Notch Steps Down as Lead Developer of Minecraft

With the first Minecon in the books and Minecraft 1.0 out the door, Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson and his company, Mojang, are beginning to look towards the future.

Part of that future involves Persson thinking about what’s the Next Big Thing, and apparently that means handing over the reigns of Minecraft to designer Jens Bergensten.

“We’ve been working together on Minecraft for a year now, and I’m amazed at how much in synch we two are when it comes to how to design the game,” said Persson. “And when we don’t agree, we discuss it and something much better comes out at a result.”

Persson made it sound like he’s about to take a much-needed vacation, with intentions to return to Mojang with his eyes on “some new project.”

In addition to continued development of Minecraft, Mojang is also working on Scrolls, which involves card collecting and board game elements. Scrolls has been the subject of a lawsuit involving the name with Zenimax Media (the parent company of Bethesda Softworks) over The Elder Scrolls franchise.

I think it's pretty OK for him to quit a few weeks after the game is finished.

@I_smell said:

go quest go

Damn you.

I was under the impression that the next big thing *was* Scrolls. Huh. So is Scrolls really just meant to troll Bethesda?

That question was a joke.

I wonder what this mystery project is. I thought he needed all this time off from putting out tiny incremental updates to Minecraft so that he could work on Scrolls which is, just, just an awesome idea. Cards, and a boardgame..

That's kind of a shocking bit of news to hear. I can't imagine that this was an easy decision for him to make. It will easily be in good hands with Bergensten at the helm, but still...

Well he has worked on the game for a long time, probably got tired of looking at the same textures over and over. Game is done and well.

He is gonna take a break and use it for bitches and swag.

Finally, he can get to what he loves best...Cocaine and Hookers.

This is great, now Minecraft will actually have a competent person in charge.

I don't blame him. I bought the game long before it even left Alpha, played it for a few hours, realized all the really cool stuff wasn't done in-game, but with an editor, and moved on. Since then, I've become exhausted of hearing about minecraft, minecraft, minecraft, minecrat, minecraft, minecraft, minecraft. I can only imagine he's tired of it ten-fold.
 
Looking forward to whatever he does next and he sure as hell deserves a nice long break, about now.

Not surprising at all, he haven't really done much on Minecraft other than coding for a while now, and he has stated months ago that when Minecraft 1.0 was out he would shift his focus onto his other projects.

I feel like that's a mistake. I don't think many people give 2 shits about Scrolls and with 4 million or so Minecraft users it makes more sense to start putting out updates. Is Jens the only person working on Minecraft now?

Jeb's been working on the game with Notch forever and giving him development control was the best thing that could've happened. At least now there'll be regular updates to fix bugs and add new features.

Does that means the game is going to be updated now?

I think his next game should be called "Tomorrow's Winds".

Once in while people reach a stage of burnout, and handing the reins over to someone else can bring a new enthusiasm and perspective to a project. He has accomplished something in the industry that is fairly rare, and is taking a break, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable move.

Creative people typically enjoy being constantly challenged, not becoming stagnated or tied to one thing.

@49th: Trust me if you've followed Minecraft development, you'll know this is a good thing. Notch is easily distracted and Jens has always been the guy that seems to be keeping the game on track over the last year and reaching out to modders to try and incorporate features and things. He also tends to listen to the community and fix bugs.

so he made his money and left to go spend it. nothing else to see here.

@Sinful said:

so he made his money and left to go spend it. nothing else to see here.

Maybe I'm reading into your comment incorrectly, but he didn't exactly just "leave". He's taking a vacation and continuing to lead the company, he'll just be working on their next game.

@HAL9000 said:

@49th: Trust me if you've followed Minecraft development, you'll know this is a good thing. Notch is easily distracted and Jens has always been the guy that seems to be keeping the game on track over the last year and reaching out to modders to try and incorporate features and things. He also tends to listen to the community and fix bugs.

Agreed. This is a good thing. Let the dreamer dream and create new fun. :)

Develop game. Make Millions. Leave it behind like a dead baby after it's given you all that money. Yep. Sounds about right.

@G24S said:

This sums up the article nicely! lol

Aw, and after Valve game him a TF2 hat and everything.

It'll be interesting to see which direction Minecraft development takes now. Markus always seemed to be an "idea man" but Jens seemed like the guy who actually fixed bugs and optimized and junk.

Notch: "LOL Look guys! I added wolves and shit!"

Jens: [unavailable for comment as he's one with the Matrix]

Get ready for Minecraft 2: Hexagon

That's cool, I actually thought Jens was the lead for a while but this makes it official :D.

You guys saying he's quit after making his money are retarded.

He should make a game where randomly generated blog posts appear by a game developer and you have to troll them as fast as possible.

Vacations? Vacations from WHAT?! 1.0 is not much different from Vanilla minecraft and Notch thinks he's worked enough? Damn, he really needs to get his shit together. Without Minecraft he is NOTHING.

@heat said:

This is great, now Minecraft will actually have a competent person in charge.

My sentiment exactly. Jeb is a better programmer, actually listens to the community/modders, and doesn't hide behind "B-BUT THIS DOESN'T MATCH MY VISION!!" when people want features he doesn't like. This is great news for Minecraft fans.

And I don't know where people got the idea the version 1.0 coming out means no more updates. In fact, they've explicitly said the opposite. As long as Minecraft is popular, it will get updates and new features.

I'm pretty sure vactioning is part of Notch's job description.

I always felt Notch has been fairly incompetent as the head of Mojang since it's inception, and he's a complete PR disaster with a unwarranted rockstar syndrome, and embarrassing childish mannerisms. Can't really blame him though, suddenly falling ass-first into millions and millions of dollars does weird things to your game-development priorities.

He made a totally awesome game, that I spent hundreds of hours with, but I have little to no love for Notch left.

Take all the vacations you need, my friend. I think Mojang will be better for it.

Notch clearly didn't have the either the interest or the aptitude, to make what was essentially a flash game into a full retail product, I'm honestly sad this didn't happen before release, because any sane lead developer would have pushed Minecraft back considering it's not even fucking done. Several systems like leveling do nothing, and multiplexer is still an abomination.

Notch, you made a great concept and we all thank you for it, but it would have been better for everyone if you had just sold it off when it grew out of your control.

A hard needed vacation, huh?

ful size picture here: http://i53.tinypic.com/r73yps.png

So Minecraft II confirmed?

Stepping it up, this time there will be pyramids and spheres.

so he made his money and left to go spend it. nothing else to see here.

I think its funny that he says he is going to take a break for awhile. Over the past year or so since I started following him on twitter he has taken about 3 or so vacations. I guess with the money he has and the way the game works it is ok to do, but still.

Another vacation.

@familyphotoshoot said:

A hard needed vacation, huh?

ful size picture here: http://i53.tinypic.com/r73yps.png

Who has spent their time more wisely, Notch or the creator of that chart?

@heat said:

This is great, now Minecraft will actually have a competent person in charge.

I'd say Markus has done a pretty stand up job founding an indie company and keeping his morals. What makes you doubt his competence?

so he's taking a vacation from taking a vacation?

i like this guy.

lol, why do people seem to care so much about this?

@TheGorilla said:

lol, why do people seem to care so much about this?

They don't, but it takes little to no effort to post their opinions. At first I was shocked that Notch was leaving, then I was thinking how it could be better if everyone else can do their job. Hopefully. As long as he don't force everyone to go on vacation every day.

@Jams said:

@TheGorilla said:

lol, why do people seem to care so much about this?

They don't, but it takes little to no effort to post their opinions. At first I was shocked that Notch was leaving, then I was thinking how it could be better if everyone else can do their job. Hopefully. As long as he don't force everyone to go on vacation every day.

You're saying whoever made that chart doesn't care? Whoever did that is clearly balls out crazy.

"still dont get it" what kind of ultra doofer do you need to be to not get mine craft. DUHHHHHHH

didnt jeff sent you my message..... i asked him too ....

@TheGorilla said:

@Jams said:

@TheGorilla said:

lol, why do people seem to care so much about this?

They don't, but it takes little to no effort to post their opinions. At first I was shocked that Notch was leaving, then I was thinking how it could be better if everyone else can do their job. Hopefully. As long as he don't force everyone to go on vacation every day.

You're saying whoever made that chart doesn't care? Whoever did that is clearly balls out crazy.

a lot of autistic people play minecraft.

Minecraft money!