Markus Persson

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Markus Persson
Notch receives the Pioneer Award at GDC 2016 (cropped).jpg
Persson at the 2016 Game Developers Conference
Born Markus Alexej Persson
1 June 1979 (age 42)
Stockholm, Sweden
Other names Notch
Known for Creating Minecraft, Founding Mojang
Spouse(s) Elin Zetterstrand

(m. 2011; div. 2012)[1][2]

Website
notch.tumblr.com (inactive)
Twitter
Markus Alexej Persson (Swedish: [ˈmǎrkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] (About this soundlisten); born 1
June 1979),[3] also 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.[4] Since then, he has gained
significant notability within the video game industry, winning multiple awards and
establishing relations with the industry's figureheads.[5] 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.[6] He had continued to
work on Minecraft until he left Mojang in November 2014, after its acquisition by
Microsoft for $2.5 billion.[7] Microsoft eventually dissociated from Persson
following controversial comments regarding topics such as race and gender on his
Twitter account.[8]

Contents
1 Biography
2 Personal life
3 Games
3.1 Minecraft
3.2 Caller's Bane
3.3 Cliffhorse
3.4 0x10c
3.5 Ludum Dare entries
4 Awards and nominations
5 Controversy
6 References
7 External links
Biography
Persson was born in Stockholm,[9] Sweden, to a Finnish mother and a Swedish father
on 1 June 1979.[10] He lived in Edsbyn for the first seven years of his life[11]
before his family moved back to Stockholm.[12] He began programming on his father's
Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven.[13] Having experimented with
various type-in programs he produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-
based adventure game.[11][13] Professionally he had worked as a game developer for
King for over four years, until 2009.[11][13] Afterwards he worked as a programmer
for Jalbum.[14] He is also one of the founders of Wurm Online,[15] though he no
longer works on it.[14] Outside of work, he has made seven games for competitions.
[14] He is the central figure of Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, 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.[16] In 2011, he married Elin
Zetterstrand.[17] On 15 August 2012, he announced that he was single again.[18]
[non-primary source needed]

Persson has criticized both piracy[19][non-primary source needed] and the stance of
large game companies on piracy;[20] additionally, he is a member of the Pirate
Party of Sweden.[21] He is an atheist and has donated to Médecins Sans Frontières
(Doctors Without Borders).[22] Under his direction, Mojang contributed a week to
developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle; the $458,248 raised was
donated to charity.[23]

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.[24]

Games
Minecraft
Main article: Minecraft
Persson's most popular creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft, which was
first publicly available on 17 May 2009[25] and fully 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. He 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.[26]

Caller's Bane
Main article: 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.[27] On 17
August 2011, Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the
outcome of the naming dispute.[28] On 27 September 2011, Persson confirmed that the
lawsuit was going to court.[29] ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks,
announced the lawsuit's settlement in March 2012.[30][31] The settlement allowed
Mojang to continue using the Scrolls trademark.[32]

Cliffhorse
Cliffhorse is a humorous game programmed in two hours using the Unity game engine
and free assets. The game took inspiration from Skyrim's physics engine, "the more
embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games", Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over
the Road Racing.[33][34] The game was released to Microsoft Windows systems as a
honorware early access game the start day of E3 2014, instructing users to donate
Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it.[35] The game accumulated over
280,000 dogecoins.[36]

0x10c
Main article: 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 (parody of
Mass Effect), citing the lawsuit with Bethesda as an inspiration.[37] However, the
gameplay elements remained true and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10c (pronounced
Ten to the C) as a space sandbox title.[38] Persson officially halted game
production in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game's soundtrack (as
well as that of Minecraft), released an album of the work he had made for the game.
[39]

Ludum Dare entries

Persson has also participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making
competitions.[40]

Breaking the Tower was a game Persson developed for the entry to the Ludum Dare No.
12 competition. The game takes place on a small island, where the player must
gather resources, construct buildings, and train soldiers in order to destroy a
large tower on this island. The game received brief gaming media attention.[41][42]
Metagun is a 2D platformer created for Ludum Dare no. 18.[43]
Prelude of the Chambered is a game Persson developed for the entry to the Ludum
Dare No. 21 competition. Prelude of the Chambered is a short first-person dungeon
crawler video game.
Minicraft is a game developed for Ludum Dare No. 22, held 16–19 December 2011.[44]
[45] It is a small top-down game with similarities to Zelda and influenced by
Minecraft. It is written in Java.
Awards and nominations
Year Nominated work Category Award Result Notes Ref.
2011 Minecraft Best Debut Game, Innovation Award, Best Downloadable Game Game
Developers Choice Awards Won [46]
2012 Minecraft BAFTA Special Award BAFTA Won [47][48]
2016 Minecraft Pioneer Award Winner Game Developers Choice Awards Won Award
formerly known as the First Penguin Award [49]
Controversy
Persson has received criticism for political and social opinions he has expressed
on Twitter, such as referring to feminism as a "social disease" and claiming that
most feminists are "overtly sexist against men."[50][51] In June 2017, Persson
faced criticism for referring to video game developer Zoë Quinn as a "cunt".[50]
Later in June 2017, he tweeted in support of a heterosexual pride day, calling
opponents to the idea "cunts" and stating that they "deserve to be shot".[51] After
facing backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, writing "So
yeah, it's about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are.
I get it now."[52] In November 2017, Persson was criticized for posting a tweet
which reads "It's ok to be white."[53] In follow-up tweets, he said he believed
privilege is a "made up metric".[54]

A March 2019 Minecraft update removed all mentions of Persson from the game's menu,
though his name is still in the credits.[55] Microsoft did not explain this action,
but its timing led multiple news outlets to conclude it was related to the
controversies associated with him.[55][56] Persson was not invited to the game's
tenth anniversary event later that year, with Microsoft saying that his views "do
not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang".[8][57] Microsoft then dissociated from
Persson due to his controversial comments on his Twitter account.[8]