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How Close Were EA And Activision To Buying Minecraft?

This article is more than 9 years old.

It took two months from Markus Persson's half-joking tweet that he wanted to sell Mojang to Microsoft's announcement that it would pay $2.5 billion for the maker of Minecraft. That's an incredibly short amount of time for two parties to close deal given the amount of lawyers involved, the demands on both sides and the sheer billions at stake.

In the cover story for the 2015 Forbes Billionaires issue, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson explains why at 35 and at the peak of his career, he decided to sell his company to the tech giant. Money wasn't the main motivator he says, it was the ability to distance himself from a game that had grown beyond his control.

While Microsoft ended up being Notch's white knight by shelling out $2.5 billion of the $93 billion it had in overseas cash, they were not the only ones interested in buying the most popular computer game of all time. As you'd expect, some of the largest gaming companies also made overtures, including the likes of Activision Blizzard , the makers of Call Of Duty.

"We never got to the point where we talked about the contract or stuff but I remember talking to Activision and they wanted me to be—if anything was to happen—they wanted me to be involved in some way," says Persson. "And I said, but I don’t want to work on Minecraft. And they said, no, maybe you can have some role to be an advisor on games for a while or something like that, and that was actually something I could consider."

Persson's conversations with Activision began in Los Angeles during a visiting in June 2014. As close acquaintances with Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, Persson met with the executive at the Beverly Hills Hotel where he was staying. The two chatted about the possibility of Activision acquiring Mojang and Persson working for the Santa Monica, Calif.-based gaming company. Kotick also gave Persson pointers on life.

"He gave me dating advice," remembers Persson. "I think what he said was, if I were in your shoes is like get a place out in Malibu and a helicopter."

Activision declined to comment on any possible negotiations with Persson and Mojang. Coincidentally, Persson would nominate Kotick for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that August, along with popular game designer Cliff "Cliffy B" Bleszinski and Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer, who was the point man on his company's successful bid for Mojang. 

FORBES also asked if Electronic Arts, a long-time lightning rod for Persson's criticism, ever made an offer. In the past, he called EA a "bunch of cynical bastards" following the release of an independent gaming bundle. Persson was also particularly hurt when one fan tweeted that Mojang was "literally worse than EA" following a disagreement with users over the company's End User License Agreement. Minecraft's creator penned a blog post in June detailing his displeasure with the characterization.

Persson said he wasn't sure if EA contacted Mojang officially about the sale, as those negotiations were being handled by Mojang CEO Carl Manneh. (Manneh declined to comment on specific details about negotiations.) But Persson did cryptically note that he avoided selling to company that made games "in a shady way." EA did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

One company that was never involved in talks was Valve, the owner of game distribution platform Steam. Persson says that no contact was made between the two parties during the sale process though it "might have been an interesting choice to go with."

Persson admits that had the highest amount of money been the main motivation, then he definitely would have sought out other buyers to spark a bidding war. However, that was the never the intent, and he along with cofounders Manneh and Jakob Porsér were looking for a quick exit.

"I’m sure if we had gone the longer route we would have got more money, especially if we had done this earlier and got the funding early on to bloat the value and grow the company and stuff," he says. "We could have absolutely got way more. But that was never the motivation. And honestly, for something you kind of did by accident, getting $2.5 billion is good enough."

David M. Ewalt and Max Jedeur-Palmgren contributed reporting to this story.

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