Minecraft’s developer clarifies statement, won’t shut down in 10 years

Start / News / Minecraft’s developer clarifies statement, won’t shut down in 10 years

May 9, 2014

Screenshot courtesy of deviantART

Despite what has been suggested to the contrary, Minecraft developer Mojang doesn't plan on shutting down 10 years from now. In fact, it's actively working to ensure that doesn't happen regardless of its situation at that point, according to owner Markus "Notch" Persson.

Persson talked about his 10-year plan for the developer in a recent interview, which has since been taken to mean that the studio will only exist for another decade. In a series of tweets, Persson clarified what he meant, saying, "I meant we're saving money so that from the day we don't make a profit, we'll survive another ten years."

The following tweet stated, "And I don't see how we'd stop making money any time soon at the rate things are going." Indeed, particularly for its size--Mojang has less than 50 employees--the developer has been remarkably profitable thanks to the overwhelming success of Minecraft. Just last year, the studio brought in $326 million in revenue, $128 million of which was profit.

A final tweet on the subject summed the matter up: "So basically, we've got money saved to have ten more years to come up with a new project, without making a single cent in that time."

Minecraft has sold remarkably well on a number of platforms; it recently crossed the 15 million mark on PC and 12 million mark on the Xbox 360. It's also sold more than 21 million copies on iOS and Android, over 1 million on the PlayStation 3 (in its first month alone), and still has three platforms it's scheduled to hit this year: the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita.

Mojang isn't a Minecraft-only studio, though--it's currently working on card game Scrolls and is publishing third-party action game Cobalt. Previously, it was at work on a futuristic sandbox game called 0x10c which has since been put on hold.