Minecraft's story is really two stories: a solo developer building something he could barely keep up with, and the decade-long corporate machine that took over once he couldn't.
A Weekend in May 2009
Markus "Notch" Persson, a Swedish programmer then working on browser games at King, built the earliest prototype of Minecraft — then called "Cave Game" — over a single weekend, inspired heavily by Zach Barth's blocky mining game Infiniminer. On May 17, 2009, he posted the first public build to the TIGSource indie developer forums. It had no goals and no story — just placing and removing blocks in 3D.
Survival mode arrived that August, along with a health system — the moment the project stopped being a toy and started being a game. By May 2010, sales alone were enough for Persson to quit his day job entirely.
Founding Mojang
In late 2010, Persson and former colleague Jakob Porsér formally incorporated Mojang AB in Stockholm, bringing on Carl Manneh as CEO. That October's "Halloween Update" added biomes and the Nether. By January 2011, Minecraft had sold its first million copies — while still in Alpha.
Beta, and the Full 1.0 Release
Beta began in December 2010, adding redstone mechanisms, beds, and maps over the course of 2011. On November 18, 2011, Mojang released the full 1.0.0 version at the very first MineCon in Las Vegas, adding an actual ending — the End dimension and the Ender Dragon — that turned an open-ended sandbox into a game with a narrative objective, to genuinely mixed community reaction. Notch stepped back from lead design shortly afterward, handing creative control to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten.
The Microsoft Acquisition
By 2014, Minecraft had sold over 50 million copies. That June, Microsoft approached Mojang about an acquisition. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft announced it would buy Mojang for $2.5 billion in cash — Persson, who owned 71% of the company, walked away with roughly $1.8 billion. All three founders left as part of the deal, and the acquisition closed that November. Microsoft publicly committed to keeping Minecraft cross-platform and continuing MineCon.
Persson himself gave a simple, oft-cited reason for selling: the pressure of owning something globally significant had become overwhelming. It's a strikingly human footnote to what's otherwise a business story about one of gaming's biggest acquisitions.
The Mojang Studios Era
Under Microsoft, Minecraft's development pace and scope grew dramatically compared to the Notch era's single-developer cadence. Notable updates since the acquisition include the Nether Update (2020), Caves & Cliffs, the Wild Update, and Trails & Tales — alongside a full Education Edition built from an acquired community mod, first released in 2016 and expanded across Windows, macOS, iPadOS, ChromeOS, and Android.
Records and Cultural Reach
On October 15, 2023, Guinness World Records confirmed Minecraft had surpassed 300 million copies sold — the first video game ever to do so — with figures since climbing past 350 million. Along the way it became a genuine cultural fixture beyond gaming: Reporters Without Borders used it to host censored journalism in repressive countries via "The Uncensored Library," and in 2025, A Minecraft Movie opened bigger than Barbie and went on to gross nearly $1 billion worldwide.
The Throughline
Sixteen years later, the thing that made Minecraft work in that first TIGSource build — a world made of blocks you can shape however you want — is still the foundation everything else, including entire genres of custom servers, gets built on top of.