Markus Persson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Markus Persson
Persson at the 2016 Game Developers Conference
Born	Markus Alexej Persson (1979-06-01) 1 June 1979 (age 46) Stockholm, Sweden
Other names	Notch
Occupation	Video game programmer designer
Years active	2004–present
Notable work	Minecraft
Title	Founder of Mojang Studios
Spouse(s)	Elin Zetterstrand ​ ​ (m. 2011; div. 2012)​
Children	1

Markus Alexej Persson (born 1 June 1979), known by his nickname Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is famous for creating Minecraft, which is the best-selling video game in history. He started his own video game company, Mojang Studios, in 2009.

Persson began making video games when he was very young. His big success started after he released an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Before the game was officially released in 2011, it had already sold over four million copies! After this, Persson stepped down as the main designer and gave his creative role to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014, Persson decided to leave Mojang. In November of that year, the company was sold to Microsoft for about US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire.

After 2016, some of Persson's public comments on social media caused disagreements and were seen as offensive by many. To show its independence, Microsoft removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (except in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth-anniversary celebration.

In 2015, he co-founded another game studio called Rubberbrain. This company was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment.

Early Life and Gaming Beginnings

Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 1 June 1979. His mother was Finnish, and his father was Swedish. He has one sister. He lived in Edsbyn until he was seven, then his family moved back to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, his father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. Markus spent a lot of time exploring the woods with his friends.

When Persson was about seven years old, his parents separated. He and his sister lived with their mother. His father moved to a cabin in the countryside. Persson mentioned that his family sometimes didn't have enough food. He also lost touch with his father for several years after the separation. His family faced some difficult times during his childhood.

Markus became interested in video games at a young age. His father was very keen on technology. He built his own modem and taught Persson how to use the family's Commodore 128 computer. On this computer, Persson played games and typed in programs from computer magazines with his sister's help. The first game he bought with his own money was The Bard's Tale. He started programming on his father's computer at age seven and created his first game, a text-based adventure game, when he was eight.

By 1994, Persson knew he wanted to be a video game developer. His teachers suggested he study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18.

Persson was a quiet person but was liked by his classmates. In secondary school, he preferred spending time alone and reportedly had only one close friend. He spent most of his free time at home playing games and programming. He did not finish high school but was known as a good student.

Starting a Career in Game Development

Persson began his career as a web designer. Later, he worked at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. They worked together in their free time to create the 2006 video game Wurm Online. They released the game through a new company called "Mojang Specifications AB". Persson left this project in late 2007. Since Persson wanted to use the name "Mojang" again, Jansson agreed to change his company's name to Onetoofree AB.

From 2004 to 2009, Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (which later became King). He was a programmer, mainly making browser games using Flash. After that, he worked as a programmer for a company called jAlbum.

The Journey to Minecraft

Inspiration Behind Minecraft

Before Minecraft, Persson created many small games. He also entered game design contests and discussed ideas on the TIGSource forums, a website for independent game developers.

One of his notable personal projects was called RubyDung. This was a 3D base-building game, similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, Persson tried a first-person view, like in Dungeon Keeper. However, he thought the graphics looked too pixelated at the time and removed this view.

In 2009, Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a game where players mined and built with blocks. Infiniminer greatly influenced his work on RubyDung. It made him bring back the first-person view, the "blocky" look, and the idea of building with blocks into his game.

RubyDung is known as the very first version of Minecraft that Persson created.

Minecraft is Released and Becomes a Hit

On 17 May 2009, Persson released the first version of Minecraft (later called the "Classic version") on the TIGSource forums. He regularly updated the game based on feedback from players. Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev. On 30 June 2010, he released the game's Alpha version.

While working on the early versions of Minecraft, Persson also continued his job at jAlbum. In 2010, after the Alpha version of Minecraft became very popular, Persson changed to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left jAlbum completely later that same year.

In September 2010, Persson visited Valve Corporation's offices in the United States. He took part in a programming challenge and met Gabe Newell, a famous game developer. Persson was offered a job at Valve but turned it down to keep working on Minecraft.

On 20 December 2010, Minecraft entered its beta phase and started to become available on other platforms, like mobile phones. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered players. Six months later, it had ten million! By 7 November 2011, the game had sold over four million copies. Mojang held the first Minecon event from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate the game's full release, and it became an annual event. After this, on 11 December 2011, Persson handed over the main creative role for Minecraft to Jens Bergensten. He then started working on a new game called 0x10c, though he stopped working on it around 2013.

In 2013, Mojang earned $330 million in revenue and made $129 million in profit.

Leaving Mojang and Minecraft

Persson shared that the intense media attention and public pressure made him tired of managing Minecraft and Mojang. He felt he was not an entrepreneur or a CEO, but rather a programmer who liked to share his thoughts online.

In a blog post in September 2014, he explained that he felt he had "become a symbol" and didn't want the responsibility of Mojang's growing operations.

In June 2014, Persson jokingly tweeted, "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life?" He owned 71% of Mojang at the time. This offer caught the attention of big companies like Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft.

In September 2014, Microsoft agreed to buy Mojang for $2.5 billion, which made Persson a billionaire. He officially left the company after the deal was completed in November.

What Notch Did After Mojang

After leaving Mojang, Persson worked on several smaller projects. On 23 June 2014, he started a company called Rubberbrain AB with Jakob Porsér. This company was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC on 28 March 2024. Persson also showed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020 and developing virtual reality games. He also created a series of immersive events called ".party()", which used many visual effects and were held in different cities.

At the beginning of 2025, Persson considered making a new game similar to Minecraft, sometimes called "Minecraft 2", after a poll on X. However, after talking with his team, he decided to develop another game from his poll, a roguelike game called Levers and Chests.

Games Created by Markus Persson

Persson at the Game Developers Conference in 2011

Minecraft

Persson's most famous creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft. It was first available to the public on 17 May 2009 and fully released on 18 November 2011. Persson left his job to work on Minecraft full-time until it was finished. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold its one millionth copy of the game, then its second, and then its third. Mojang hired new team members for Minecraft, and Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. He stopped working on Minecraft after the deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion. This made his personal wealth around US$1.5 billion.

Caller's Bane

Persson and Jakob Porsér came up with the idea for a game called Scrolls. It combined elements from board games and collectible card games. Persson said he would not be deeply involved in its development, and Porsér would lead the project. On 5 August 2011, Persson shared on his Tumblr blog that he was facing a legal challenge from a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks. They claimed the name Scrolls was too similar to their The Elder Scrolls game series. On 17 August 2011, Persson jokingly challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to settle the name dispute. The lawsuit went to court, but a settlement was reached in March 2012. This allowed Mojang to keep using the Scrolls name. In 2018, Scrolls became free to play and was renamed Caller's Bane.

Cliffhorse

Cliffhorse is a funny game that Persson programmed in just two hours. He used the Unity game engine and free art assets. The game was inspired by the physics in Skyrim, some simple games on Steam Greenlight, Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. It was released for Microsoft Windows as an early access and honourware game on the first day of E3 2014. Players were asked to donate Dogecoin to "buy" the game before downloading it. The game collected over 280,000 dogecoins.

0x10^c

After he finished his main work on Minecraft, Persson started planning an alternate reality space game set far in the future in March 2012. On April Fools' Day, Mojang launched a joke website for "Mars Effect" (a parody of Mass Effect), mentioning the lawsuit with Bethesda as a funny inspiration. However, the actual game ideas were serious, and on 4 April, Mojang revealed 0x10^c (pronounced "Ten to the C") as a space sandbox game. Persson officially stopped making the game in August 2013. However, C418, who composed music for the game (and for Minecraft), released an album of the music he had made for 0x10^c.

Shambles

In 2013, Persson created a free game called Shambles using the Unity game engine.

Games from Ludum Dare Competitions

Persson has also taken part in several Ludum Dare competitions, where developers make a game in just 48 hours.

• Breaking the Tower was a game Persson made for Ludum Dare No. 12. In this game, players are on a small island and must gather resources, build structures, and train soldiers to destroy a large tower. The game received some attention from gaming news.
• Metagun is a 2D platformer created for Ludum Dare No. 18.
• Prelude of the Chambered is a short first-person dungeon crawler video game Persson developed for Ludum Dare No. 21.
• Minicraft was made for Ludum Dare No. 22, held from 16–19 December 2011. It is a small top-down survival game with similarities to Zelda and was influenced by Minecraft. It was written in Java.

Personal Life and Interests

In 2011, Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years. Elin was a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had a daughter together. On 15 August 2012, he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce, which was finalized later that year.

Persson has shared that he has experienced depression and mood swings.

He has openly discussed his views on game piracy, stating that he believes "piracy is not theft". He sees unauthorized downloads as a way to potentially gain future customers.

In 2011, Persson said he was a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden. He is also a member of Mensa, an organization for people with high IQs.

Persson has given money to many charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his guidance, Mojang spent a week developing Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle, raising US$458,248 for charity. He also donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011, he shared $3 million in company profits with Mojang employees.

According to Forbes, his wealth in 2023 was around $1.2 billion. In 2014, Persson was one of the biggest taxpayers in Sweden. Around that time, he lived in a large apartment in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area known for its wealthy residents. In December 2014, Persson bought a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighborhood in Beverly Hills, California, for $70 million. This was a record-breaking price for a home in Beverly Hills at the time. Reports said Persson outbid famous people like Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property.

Awards and Recognition

See also

In Spanish: Markus Persson para niños