Mojang

Mojang
Subsidiary
Industry Video games
Founded May 2009 (2009-05)
Headquarters Maria Skolgata 83 BV
SE-118 53
Stockholm, Sweden[1]
Key people
 Jonas Mårtensson (CEO)
Vu Bui (COO)
Karin Severinson (CFO)
Products Minecraft
Scrolls
Cobalt
Minecraft Story Mode (trademark licensed to Telltale Games)
Revenue Increase 2.069 billion SEK (2013)
Increase 895.816 million SEK (2013)
Profit Increase 816.049 million SEK (2013)
Total assets Increase 1.454 billion SEK (2013)
Total equity Increase 816.099 million SEK (2013)
Owner Microsoft
Number of employees
 51 (November 2015)[2]
Parent Microsoft Studios[3]
Website mojang.com
Footnotes / references
2013 Year End Report[4]
Mojang AB offices in Maria Skolgata 83, nb[5]

Mojang AB (Swedish: [mʊˈjɛŋː] "gadget") is a Swedish video game developer founded in May 2009 under the name Mojang Specifications by game programmer Markus Persson,[6] best known for creating the popular independent game Minecraft, a sandbox game. Mojang's company headquarters is in Stockholm.[7] Microsoft acquired Mojang in 2014 at valuation of $2.5 billion.[8]

History

Independent era (2009-2014)

Following a paid trip and employment offer from Valve Corporation in early September 2010, Markus Persson founded Mojang alongside his best friend Jakob Porsér, with Carl Manneh later brought in as a CEO,[9] as Persson desired to run a self-made independent studio for the continued development of Minecraft.[10] Within a year, the company grew to a size of twelve employees, with their second video game, Scrolls, in development, as well as serving as the publisher of Cobalt.[11] In 2011, Napster founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker offered to invest in Mojang, but was declined.[12] By March 2012, the company had accumulated revenues of over $80 million.[13]

In September 2012, Mojang began a partnership with United Nations Human Settlements Programme called "Block by Block", which entails having Minecraft players constructing sites in-game to use as a basis for assisted development of the village of Kibera in the Nairobi area of Kenya.[14]

Microsoft subsidiary

On 15 September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to acquire Mojang for $2.5 billion in a deal made official on 6 November 2014.[8][15] With their stakes in the company bought out, the three founders, Markus Persson, Carl Manneh and Jakob Porsér left the company.[15][16]

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that a major reason for acquiring Mojang was HoloLens.[17]

Games

Title Year Genre Platforms Notes
Minecraft[18] 2011 Sandbox Java platform, Java applet, Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, Amazon Fire TV, Windows Phone, Windows 10, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Raspberry Pi, Wii U[19] First game released. The alpha version of Minecraft first became available to the public in 2009.
Scrolls[20][21] 2014 Tactical RPG Windows, OS X, Android, iOS
Minecraft: Story Mode[22] 2015 Action-adventure Android, iOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One, OS X, Wii U Developed in association with Telltale Games.
Cobalt[23] 2016 Action sidescroller Windows, Linux, OS X, Xbox 360, Xbox One First third-party published title, developed in collaboration with Oxeye Game Studio.
Crown and Council 2016 Turn-based strategy Windows Developed by one employee, Henrik Pettersson

Mini-games

Lord Lard's Start in Catacomb Snatch
Title Year Genre
Catacomb Snatch 2012 (for Mojam) Shoot 'em up
Endless Nuclear Kittens 2013 (for Mojam 2) Action
Nuclear Pizza War 2013 (for Mojam 2) Tower defense
Battle Frogs 2013 (for Mojam 2) Side scroller
Docktor 2014 (for Games Against Ebola)
Healthcore Evolved 2014 (for Games Against Ebola)
Snake Oil Stanley 2014 (for Games Against Ebola)

Mojang began its tradition of developing smaller projects for the Humble Bundle Mojam with a shoot 'em up strategy game with steampunk and Ancient Egypt themes called Catacomb Snatch. 81,575 bundles were sold, raising US$458,248.99,[24] of which all proceeds were given to four charities and non-profit organizations, including charity: water, Child's Play, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and American Red Cross. Both the genre and theme were picked by a survey on Mojang's website (combination of the highest and lowest voted of each).[25] The following year, three mini-games were simultaneously developed for the Humble Bundle Mojam 2.[26]

Unreleased games

Until July 2012, Mojang was co-developing a video game codenamed Rex Kwon Do alongside an undisclosed developer. Before the title had reached a significant stage of development, Mojang cancelled the collaboration, due to their lack of involvement and influence on the project.[27]

In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a space sandbox game. Although Mojang teased with an April Fools' Day website based around Mars Effect (citing the Bethesda lawsuit), it was confirmed that the game was indeed in development, albeit with a different name.[28] On 4 April, Mojang revealed the game's title to be 0x10c, set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD of a parallel universe.[29] In April 2013, Persson announced that the game was shelved, due to a creative block. In August of that year, he claimed that the game was indefinitely postponed, with the incentive that other Mojang staff members could continue its production should they desire.

Block by Block project

In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block charity project in cooperation with UN-Habitat to create and design real-world environments in Minecraft.[30] The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see and involve them in urban planning. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding that "the three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat’s Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016". Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi’s informal settlements, and is in the planning phase. The Block By Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture.[31] By 2016, 300 of the areas UN-Habitat plans to remodel will be recreated in Minecraft.[32]

Lawsuits

ZeniMax Media v. Mojang AB

ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, filed a lawsuit against Mojang on 27 September 2011, claiming that Mojang's planned trademark of the title, Scrolls, infringed upon Bethesda's trademark of The Elder Scrolls series.[33] On 18 October, Markus Persson announced that Mojang had won the interim injunction, but that Bethesda still had the option to file an appeal.[34] In March 2012, Mojang and Bethesda reached a settlement, in which Mojang would not trademark Scrolls, but Bethesda would not contest Mojang's naming of Scrolls, so long as it would not be a direct competitor against The Elder Scrolls.[35] During this time, Persson jokingly asked if Bethesda was willing to play a game of Quake 3 to settle the dispute.[36]

Uniloc USA v. Mojang AB

On 20 July 2012, Uniloc filed a lawsuit against Mojang, citing the Minecraft - Pocket Edition as an infringement upon patents that give Uniloc exclusive rights to license checks on Android devices.[37] In response to an overwhelming amount of hate mail, Uniloc inventor Ric Richardson denied his own personal involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent and that the lawsuit against Mojang was not by his doing, although endorsed the security of the patent.[38]

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "Mojang Location". Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  2. ↑ "Mojang Employees". Mojang. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  3. ↑ "Minecraft Now Officially Belongs To Microsoft". Gamespot.
  4. ↑ "Financial & Key figures - Mojang AB" (in Swedish). AllaBolag.se.
  5. ↑ "Google Maps=Mojang AB". Retrieved 1 December 2012.
  6. ↑ PC Gamer (25 January 2011). "Minecraft Dev Diary - Mojang milestone, office overhaul". PC Gamer. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
  7. ↑ "Terms of Use." Minecraft. Retrieved 22 September 2011. "Mojang AB Åsögatan 140 116 24, Stockholm Sweden"
  8. 1 2 Molina, Brett (15 September 2014). "Microsoft to acquire Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5B". USA Today.
  9. ↑ Chapple, Craig (23 November 2012). "Mojang uncovered". Develop. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  10. ↑ Persson, Markus (6 September 2010). "Hiring some people, getting an office, and all that!". Tumblr. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  11. ↑ Persson, Markus (16 October 2011). "Happy birthday, us!". Tumblr. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  12. ↑ Bradshaw, Tim (7 March 2012). "Minecraft makers Mojang notch up $80m revenues". Financial Times. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  13. ↑ Reilly, Jim (7 March 2012). "Minecraft Rakes In $80 Million". Game Informer.
  14. ↑ Rose, Mike (5 September 2012). "Minecraft as a tool for urban improvement". Gamasutra. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  15. 1 2 "Minecraft Developer Mojang Officially Owned by Microsoft". Maximum PC. 6 November 2014. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  16. ↑ "Microsoft To Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang For $2.5 Billion". Forbes. 15 September 2014.
  17. ↑ Wingfield, Nick. "Microsoft (Yes, Microsoft) Has a Far-Out Vision". The New York Times.
  18. ↑ "MineCon update". Lydia Winters. Retrieved 7 September 2011.
  19. ↑ http://www.mojang.com/2015/12/minecraft-coming-to-nintendo-wii-u/
  20. ↑ Porsér, Jakob (2 March 2011). "Introducing our New Game: Scrolls". mojang.com. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
  21. ↑ "Scrolls released on PC, Mac, and Android tablets!". Mojang.
  22. ↑ Copeland, Wesley. "Telltale and Mojang Announce Minecraft: Story Mode". IGN.
  23. ↑ "Games". Mojang.com. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
  24. ↑ Good, Owen (19 February 2012). "Mojam Raises $440,000, but Notch’s Beard Appears to be Safe". Retrieved 20 February 2012.
  25. ↑ Good, Owen (18 February 2012). "First Mojam Game Gets a Name: Catacomb Snatch [UPDATE]". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 20 February 2012.
  26. ↑ Conditt, James (20 February 2013). "Humble Bundle Mojam 2: The Mojammening live stream up now". Joystiq. Retrieved 14 August 2013.
  27. ↑ Francis, Tom (25 July 2012). "Notch on why Minecraft still isn’t on Steam". PC Gamer. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
  28. ↑ Fields, Rebecca (31 March 2012). "Minecraft creator scores April Fool with 'Mars Effect'". Shadowlocked.
  29. ↑ Knapp, Alex (3 April 2012). "Mojang Registers Website For Its New Game '0x10c'". Forbes.
  30. ↑ Eördögh, Fruzsina (6 September 2012). "Minecraft Partners With United Nations For Urban Planning". ReadWrite. SAY Media. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  31. ↑ Senior, Tom (5 September 2012). "Minecraft UN Block By Block project to help young people redesign their neighbourhoods". PC Gamer. Future plc. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  32. ↑ "Minecraft to aid UN regeneration projects". BBC News. 26 November 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  33. ↑ Chalk, Andy (27 September 2011). "Mojang and Bethesda Are Going to Court". Escapist Magazine. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
  34. ↑ Goldfarb, Andrew (27 October 2011). "Notch Wins First Round Against Bethesda". IGN. Retrieved 18 September 2011.
  35. ↑ Graft, Kris (11 March 2012). "Bethesda, Mojang settle 'Scrolls' trademark lawsuit". Gamasutra.
  36. ↑ Persson, Markus (17 August 2011). "Hey, Bethesda! Let's settle this!". The World of Notch. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  37. ↑ Bumgardner, Barry (20 July 2012). "Uniloc USA, Inc. et. al. v. Electronic Arts Inc." (PDF). United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas - Tyler Division. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
  38. ↑ Chalk, Andy (23 July 2012). "Uniloc Creator Denies Mojang Lawsuit Involvement". The Escapist. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
  39. ↑ "The Escapist: Tournament: 2011 March Mayhem: Developer's Showdown". The Escapist. Retrieved 24 May 2011.

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