Notch steps down as Minecraft lead developer

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson has stepped down as lead developer, replaced by Mojang cohort Jens Bergensten. "He will have the final say in all design decisions, so he will kinda sorta become my boss, I guess," Persson joked.

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Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson has stepped down as lead developer on the indie dig 'em up yesterday, replaced by Mojang cohort Jens Bergensten. "He will have the final say in all design decisions, so he will kinda sorta become my boss, I guess," Mojang founder Persson joked. "I've promised him to not pull rank."

"We've been working together on Minecraft for a year now, and I'm amazed at how much in synch we two are when it comes to how to design the game," Persson said of Bergensten. "And when we don't agree, we discuss it and something much better comes out at a result. He's truly a great person to work with, and I feel very confident handing over the leadership of Minecraft to him."

Though Minecraft officially launched, at long last, at MineCon in November, work still continues on improving and expanding it. Then there's the Xbox 360 edition to finish, too.

"Personally, I will now rest for a while, then get back to work refreshed and eager," Persson said. "I'll be helping out with Minecraft, of course, but also starting work on some new project."

Mojang Specifications has its finger in many pies. As well as developing Scrolls and publishing Oxeye's Cobalt, secret things are afoot. Persson has known to be working on a mysterious new project for some time now, mentioning in September that he was prototyping.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    December 2, 2011 7:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Notch steps down as Minecraft lead developer.

    Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson has stepped down as lead developer, replaced by Mojang cohort Jens Bergensten. "He will have the final say in all design decisions, so he will kinda sorta become my boss, I guess," Persson joked.

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      December 2, 2011 7:47 AM

      lol

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      December 2, 2011 7:47 AM

      JohnnyRey is most displeased.

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      December 2, 2011 7:49 AM

      Jens is the shit.

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      December 2, 2011 8:08 AM

      Lead Developers don't design products they design how to design the software in order to fulfill requirements.

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      December 2, 2011 8:16 AM

      All he wanted was the TF2 hat. Now he's got that...

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      December 2, 2011 8:21 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 2, 2011 8:29 AM

      http://imgur.com/0QLOx

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      December 2, 2011 8:31 AM

      Thank you for the past couple years of Minecraft, Notch. I'm sure Jens will do a good job.

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      December 2, 2011 8:42 AM

      super belated announcement

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      December 2, 2011 9:18 AM

      Does anyone else feel like Notch takes a ton of vacations ?

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        December 2, 2011 9:22 AM

        If I had made all the money I am sure he has in the last few years, I'd be taking a ton of vacations too.

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        December 2, 2011 9:55 AM

        oldie but a goodie http://i56.tinypic.com/5e8iuo.png

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        December 2, 2011 11:08 AM

        As long as humanly possible i want to hire people to work for me so I don't have to
        Should be everybody's goal in life

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          December 2, 2011 11:17 AM

          Essentially, that's the entire point of starting your own business. At some point hopefully you'll have enough people working for you that you can do what you want, which can be taking vacations and raking in the cash.

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            December 2, 2011 11:27 AM

            [deleted]

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            December 2, 2011 11:48 AM

            You're completely wrong. That's not the point of a business.

            Can you imagine if Steve jobs did that? Lol.

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              December 2, 2011 12:04 PM

              Billionaires are the same only their workaholics too so work is vacation for them.

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              December 2, 2011 12:20 PM

              yeah but steve jobs was mentally ill

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              December 2, 2011 1:55 PM

              What's the point of starting a business, kabex? Please enlighten me.

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                December 2, 2011 2:17 PM

                To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

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                December 2, 2011 2:27 PM

                To get hot chicks to sleep with you and buy lots of toys. Oh also to avoid taxes.

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                December 2, 2011 2:31 PM

                You have to spend your allowance on something don't you?

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                December 2, 2011 4:54 PM

                Didn't Kabex admit at one point that "I've also had several failed businesses."?

                Oh yeah, he did:

                http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=27135525

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                  December 3, 2011 10:18 AM

                  Words of advice from kabex:

                  The point of starting a business is to have it fail so that you can continue to collect weekly allowances from your dad and avoid any significant personal responsibility, accountability and maturity, while retaining the authority to hand down life lessons to the denizens of internet gaming forums.

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              December 2, 2011 4:52 PM

              Yeah, I was a bit strong there with that. You start a business to eventually have the freedom to do what you want.

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              December 2, 2011 11:33 PM

              Says the one who wants to retire by age 35

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            December 2, 2011 12:03 PM

            That's where my boss is at right now, He's been out of office about 25% of the work days this year. Not to mention leaving early, coming in late, and doing stuff like getting a haircut in the middle of the day.

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            December 2, 2011 12:39 PM

            lol

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        December 2, 2011 12:06 PM

        Why do you care?

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          December 2, 2011 12:14 PM

          I think Notch reveals a simple fact about the internet. Any information you give state about yourself, someone's going to complain about it.

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        December 2, 2011 2:30 PM

        He deserves it. He created an awesome game. Now he's a millionaire.

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      December 2, 2011 12:09 PM

      I'm completely cool with that Jens is a machine.

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        December 2, 2011 12:12 PM

        Jens is the best

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          December 2, 2011 2:04 PM

          this post needs more love

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            December 2, 2011 2:23 PM

            this post needs more love

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              December 2, 2011 2:33 PM

              disagreed. It's THIS post that needs more love.

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                December 2, 2011 6:08 PM

                /sprays his warm liquid love all over the backs of this sub-thread

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                  December 2, 2011 11:22 PM

                  Giving love to threads since 2001!

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        December 2, 2011 12:51 PM

        BTW that's pronounced Yens.

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          December 2, 2011 1:31 PM

          I would hope that most of us are aware that the english pronunciation of J is somewhat unique

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            December 2, 2011 1:34 PM

            french >:-(

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              December 2, 2011 2:04 PM

              Je t'acuse!

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              December 2, 2011 5:55 PM

              what of it? Their J doesn't sound like English J (postalveolar fricative vs affricate)

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                December 2, 2011 6:14 PM

                quickest minimal pair I can think of is leisure vs ledger. (the s being pronounced like a French J, the dg being pronounced by our J) They differ in pronunciation by one phone, meaning each is (in English at least) a distinct phoneme. IE they are not the same sound and are not perceived as such. Depending on accent, measure vs major could serve as well (the initial vowel is a stretch, but it provides a second word without that distracting d)

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              December 2, 2011 5:58 PM

              what of it? French J doesn't sound like English J (postalveolar fricative vs affricate).

              I did use a weasel word (somewhat) in my first post to leave open the possibility that there is another language with a J that sounds like ours, but I can't think of any and French isn't it

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                December 2, 2011 6:00 PM

                fffuuuuuu longest delay between hitting post and it showing up I've seen on the shack. I waited three minutes before posting again :(

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            December 2, 2011 6:01 PM

            Jarl

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          December 2, 2011 4:56 PM

          How do you pronounce the name he gave himself on twitter?

          http://twitter.com/#!/jeb_

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          December 2, 2011 8:05 PM

          ¥ is the best.

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      December 2, 2011 11:26 PM

      Okay. Minecraft... it is truly awesome but it could do with more love. There are awesome things done as mods that should be plain-vanilla: Matmos mod among them, or at least, a proper Mod feature, so you can click or unclick those you want in a certain moment. Like the Creatures mod. That would be a blast. Messing with the .jar and file subclasses is a mess....

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        December 2, 2011 11:32 PM

        Notch forgot about mod support.

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          December 3, 2011 4:12 AM

          Hopefully Jeb will do... he should know its the Way To Go!

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      December 3, 2011 12:28 AM

      He stepped down a long time ago...

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