Mojang

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Mojang AB
Notch Development AB
Notch Enterprises
Type Aktiebolag
Private limited company
Industry Video games
Founded 2009
Founder(s) Carl O. Manneh
Markus A. Persson
H. Jakob Porsér
Headquarters Maria Skolgata 83 nb[1]
Stockholm, Sweden[2]
Key people Markus Persson
Chairman of the Board
Carl Manneh
Chief executive officer
Products Minecraft
Scrolls
Cobalt
0x10c
Revenue Increase 1.504 billion SEK - 2012
Operating income Increase 584.886 million SEK - 2012
Profit Increase 324.666 million SEK - 2012
Total assets Increase 773.384 million SEK - 2012
Total equity Increase 337.898 million SEK - 2012
Owner(s) Notch Enterprises - 42%[3]
Employees 31 - January 2013[4]
Parent Notch Enterprises[3]
Website http://mojang.com/

References: 2012 Year End Report[5]
Mojang AB offices in Maria Skolgata 83, nb[6]

Mojang AB (mojäng: Swedish for gadget), pronounced /mʊˈjɛŋ/, is a Swedish independent video game developer founded in May 2009 under the name Mojang Specifications by Markus Persson,[7] and most known for creating the popular independent game Minecraft. It is currently developing the games Scrolls and 0x10c, while continuing to update Minecraft. Mojang's company headquarters is in Stockholm.[8]

Contents

History

Following a paid trip and employment offer from Valve Corporation in early September 2010, Markus Persson and Jakob Porsér founded Mojang, with Carl Manneh later brought in as a CEO,[9] as Persson desired to run a self-made independent studio for the continued development of Minecraft.[10] Within a year, the company grew to a size of twelve employees, with their second video game, Scrolls, in development, as well as serving as the publisher of Cobalt.[11] In 2011, Napster founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker offered to invest in Mojang, but was declined.[12] By March 2012, the company had accumulated a net income of over $80 million.[13]

In late March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a space-based game. Although Mojang teased with an April Fools' Day website based around "Mars Effect", (citing the Bethesda lawsuit), it was confirmed that the game was indeed in development, albeit with a different name.[14] On April 4, Mojang revealed the game's title to be 0x10c, set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD of a parallel universe.[15] In September of that year, Mojang began a partnership with United Nations Human Settlements Programme called "Block by Block", which entails having Minecraft players constructing sites in-game to use as a basis for assisted development of the village of Kibera in the Nairobi area of Kenya.[16]

Games

Title Year Genre Notes
Minecraft[17] 2011 First person sandbox First game released.
Cobalt[18] TBA Action sidescroller First third-party published title.
Scrolls[19] TBA Tactical RPG
0x10c TBA Space sandbox

Until July 2012, Mojang was co-developing a video game called "Rex Kwon Do" alongside an undisclosed developer. Before the title had reached a significant stage of development, Mojang cancelled the collaboration, due to their lack of involvement and influence on the project.[20]

Mini-games

Title Year Genre
Catacomb Snatch 2012 (for Mojam) Shoot 'em up
Endless Nuclear Kittens 2013 (for Mojam 2) Action
Nuclear Pizza War 2013 (for Mojam 2) Shoot 'em up
Battle Frogs 2013 (for Mojam 2) Side scroller

Catacomb Snatch

Lord Lard's Start in Catacomb Snatch

Catacomb Snatch is a shoot 'em up strategy game with steampunk and Ancient Egypt themes developed by Mojang for the Humble Bundle Mojam in which 100% of proceeds were given to four charities/non-profit organizations, including charity: water, Child's Play, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and American Red Cross. Both the genre and theme were picked by a survey on Mojang's website (combination of the highest and lowest voted of each).[21] The Mojam sold 81,575 bundles and raised US$458,248.99.[22][23] The gameplay consists of shooting enemies and their spawners to obtain coins for use to buy various items. The goal is to create a track to the center of the map to where the chalice is located and put robots on the track to collect all of the resource. The game can be played in single or multiplayer with players starting on opposite sides of the map and competing to see who can fill their collection percentage first.[24]

Block by Block project

In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block charity project in cooperation with UN-Habitat to create and design real-world environments in Minecraft.[25] The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see and involve them in urban planning. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process," adding that “the three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat’s Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016.” Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi’s informal settlements, and is in the planning phase. The Block By Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture.[26] By 2016, 300 of the areas UN-Habitat plans to remodel will be recreated in Minecraft.[27]

Lawsuits

ZeniMax Media v. Mojang AB

ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks filed a lawsuit against Mojang on September 27, 2011, claiming that Mojang's planned trademark of the title, Scrolls, infringed upon Bethesda's trademark of The Elder Scrolls series.[28] On October 18, Markus Persson announced that Mojang had won the interim injunction, but that Bethesda still had the option to file an appeal.[29] In March 2012, Mojang and Bethesda reached a settlement, in which Mojang would not trademark Scrolls, but Bethesda would not contest Mojang's naming of Scrolls, so long as it would not be a direct competitor against The Elder Scrolls.[30]

Uniloc USA v. Mojang AB

On July 20, 2012, Uniloc filed a lawsuit against Mojang, citing the Minecraft Pocket Edition as an infringement upon patents that give Uniloc exclusive rights to license checks on Android devices.[31] In response to an overwhelming amount of hate mail, Uniloc inventor Ric Richardson denied his own personal involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent and that the lawsuit against Mojang was not by his doing, although endorsed the security of the patent.[32]

Stance on Internet freedom

Persson tweeted, on January 13, 2012, that Mojang would "silently take down minecraft.net and mojang.com" as part of the January 18 protests against SOPA and PIPA. Persson said of the Stop Online Piracy Act and similar anti-pirating laws, "No sane person can be for SOPA. I don’t know if we’re sane, but we are strongly, uncompromisingly against SOPA, and any similar laws.".[33][34]

Awards

References

  1. ^ http://gulasidorna.eniro.se/f/mojang-ab:14460060?search_word=mojang
  2. ^ "Twitter/Markus Persson". Markus Persson. Retrieved 27 January 2011. 
  3. ^ a b "Minecraft-bolag omsatte 541 miljoner (Minecraft company had a turnover of 541 million) (Swedish)". svd.se. 
  4. ^ "Mojang | Employees". Mojang. 15 January 2013. 
  5. ^ "Bokslut & Nyckeltal - Mojang AB (Financial & Key figures - Mojang AB) (Swedish)". AllaBolag.se. 
  6. ^ "[1]." Google Maps. Verified on 01 December 2012. "Mojang AB"
  7. ^ PC Gamer (25 January 2011). "Minecraft Dev Diary - Mojang milestone, office overhaul". PC Gamer. Retrieved 23 February 2011. 
  8. ^ "Terms of Use." Minecraft. Retrieved on 22 September 2011. "Mojang AB Åsögatan 140 116 24, Stockholm Sweden"
  9. ^ Chapple, Craig (23 November 2012). "Mojang uncovered". Develop. Retrieved 27 November 2012. 
  10. ^ Persson, Markus (6 September 2010). "Hiring some people, getting an office, and all that!". Tumblr. Retrieved 27 March 2012. 
  11. ^ Persson, Markus (16 October 2011). "Happy birthday, us!". Tumblr. Retrieved 27 March 2012. 
  12. ^ Bradshaw, Tim (7 March 2012). "Minecraft makers Mojang notch up $80m revenues". Financial Times. Retrieved 27 March 2012. 
  13. ^ Reilly, Jim (7 March 2012). "Minecraft Rakes In $80 Million". Game Informer. 
  14. ^ Fields, Rebecca (31 March 2012). "Minecraft creator scores April Fool with 'Mars Effect'". Shadowlocked. 
  15. ^ Knapp, Alex (3 April 2012). "Mojang Registers Website For Its New Game '0x10c'". Forbes. 
  16. ^ Rose, Mike (5 September 2012). "Minecraft as a tool for urban improvement". Gamasutra. Retrieved 8 September 2012. 
  17. ^ "MineCon update". Lydia Winters. Retrieved 7 September 2011. 
  18. ^ "Games". Mojang.com. Retrieved 8 February 2012. 
  19. ^ Porsér, Jakob (2 March 2011). "Introducing our New Game: Scrolls". mojang.com. Retrieved 20 March 2011. 
  20. ^ Francis, Tom (25 July 2012). "Notch on why Minecraft still isn’t on Steam". PC Gamer. Retrieved 29 July 2012. 
  21. ^ Good, Owen (18 February 2012). "First Mojam Game Gets a Name: Catacomb Snatch [UPDATE]". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 20 February 2012. 
  22. ^ Good, Owen (19 February 2012). "Mojam Raises $440,000, but Notch’s Beard Appears to be Safe". Retrieved 20 February 2012. 
  23. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (20 February 2012). "Humble Bundle Mojam raises nearly $500k for charity". Eurogamer. 
  24. ^ Polson, John (20 February 2012). "Humble Bundle Mojam Creation: Catacomb Snatch (Mojang)". IndieGames.com. Retrieved 30 November 2012. 
  25. ^ Eördögh, Fruzsina (6 September 2012). "Minecraft Partners With United Nations For Urban Planning". ReadWrite. SAY Media. Retrieved 21 November 2012. 
  26. ^ Senior, Tom (5 September 2012). "Minecraft UN Block By Block project to help young people redesign their neighbourhoods". PC Gamer. Future plc. Retrieved 5 September 2012. 
  27. ^ "Minecraft to aid UN regeneration projects". BBC News. 26 November 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2013. 
  28. ^ Chalk, Andy (27 September 2011). "Mojang and Bethesda Are Going to Court". Escapist Magazine. Retrieved 29 September 2011. 
  29. ^ Goldfarb, Andrew (27 October 2011). "Notch Wins First Round Against Bethesda". IGN. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 
  30. ^ Graft, Kris (11 March 2012). "Bethesda, Mojang settle 'Scrolls' trademark lawsuit". Gamasutra. 
  31. ^ Bumgardner, Barry (20 July 2012). "Uniloc USA, Inc. et. al. v. Electronic Arts Inc.". United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas - Tyler Division. Retrieved 21 July 2012. 
  32. ^ Chalk, Andy (23 July 2012). "Uniloc Creator Denies Mojang Lawsuit Involvement". The Escapist. Retrieved 29 July 2012. 
  33. ^ "Gameranx". Retrieved 17 January 2012. 
  34. ^ "Mojang". Retrieved 17 January 2012. 
  35. ^ "The Escapist: Tournament: 2011 March Mayhem: Developer's Showdown". The Escapist. Retrieved 24 May 2011. 

External links

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