game industry, winning multiple awards and establishing relations with the industry's figureheads. He retained his position as the lead designer of Minecraft until the game's official launch in 2011, after which he transferred creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In November 2014, he left Mojang after its acquisition by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. Microsoft eventually dissociated from Persson following controversial comments regarding topics such as race and gender on his Twitter account.

Biography

Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother and a Swedish father on 1 June 1979. He lived in Edsbyn for the first seven years of his life before his family moved back to Stockholm. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. Having experimented with various type-in programs he produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. Professionally he had worked as a game developer for King for over four years, until 2009. Afterwards he worked as a programmer for Jalbum. He is also one of the founders of Wurm Online, though he no longer works on it. Outside of work, he has made seven games for competitions. He is the central figure of , a documentary by 2 Player Productions about the rise of Minecraft and Mojang.

Personal life

Persson is a member of the Swedish chapter of Mensa. On 13 August 2011, he married Elin Zetterstrand. On 15 August 2012, he announced that he was single again.
Persson has criticized both piracy and the stance of large game companies on piracy; additionally, he is a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden. He is an atheist and has donated to Médecins Sans Frontières. Under his direction, Mojang contributed a week to developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle; the $458,248 raised was donated to charity.
In December 2014, Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, Beverly Hills, CA for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time.

Games

''Minecraft''

Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game, several months later their second, and several more their third. Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. A version for Android and iOS, the Pocket Edition, has also been released. A console edition of Minecraft was released on 9 May 2012 for Xbox 360 and 17 December 2013 for PlayStation 3. The console edition features updates including a tutorial and skin packs. He has stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This brought his net worth to US$1.5 billion.

''Caller's Bane''

Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for Scrolls including elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porsér will be developing it. Persson revealed on his tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games. On 17 August 2011, Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute. On 27 September 2011, Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court. ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark.
It was later released as a free game titled Caller's Bane.

''0x10c''

Following the end to his involvement with Minecraft, Persson began pre-production of an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day, Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect, citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration. However, the gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c as a space sandbox title. Persson officially halted game production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack, released an album of the work he had made for the game.

Ludum Dare entries

Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions.
Persson has received criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on Twitter, such as referring to feminism as a "social disease" and claiming that most feminists are "overtly sexist against men." In June 2017, Persson faced criticism for referring to video game developer Zoë Quinn as a "cunt". Later in June 2017, he tweeted in support of a heterosexual pride day, calling opponents to the idea "cunt"s and suggesting that they "deserve to be shot". After facing community backlash, he deleted the tweets and walked back his statements, writing in one tweet, "So yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now."
In November 2017, Persson was criticized for posting a tweet that read, "It's ok to be white." In follow-up tweets, he said he believed privilege is a "made up metric". In March 2019, he was criticized for calling transgender women mentally ill. These controversies led to the creation of the "Hatsune Miku created Minecraft" internet meme, which sprung up due to a viral tweet and was created by fans of the game in order to show support for Minecraft while distancing themselves from Persson.
A March 2019 Minecraft update silently removed references to Persson from the game's menu, though his name is still in the credits. Microsoft did not specify the exact reasons, but the timing of the removal led multiple news outlets to conclude it was related to the controversial tweets. Persson was not invited to be part of the Minecraft tenth anniversary event later that year, with Microsoft saying that his views "do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang".

In popular culture

' features a unique item called the "Notched Pickaxe", named after Persson.
Persson made an appearance in the movie '.
In 2014, he joined alongside Arin Hanson, Brian Wecht and Dan Avidan to provide backing vocals for one of the tracks on their album Player Select, titled "Minecraft is for Everyone!" which parodies Minecraft.
Persson has been written about extensively by Linus Larsson and Daniel Goldberg in Minecraft and Minecraft, Second Edition; the English language translations have been published by Seven Stories Press.