From a hobby to a company worth 2.5 billion dollars in less than 6 years: the history of Minecraft in numbers and dates

On Habré, the sale of the Minecraft developer company has already been discussed several times, with a transaction amount of 2.5 billion US dollars, the departure of the creator of the game from the company and all other points.

In principle, Minecraft can be called a social phenomenon, one of the few, and it can be interesting for many to trace the history of the development of a toy and the company responsible for development. In the continuation - a brief history of Minecraft and Mojang in numbers and dates. Rather, it is not even a tape, but a chronology of events.
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April 2007 . Notch, Marcus Persson, leaves the company where he worked before: Wurm Online. The company worked on the toy of the same name, and Marcus was one of the developers. After Notch felt that nothing could give the game, he left the company.

May 2009 . Two years later (in the interim, Marcus worked for King.com) a Minecraft beta was presented on the TIGSOURCE forums. The original name of the game is Cave Game. Marcus later said that this version was based on the idea of ​​the Infiniminer game from Zachtronic Industries.



June 2009 . Notch left King.com, where he worked for several years, creating toys like Pinball King and Duck Pond Dash.



March 23, 2010 . Sold over 6400 Minecraft copies.

June-December 2010 . Presented by Minecraft alpha, with a single game mode: survival.

July 2010 . The toy begins to attract the attention of famous news resources and gaming magazines.



August 2010 . Spontaneous first meeting with toy fans, in Bellevue, Washington.

September 2010 . Minecraft servers fell, unable to withstand the influx of players. Notch temporarily made the toy free, as compensation.



September 28, 2010 . Mojang was founded, which later became the owner of the toy.

September 29, 2010 . Lit up the first crazy creations of players, including the most incredible designs and systems (for example, a working 16-bit PC). Because of this, the game has become even more popular.

December 2010-November 2011 . Minecraft beta has been released.

January 12, 2011 . Sold the first million copies of toys.



March 2, 2011 . Minecraft received two awards from the independent Games Festival and the Game Developer Choice Awards.

April 6, 2011 . Minecraft earned the first 33 million US dollars.



August 2011 . The game hit the smartphones, an exclusive version for Xperia Play (excellent, by the way, the phone) was released.

October 2011 . Minecraft in the form of a Pocket Edition version has become available to the owners of other Android devices.



November 2011 . Sold 16 million copies of the game, Minecraft hit the iOS App Store, plus the final version of the toy, release, on MineCon 2011.



November 19, 2011 . Notch handed over the reins to Jens Bergensten, and began to indirectly control Minecraft.

March 2012 . The game has become a bestseller, the best-selling PC game ever.



May 2012 . Minecraft is presented for Xbox 360. The console version of the game was developed by 4J Studios, and the game itself was sold out in a million copies in five days.

June 1, 2012. Appeared Lego in the style of Minecraft.

March 2013 . Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, the purpose of which is to ensure the work of the super-complex world of Minecraft.



August 2013 . A version of the PS vita toy is introduced.



December 2013 . There was also a version for PS3.

February 2014 . The number of registered game users has reached 100 million.



April 2014 . Own version of Minecraft appeared on Fire, the phone from Amazon. In the same month, a 15 millionth copy of the PC game was sold.

June 2014 . Sold 54 million copies of the game, for all platforms for which Minecraft was released.



September 2014 . Version for PS4 and Xbox One released.

September 9, 2014 . There are rumors about the sale of Microsoft's Minecrfat. A little later, rumors were confirmed: the game was sold to corporations for 2.5 billion US dollars.



The transaction must be closed early next year.



Here is a difficult path passed Minecraft and its creator, Marcus Persson. The other day, Notch announced that he would no longer take part in the development of the game, and was leaving the company. The farewell letter has already been published on Habré.