Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick says he came close to owning Minecraft when he flew to Stockholm and offered Mojang founder Markus “Notch” Persson USD 1.5 billion, only to learn that Microsoft had made a higher bid and eventually bought the studio for USD 2.5 billion in 2014.
Kotick recounted the episode during a recent podcast appearance with Ari Emanuel and Elon Musk, and a clip was shared on the podcast’s X post. He says he spent five days meeting Notch and Mojang leadership and put USD 1.5 billion on the table. Notch then told him he intended to quit and that much of his team was leaving the company. After that call, Notch relayed that Microsoft had offered USD 2.5 billion and that the deal had closed.
Kotick frames the episode as a near miss and recalls telling Notch to take the Microsoft offer. He also praised Matt Booty at Xbox Game Studios for how Minecraft has been handled since the acquisition. Kotick left Activision Blizzard after a 32-year run that included the merger of Activision and Blizzard and many eras of corporate change.
The anecdote underlines how close the industry came to a very different ownership path for one of gaming’s biggest franchises. Had Activision acquired Mojang in 2014 then things around IP crossovers and future corporate relationships might have followed a different route. Instead, Microsoft acquired Mojang, and the game has continued to evolve under Xbox, with ongoing tests and feature additions, such as the recent Netherite horse armor trials reported earlier.
For readers tracking the longer arc of consolidation in the industry, the story also ties into the later Xbox – Activision Blizzard deal that formally completed in 2023 after years of regulatory review and litigation. Kotick’s claim does not change the outcome, but it does provide a rare first-person recollection of how the sale played out on the ground.
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