Markus "Notch" Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion back in September of 2014. Since then. Notch has been reported to spend $180,000 a night in Las Vegas, has spent $70 million in cash for a Beverly Hills mansion and has joined the Forbes Billionaire list for 2015.
In short, we have plenty of information on what Notch has been up to after he sold Minecraft to Microsoft. What we have little information on is what happened to Mojang's employees during and after the sale of Minecraft.
On June 16th, a book titled Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus Notch Persson and the Game that Changed Everything: Second Edition will be hitting store shelves. The book will reveal what happened during the reveal of the sale and what happened after — all from Mojang employees.
According to an excerpt from the book, Mojang employees felt betrayed by Markus's decision saying that employee morale dropped and “People felt like the world was coming to an end.” If employees decided to stay they would recieve money.
"Everyone at Mojang was made the same offer: whoever stayed on board for at least six months after the sale would be rewarded with two million Swedish crowns, approximately three hundred thousand dollars, after taxes," reads a line from the book. "A small fortune was being tendered as a peace offering, in other words."
It is said that at least one emplyee declined the offer.
In another excerpt from the book, it was made very clear that Microsoft had been only interested in one aspect of Mojang – Minecraft. They did not care about any other projects that Mojang had been working on:
"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."
Read more from the book at Wired.
