In this case, yes, I wouldn't take it.

It's a misleading question. He wasn't "offered" 2.5billion dollars, he sold his company for that. Personally, unless you're a bond villain, I really don't think anyone needs that kind of money. Notch was already a multi-millionaire, he had more than enough money to live well for the rest of his life without working another day.

If I think the $2.5 billion (plus four years of interest) is more than I can make over the next 4 years of not selling the company, I would have definitely taken it.
What is the value for the company itself? 40 employees - they're welcome to join me at my new, $2.5 bil funded, company. The brand name of 'Mojang'? Not worth keeping. Minecraft itself - very nice, but since Notch is already bored of working on the game, and was working on other games anyway, before getting bored of those, then the personal value of owning the brand 'Minecraft' has less emotional significance.

Sell, and rebuild for fun or profit. Either way it's a win. Either that, or take the Minecraft brand and build a bigger business ontop of it.

Haha, you're fooling yourself if you think you wouldn't accept an offer like that. Besides, it's a lot easier to say you wouldn't take it when you've not been approached with the offer. Notch might not need the money himself, but not everyone thinks about themself only. I could give it to my extended family and to charity. In this case, no amount of money would be too much.

(Lacking an indication of whether the above-quoted post was directed at myself or ChaosEngine, I'm assuming that it is in part directed at both of us. If I wasn't being addressed, then I apologise, and the remainder of this post can be ignored.)

Speaking for myself, I don't believe that I've fooling myself at all. While it's true that my statement wasn't informed by experience of my having been so approached, the same could be said of your statement, and it seems to me that it's likely that I know myself better than you know me. (And I don't think that the only reasons to turn down an offer of money are selfish.)

Note, however, that I was answering the statement "your[sic] honestly telling me if someone offered you 2.5 billion dollars, you woudn't take it?", which, as phrased, I took to be a general statement rather than one specific to Notch's situation. As already noted, it would seem that Notch already wanted to sell, so his taking an offer--especially so high an offer as this--is little surprise, and I do think that I might have taken it. (My main point of hesitation there is that I might be uncertain of how Microsoft were going to treat the game and its community; however, Notch is likely in a rather better position to judge this than am I, and I seem to recall reading that he's reported good experiences with them.)

Haha, you're fooling yourself if you think you wouldn't accept an offer like that.

Unless you want to retain whatever power you got from the company, that is... (of course not the case for Notch, but that's a different matter)

The only thing that would worry me in that situation is: will my employees lose their jobs.

If the staff are retrenched by new owner, I could give them all a million dollars in guilt money without blinking... So the worry is gone. Take the billions!

The only thing that would worry me in that situation is: will my employees lose their jobs.

If the staff are retrenched by new owner, I could give them all a million dollars in guilt money without blinking... So the worry is gone. Take the billions!

you could give them a million dollar bonus anyway, we're talking about billions here!

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Markus Persson is no longer my god. Oh well. I don't really believe in gods anyway.

He isn't staying after the sell anyways. PC Game stated that the founders were leaving.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/15/mojang-confirm-sale-to-microsoft-for-2-5-billion-notch-and-other-founders-to-leave/

"Minecraft has grown from a simple game to a project of monumental significance. Though we’re massively proud of what Minecraft has become, it was never Notch’s intention for it to get this big.

"As you might already know, Notch is the creator of Minecraft and the majority shareholder at Mojang. He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle. The only option was to sell Mojang. He’ll continue to do cool stuff though. Don’t worry about that.

"There are only a handful of potential buyers with the resources to grow Minecraft on a scale that it deserves. We’ve worked closely with Microsoft since 2012, and have been impressed by their continued dedication to our game and its development. We’re confident that Minecraft will continue to grow in an awesome way.

"Minecraft means many different things to millions of people across the world, and to each and every Mojangsta. We feel that this is the best way for everyone – you guys included – to benefit."

Wonder if Microsoft will pull an EA and shut it down after they buy it.

They'll make Minecraft 2 and it will be only for Windows 9 and up. Calling it from now.

Wonder if Microsoft will pull an EA and shut it down after they buy it.

For what purpose would they spend 2.5 billion just to shut it down? Companies acquire-and-shut-down when all they want are the patents. I don't think Mojang has much in the way of patents that Microsoft would care about.

Most likely they just want to port it to Windows-based mobile devices to drive adoption (they're almost single-mindedly focusing on phones and tablets right now and really need to do everything they can just to stay in the market). It's also highly likely that they'll attempt some kind of platform-exclusive thing - either a sequel or something, but they're going to mess up their public image EVEN MORE if they do that. Which I am betting they will do, because they have a track record of really dumb marketing and being really good at screwing up their public image. They're almost to IBM levels of how-little-the-Average-Joe-actually-cares-about-them.

If it stays profitable, they'll keep maintaining it. If it stops being profitable, that's when people can start worrying.

Time to bust this out again:

Haha, you're fooling yourself if you think you wouldn't accept an offer like that. Besides, it's a lot easier to say you wouldn't take it when you've not been approached with the offer. Notch might not need the money himself, but not everyone thinks about themself only. I could give it to my extended family and to charity. In this case, no amount of money would be too much.

No, I'm not fooling myself even slightly, but thanks for the condescending remark.

As I said, if I was in Notchs position (i.e. someone who made over $100 million already from the game), I wouldn't take the money from Microsoft (or from EA or Activision for that matter), and I'll expand on why.

I wouldn't give a damn if Activision sold Call of Duty or EA sold Mass Effect or whatever. I'd be disappointed if Valve sold TF2, but Minecraft is something a little bit special.

I'm not saying this as a fan (personally, I never really got that into it, having played at most 10 or 15 hours), but as someone who's seen its cultural effect, especially on kids. I've seen a lot of kids who build amazing things in minecraft, and I genuinely think it's something good for videogaming as a whole.

I think you'd have to be naive in the extreme to think that Microsoft won't change Minecraft in a fundamental way, and it's hard to imagine it being for the better. I have no axe to

grind with Microsoft. I use their products everyday; it's how I make my living. But you don't drop $2.5billion on something and not attempt to recoup that loss.

I also think it's slightly hypocritical of him to condemn the sale of Oculus to Facebook and then do essentially the same thing.

If Notch does something great with the money, then more power to him. I'd just hate to see something unique homogenised.