When Microsoft bought Minecraft, it sent a shock throughout the entire gaming industry. Not only was the biggest game on the market at the time now owned by the mega-conglomerate, but it helped solidify Phil Spencer and the company’s initiative to prove that the Xbox brand was going strong. Of course, Xbox would later welcome Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, but, at the time, the Minecraft acquisition was a mammoth deal. Here is how much Microsoft paid to purchase Minecraft and its development studio Mojang.
To acquire Minecraft and Mojang, Microsoft paid $2.5 billion. Included in this transaction were, of course, all of the rights to the Minecraft IP and the development studio that works on it, Mojang. The game’s creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, was not retained during the buyout.
It is expected that since the deal was finalized in 2014, Minecraft has sold over 100 million game copies between mobile, Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, accounting for about $1.5 billion on just game sales alone. That does not include sales from the spinoff Minecraft Dungeons, digital currency sales on the Minecraft Marketplace, or merchandise figures from clothes, toys, and other physical knickknacks. It is believed that Microsoft has more than broke even on their Minecraft purchase, although we have no concrete declaration that this is true.
