Markus Pearson
Markus Alexej Persson ( PEER-sən, Swedish: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ˈpæ̌ːʂɔn] ; born 1 June 1979), known by the pseudonym Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He is the creator of Minecraft, which is the best-selling video game in history. He founded the video game development company Mojang Studios in 2009.
Persson began developing video games at an early age. His commercial success began after he published an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Prior to the game's official retail release in 2011, it had sold over ten million copies. After this point Persson stood down as the lead designer and transferred his creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014 Persson announced on his personal website that he had concluded he "[didn't have the connection to his fans he thought he had]", that he had "become a symbol", and that he did not wish to be responsible for Mojang's increasingly large operation. He left Mojang in November of that year, selling his company to Microsoft reportedly for US$2.5 billion, which made him a billionaire.
Since 2016, several of Persson's posts on Twitter regarding feminism, race, and transgender rights have caused public controversies. In 2019, his posts were censured by Microsoft, who subsequently removed mentions of his name from Minecraft (excluding one instance in the game's end credits) and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration. In 2015, he co-founded a separate game studio called Rubberbrain, which was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment.
Markus Pearson
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