Markus Alexej Persson (born June 1, 1979), known as Notch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer. He created Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history. In 2009, he founded Mojang Studios, a video game development company.

Persson started making video games when he was young. His success began when he released an early version of Minecraft in 2009. Before the game officially sold in stores in 2011, it had sold more than four million copies. After this, Persson stepped down as the lead designer and gave creative control to Jens Bergensten. In September 2014, Persson announced he would leave Mojang. In November 2014, the company was sold to Microsoft for about 2.5 billion dollars, which made Persson a billionaire.

Since 2016, some of Persson’s tweets about feminism, race, and transgender rights caused public debates. He has been described as a person who makes controversial statements about race, the LGBTQ community, gender, and other topics. To distance itself from Persson, Microsoft removed his name from Minecraft (except for one mention in the game’s end credits) and did not invite him to the game’s tenth anniversary event.

In 2015, Persson helped start a new game studio called Rubberbrain. The studio was relaunched in 2024 as Bitshift Entertainment.

Early life

Markus Alexej Persson was born on June 1, 1979, in Stockholm, Sweden. His mother, Ritva, is from Finland, and his father, Birger, is from Sweden. He has one sister. Persson lived in Edsbyn until he was seven years old, when his family returned to Stockholm. In Edsbyn, his father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a nurse. He spent much time outdoors, exploring the woods with friends.

When Persson was about seven years old, his parents divorced. He and his sister moved in with their mother, while his father lived in a cabin in the countryside. Persson said in an interview that his family sometimes did not have enough food to eat. He lost contact with his father for several years after the divorce.

Persson explained that his father struggled with depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and misuse of medication. His father was also jailed for robberies. Although his father had improved during Persson’s early life, he later relapsed, which contributed to the divorce. Persson’s sister also tried drugs and ran away from home.

Persson became interested in video games at a young age. His father, who was very interested in technology, built his own modem and taught Persson to use the family’s Commodore 128 computer. On this computer, Persson played unofficial games and used programs from computer magazines with his sister’s help. The first game he bought with his own money was The Bard’s Tale. At age seven, he began programming on his father’s Commodore 128 computer. He created his first game, a text-based adventure game, when he was eight years old.

By 1994, Persson knew he wanted to become a video game developer. His teachers suggested he study graphic design, which he did from ages 15 to 18.

Although Persson was shy, he was liked by his peers. However, after starting secondary school, he became a “loner” and reportedly had only one friend. He spent most of his free time playing games and programming at home. He never finished high school, but he was described as a good student.

Career

Markus Persson began his career as a web designer. He later worked at Game Federation, where he met Rolf Jansson. Together, they created the 2006 video game Wurm Online during their free time. The game was released by a new company called "Mojang Specifications AB." Persson left the project in late 2007. To reuse the name "Mojang," Jansson agreed to rename the company to Onetoofree AB.

Between 2004 and 2009, Persson worked as a game developer for Midasplayer (later known as King). There, he programmed browser games made with Flash. Later, he worked as a programmer for jAlbum.

Before creating Minecraft, Persson developed several small games. He also participated in game design competitions and discussed ideas on TIGSource, a website for independent game developers.

One of Persson's notable personal projects was RubyDung, a 3D isometric base-building game similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon and Dwarf Fortress. While working on RubyDung, he tested a first-person view mode like that in Dungeon Keeper. However, he removed this feature because the graphics were too pixelated.

In 2009, Persson found inspiration in Infiniminer, a block-based mining game. This game influenced his work on RubyDung and led him to return the first-person mode, "blocky" visual style, and block-building mechanics to the game.

RubyDung is the earliest known prototype of Minecraft created by Persson.

On 17 May 2009, Persson released the original version of Minecraft (later called the "Classic version") on TIGSource forums. He updated the game regularly based on user feedback. Throughout 2009 and 2010, he released several versions of Minecraft, including the Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev phases. On 30 June 2010, the Alpha version was released.

While working on the pre-Alpha version of Minecraft, Persson continued his job at jAlbum. In 2010, after the success of Minecraft’s Alpha version, he transitioned from a full-time role to a part-time role at jAlbum. He left the company later that year.

In September 2010, Persson visited Valve Corporation’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, U.S., where he participated in a programming exercise and met Gabe Newell. He was later offered a job at Valve but declined to continue working on Minecraft.

On 20 December 2010, Minecraft entered its beta phase and expanded to mobile platforms. In January 2011, the game reached one million registered accounts. Six months later, it reached ten million. By 7 November 2011, Minecraft had sold over four million copies. Mojang held the first Minecon event from 18 to 19 November 2011 to celebrate the game’s full release, making it an annual event. In December 2011, Persson handed creative control of Minecraft to Jens Bergensten and began working on another game, 0x10c, though he reportedly abandoned the project around 2013.

In 2013, Mojang reported revenues of $330 million and profits of $129 million.

Persson stated that intense media attention and public pressure made him feel exhausted from managing Minecraft and Mojang.

In a September 2014 blog post, he explained that he felt disconnected from his fans and no longer wanted to be responsible for Mojang’s growing operations.

In June 2014, Persson tweeted, "Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life?" He owned 71% of Mojang at the time. The offer attracted interest from Activision Blizzard, EA, and Microsoft. Forbes later reported that Microsoft wanted to buy Mojang as a "tax dodge" to convert taxable cash into other assets.

In September 2014, Microsoft agreed to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion, making Persson a billionaire. He left the company after the deal was finalized in November.

After leaving Mojang, Persson worked on small projects. In June 2014, he founded a company called Rubberbrain AB with Porsér. By 2021, the company had no games despite spending SEK 60 million. It was relaunched as Bitshift Entertainment, LLC in March 2024. Persson expressed interest in creating a new game studio in 2020 and developing virtual reality games. He also created a series of immersive events called ".party()", which use visual effects and have been hosted in multiple cities.

At the start of 2025, Persson decided to create a spiritual successor to Minecraft, called "Minecraft 2," based on a poll on X. However, after discussing the idea with his team, he changed his decision and chose to develop a roguelike game titled Levers and Chests instead.

Games

Markus Persson's most well-known creation is the survival sandbox game Minecraft. It was first made available to the public on May 17, 2009, and fully released on November 18, 2011. Persson quit his job as a game developer to work on Minecraft full-time until it was completed. In early 2011, Mojang AB sold the one millionth copy of the game. A few months later, they sold the second millionth copy, and then the third millionth copy shortly after. Mojang added new team members to work on Minecraft, and Persson handed over the lead developer role to Jens Bergensten. Persson stopped working on Minecraft after Mojang was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. This sale increased Persson’s net worth to US$1.5 billion.

Persson and Jakob Porsér created the game Scrolls, which includes ideas from board games and collectible card games. Persson said he would not be directly involved in Scrolls’ development, and Porsér would lead the project. On August 5, 2011, Persson shared on his Tumblr blog that a Swedish law firm representing Bethesda Softworks was suing him over the name Scrolls, claiming it conflicted with Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls series. On August 17, 2011, Persson challenged Bethesda to a Quake 3 tournament to resolve the naming dispute. On September 27, 2011, Persson confirmed the lawsuit would go to court. ZeniMax Media, which owns Bethesda Softworks, announced the lawsuit was settled in March 2012. The settlement allowed Mojang to keep using the name Scrolls. In 2018, Scrolls was released for free and renamed to Caller’s Bane.

Cliffhorse is a humorous game created in two hours using the Unity game engine and free assets. It was inspired by Skyrim’s physics engine, “the more embarrassing minimum-effort Greenlight games,” Goat Simulator, and Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. The game was released as an early access and honorware game for Microsoft Windows on the first day of E3 2014. It asked users to donate Dogecoin to “buy” the game before downloading it. The game collected over 280,000 Dogecoins.

After leaving Minecraft, Persson began planning an alternate reality space game set in the distant future in March 2012. On April Fools’ Day, Mojang launched a satirical website for Mars Effect (a parody of Mass Effect), inspired by the lawsuit with Bethesda. The gameplay remained true to the original idea, and on April 4, Mojang revealed 0x10 (pronounced “Ten to the C”) as a space sandbox game. Persson officially stopped working on the game in August 2013. However, C418, the composer of the game’s soundtrack (and Minecraft’s soundtrack), released an album of the music he created for the game.

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

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

Personal life

In 2011, Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, a former moderator on the Minecraft forums. They had dated for four years before getting married. They had a daughter together, but by mid-2012, Persson saw little of her. On August 15, 2012, he announced that he and his wife had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized later that year.

On December 14, 2011, Persson’s father committed suicide with a handgun after drinking heavily. In an interview with The New Yorker, Persson said his father supported his decision to leave his job and work on his own games. His father was proud of him and told him that the dark caves in Minecraft became too scary for him. Persson said this was the only true criticism he ever heard from his father. Later, Persson admitted he suffered from depression and had ups and downs in his mood.

Persson has criticized the way large game companies handle piracy. He once said, “Piracy is not theft,” believing that unauthorized downloads could become future customers. In 2011, he said he was a member of the Pirate Party of Sweden and also a member of Mensa.

He has donated to many charities, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Under his leadership, Mojang created a game called Catacomb Snatch for the Humble Indie Bundle and raised $458,248 for charity. He also gave $250,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2012. In 2011, he gave $3 million in dividends back to Mojang employees.

According to Forbes, his net worth in 2023 was about $1.2 billion. In 2014, he was one of Sweden’s biggest taxpayers. Around that time, he lived in a multi-level penthouse in Östermalm, Stockholm, an area he described as “where the rich people live.” In December 2014, he bought a home in Trousdale Estates, a neighborhood in Beverly Hills, California, for $70 million, a record sales price for that area at the time. He reportedly outbid Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the property.

As early as 2016, Persson began receiving criticism for political and social opinions he shared on social media. In 2017, he proposed a heterosexual pride holiday and wrote that those who opposed the idea “deserve to be shot.” After backlash, he deleted the tweets and rescinded his statements, saying, “So yeah, it’s about pride of daring to express, not about pride of being who you are. I get it now.” Later that year, he called feminism a “social disease” and used a harsh word to describe Zoë Quinn, a feminist and video game developer. He generally criticized the GamerGate movement but described intersectional feminism as a “framework for bigotry” and said the term mansplaining is sexist. He also tweeted, “It’s okay to be white,” and believed in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

In 2019, he tweeted that “Q is legit. Don’t trust the media,” referencing QAnon. Later that year, he responded to a pro-transgender internet meme by saying, “You are absolutely evil if you want to encourage delusion. What happened to not stigmatizing mental illness?” He also promoted claims that people were fined for using the wrong pronoun. After backlash, he tweeted, “I have no idea what [being trans is] like, but it’s inspiring when people open up and choose to be who they know themselves as. Not because it’s a cool choice, because it’s a big step. I guess that’s actually cool.” Later that year, Microsoft removed two mentions of Persson’s name in the “19w13a” snapshot of Minecraft and did not invite him to the game’s 10th-anniversary celebration. A Microsoft spokesperson said his views “do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang.” He is still mentioned in the End Poem (“a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus”).