61 Facts About Markus Persson

Markus Persson is best known for creating the sandbox video game Minecraft, which has since become the best-selling video game of all time, and for founding the video game company Mojang in 2009.

Markus Persson reached massive critical success for his release of Minecraft in 2009, which sold ten million copies by 2011.

Markus Persson was lead designer until the game was finished and released in 2011, after which he transferred creative authority to Jens Bergensten.

In 2019, Microsoft denounced Markus Persson's views, removed mentions of him from Minecraft, and did not invite him to the game's tenth anniversary celebration.

Markus Alexej Persson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to a Finnish mother Ritva and a Swedish father Birger on 1 June 1979.

Markus Persson grew up in Edsbyn until age 7, before his family moved back to Stockholm.

In Edsbyn, Markus Persson's father worked for the railroad and his mother was a nurse.

Markus Persson spent much time outdoors in Edsbyn, exploring the woods with his friends.

When Markus Persson was around age seven, his parents divorced, and he and his sister lived with their mother.

Markus Persson's father moved to a cabin in the countryside.

Markus Persson said in an interview that they experienced food insecurity around once a month.

Markus Persson lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce.

Markus Persson's sister experimented with drugs and ran away from home.

Markus Persson had gained interest in video games at an early age.

Markus Persson's father was "a really big nerd", who built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family's Commodore 128.

On it, Markus Persson played bootleg games and loaded in various type-in programs from computer magazines with the help of his sister.

Markus Persson began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven.

Markus Persson produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game.

Markus Persson, although introverted, was well-liked by his peers, but after entering secondary school was a "loner" and reportedly only had one friend.

Markus Persson spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home.

Markus Persson managed to reverse engineer the Doom engine, which he continued to take great pride in as of 2014.

Markus Persson never finished high school, but was reportedly a good student.

Markus Persson later found employment at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson.

Between 2004 and 2009, Markus Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer.

Markus Persson entered a number of game design competitions and participated in discussions on the TIGSource forums, a web forum for independent game developers.

In 2009, Markus Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game.

On 17 May 2009, Markus Persson released the original edition of Minecraft on the TIGSource forums.

Markus Persson regularly updated the game based on feedback from TIGSource users.

Markus Persson released several new versions of Minecraft throughout 2009 and 2010, including Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev.

On 30 June 2010, Markus Persson released the games Alpha version.

In 2010, after the release and subsequent success of Minecraft's Alpha version, Markus Persson moved from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum.

In September 2010, Markus Persson travelled to Valve Corporation's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell.

Markus Persson was offered a job at Valve, which he turned down in order to continue work on Minecraft.

Markus Persson has stated that, due to the intense media attention and public pressure, he became exhausted with running Minecraft and the company.

Since leaving Mojang, Markus Persson has worked on several small projects.

Markus Persson expressed interest in creating a new video game studio in 2020, and in developing virtual reality games.

Since leaving Mojang, Markus Persson has criticized the direction of Minecraft on several occasions.

Markus Persson described Minecraft as a "dead game" in 2021.

In 2011, Markus Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, whom he had dated for four years before.

On 14 December 2011 Markus Persson's father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily.

Markus Persson was proud of me and made sure I knew.

Markus Persson later admitted that he himself suffered from depression and various highs and lows in his mood.

Markus Persson has criticized both piracy and the stance of large game companies on piracy; additionally, he is a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden.

Markus Persson has donated to numerous charities, including Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Markus Persson donated $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012.

In 2014, Markus Persson was one of the biggest tax payers in Sweden.

In December 2014, Markus Persson purchased a home in Trousdale Estates, Beverly Hills, CA for $70 million, a record sales price for Beverly Hills at the time.

Markus Persson is a member of the Swedish chapter of Mensa.

Markus Persson began receiving widespread criticism for political and social opinions he expressed on social media as early as 2016.

Markus Persson has been accused of transphobia, although he denied this in 2016.

Markus Persson then promoted claims that people were fined for "using the wrong pronoun".

On 30 November 2017, Markus Persson tweeted that "It's okay to be white" stating his belief that privilege was a "made up metric", although he denounced generalizations and differential treatment solely on the basis of skin color.

Markus Persson left his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until completion.

Mojang hired several new staff members for the Minecraft team, while Markus Persson passed the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten.

Markus Persson stopped working on Minecraft after a deal with Microsoft to sell Mojang for $2.5 billion.

Markus Persson noted that he will not be actively involved in development of the game and that Porser will be developing it.

Markus Persson revealed on his tumblr blog on 5 August 2011 that he was being sued by a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks over the trademarked name of Scrolls, claiming that it conflicted with their The Elder Scrolls series of games.

On 17 August 2011, Markus Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to decide the outcome of the naming dispute.

On 27 September 2011, Markus Persson confirmed that the lawsuit was going to court.

In 2013, Markus Persson made a free game called Shambles in the Unity game engine.

Markus Persson has participated in several Ludum Dare 48-hour game making competitions.