Why 'Minecraft' Founders Won't Be Joining Microsoft In $2.5Bn Mojang Acquisition Deal

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) may be receiving the 54 million strong customer base of the popular open-world “Minecraft” video game with the $2.5 billion purchase of Mojang AB, but one thing it won’t be getting is its founding members.

Mojang said in its announcement on Monday that its three founders, Markus “Notch” Persson, 35, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh, 37, and Jakob Porser, 36, were leaving the company following the acquisition.

Persson published his own thoughts following the announcement in a blog entry titled “I’m leaving Mojang.” In the piece, Persson said he never expected “Minecraft” to be a huge hit that changed gaming. He said he had “no good response” as to why Mojang was sold to a company that he had openly criticized in the past and that he was leaving Mojang not for money, but for his “sanity.”

While it’s too early to see how much their departure from Mojang will affect “Minecraft” development as a whole, Persson notes that he hadn't been active in the development of the game for some time.

“As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small Web experiments,” Persson said.

Microsoft announced its plans to continue "Minecraft" development on all available platforms, including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Android, Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox and Windows.