Markus Persson

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Markus Alexej Persson, more commonly known as Notch, is the creator of Minecraft and one of the founders of Mojang AB.

Biography

Persson started programming at the age of seven, using his dad's Commodore 128. He produced his first game (a text-adventure) at the age of eight, with the help of type-in programs. In 2005 he started working as a game developer for King.com, which he left in 2009 to work as a programmer at Jalbum. After Minecraft sales grew he moved from full-time to part-time at Jalbum and then eventually left to focus full-time on Minecraft in June 2010, many of the Mojang employees (including CEO Carl Manneh) are also ex-Jalbum employees. Outside of work he frequently takes part in competitions, including Ludum Dare, LD12 and the Java 4K Game Programming Contest.

Persson engaged Ez during a vacation in Indonesia, and married her in August 2011. The two separated in late 2012. Her brother, Kristoffer, is the artist whose paintings appear in the game.

Persson had his own part of the Mojang website that could be found at mojang.com/notch. This subdirectory has since been removed.

Persson sold Mojang and all of its assets to Microsoft on September 15, 2014. In a lengthy blog post, Notch states "I love games and I love to program, but I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world." He then goes on to say that "I’ve become a symbol. I don’t want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand, that I don’t want to work on."

Persson left Mojang on November 5, 2014 along with the other founders. He writes "As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I'll probably abandon it immediately."

Games and other work

Notch has released much of his work, including, but not limited to:

Games:

• MEG4kMANTemplate:Dead link, a Mega Man clone featuring old-school graphics.
• Left 4k DeadTemplate:Dead link, a zombie shooter game inspired by Left 4 Dead.
• t4knsTemplate:Dead link, a real time strategy game.
• Miners4kTemplate:Dead link, a game kind of inspired by Lemmings and Diggers.
• Hunters4k, a first person shooter.
• Dungeon4kTemplate:Dead link, a dungeon exploration game.
• Sonic Racer 4kTemplate:Dead link, a racing game with stolen sprites.
• Dachon4kTemplate:Dead link, a gravity based shooter.
• l4kritsTemplate:Dead link, a Luxor clone.
• Blast PassageTemplate:Dead link, an 8-Bit mashup between Bomberman and Gauntlet.
• Bunny PressTemplate:Dead link, a violent puzzle game made for Ludum Dare 14.
• Breaking the TowerTemplate:Dead link, a slow-paced strategy game.
• The Europa Arcology IncidentTemplate:Dead link, an RPG-style game Notch made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 16.
• Infinite Mario BrosTemplate:Dead link, a Super Mario clone featuring an endlessly-long level.
• MetagunTemplate:Dead link, a puzzle game Notch made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 18.
• Minecraft 4k, Minecraft in less than 4 KB for a Java4K competition.
• Prelude of the Chambered, an escape game Notch made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 21.
• MiniCraft, a top-down Zelda-esque game with elements from Minecraft, made for Ludum Dare 22.

2.5d Engines:

• Legend of the ChamberedTemplate:Dead link
• First person shooter prototype in flashTemplate:Dead link
• Flash doom level rendererTemplate:Dead link
• Dungeon master type game engine in JavaTemplate:Dead link (flash versionTemplate:Dead link, uses static graphics)

Notch also has a soundcloud page which includes 53 tracks in total.

Gallery

• Notchphoto.jpg

  Notch on his phone.

• 

  Notch wearing his iconic black fedora.

• Notch2.jpg
• MineCraft Con.JPG

  Notch with his fans at MinecraftCon 2010.

• Notch with two pc.png

  Notch using his computer.

• Minecraftwiki machinimainterview.png

  Notch (left) and Seananners (right) at the Machinima Realm Minecraft Interview; February 11, 2011.

• Notch-skin.png

  Notch's skin in Minecraft.

• Notchhat.jpg

  Notch unboxing his new hat.

• Notch - Mojang avatar.png

  Notch in a cartoon style.

• Notch Adweek.jpg

  Notch icon on Adweek's The Top 10 Technologists.

• Notchface santa.png

  Notch's Xmas 2011 Twitter icon.

• MINECON Notch.png

  At MINECON 2011.

• Notch receives the Pioneer Award at GDC 2016.jpg

  Notch at the 2016 Game Developers Conference.

Birthday

• On June 1, 2011, Notch posted on Twitter that he was 2⁵ years old. 2⁵ is 32, which was his age at the time.
• Notch programmed the Minecraft splash screen to display "Happy Birthday, Notch!" all day on June 1. This was removed in Java Edition 1.8.5.

See also

• Kristoffer - Former brother-in-law