First gaming billionaire outbid Beyoncé on a mansion with Minecraft money | World | News

Faking stomach aches to stay at home and write code on his dad’s mammoth 80s computer, there would be no reason for Markus Persson’s mum to think her son was making good use of his time in a world of video game fear mongering. Little did she know her vain attempts to drag her son out of the house to play football would not deter his passion for gaming, a passion that would earn him billions. 

In 2014, an ocean or two away from his town of Edsbyn, Sweden, Persson would outbid Jay-Z and Beyoncé on a $70million Beverley Hills mansion fit with a car lift, eight bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, an infinity pool, a large hot tub and an 18-seat home theatre at the age of 35. It was at this point he also started posting offensive tweets.

However, the journey to get here was long. Even five years before, Persson was churning out mobile games for King, of Candy Crush fame, returning home to his dingy Stockholm flat and logging onto gaming forum Tick Source after hours to write his own code. It was here that the foundations for Minecraft began to be laid.

Since he was a child, Persson loved what he called “just barely getting lost”, according to the BBC’s The Good Bad Billionaire podcast, exploring the forests of his neighbourhood. Persson’s dad, Birger, was a full-time railway worker and a “really big nerd” according to his son. He brought home a computer when Presson was eight and he quickly started writing code into it, read out from coding magazines by his younger sister Anna.

In 1988, his mum moved him to Stockholm after divorcing his dad when he turned to amphetamines and drinking, ending up in jail. Despite making new friends in high school, he dropped out after teachers told him there was no future in the computer industry – and instead he should be a graphic designer. Luckily, Persson did not listen.

By 2001, Persson was a very capable coder, but was one of many who needed a job after the initial .com boom was quelled by cuts. He then landed a job in the games industry in King, which was previously called Midasplayer. Here, churning out games with what he felt was a quantity over quality mindset, he said: “Studios make games to make money – indie gamers make games just to makes games.”.

Here he met Jakob Porser, who told Rolling Stone Persson was “a lot of fun and slightly weird, which I enjoyed.” He added: “He can be superhappy or superdown as well. There’s normally not a lot of in-between.”

He also met a new programmer called Elin Zetterstrand, whom he started dating. He continued to focus on his passion – MMO RPGS (massively multiplayer online games) – such as World of WarCraft. However, King didn’t like this and asked him to focus on his job, so in 2008 he left.

Persson thought too many games handed players a list of tasks, but he liked open ended games like Roller Coaster Tycoon. He liked the freedom – it reminded him of playing Lego as a kid and being able to build whatever you want out of basic blocks. He also liked user generated universes and interacting with things others have built.

Scrolling through his gaming forum Tick Source he found a game called Infiniminer made by Zak Barth. This was a sandbox game meaning you could build freely in an open environment. Miraculously Barth was not peeved about Persson’s rip off saying: “The act of borrowing ideas is integral to the creative process. There are games that came before Infiniminer, and there are games that will come after MineCraft. That’s how it works.”

So, at 30 years old, Persson finished the first version of his new game: Minecraft. The graphics were blocky on purpose – everything can be collected and turned into tools. The aim was to build yourself shelter because when night falls, monsters come out.

When he decided to quit his day job, his dad was the only one to back him. On 17 May 2009, Persson uploaded Minecraft to Tick Source and asked for feedback. It did very well. In the early days of YouTube videos, people were posting about the game and sharing memes on Reddit and 4Chan. It was simple but people loved it.

It was time to sell it. Persson posted saying the real version would cost $26 when finished and $13 before the release date if people bought it there and then. In fact, by July 2010, he was pulling in $5000 a day on online sales – and he had not spent a single cent on marketing. By September, Minecraft had sold 300,000 copies.

Persson had so much money flooding into his PayPal account that they blocked it – by this point he’d made over $300 million. He then reached out Jakob Porser and asked him to quit his job and help him. Together they registered a new business as Mojang JB. By December Mojang, had hired a small team and worked around the clock to finish Minecraft. By Jan 2011 – 1million copies had sold and three months later this doubled to 2million.

Then he struck a deal with Sony Ericsson to turn Minecraft into a mobile game, before signing an Xbox deal. Before long, Persson was predicting a $15million turnover for the year.

Marrying Zetterstrand in 2011, two months later Persson held his first MineCon where 4,500 people aged four to 77 gathered to show their love for the game. They dressed up in big blocky heads and the now millionaire even signed a whole baby. At this point the MineCraft universe was eight times the size of earth.

He said: “It’s very overwhelming the reason I started working on Minecraft and kept working in it is because there were people playing it. The reason we started the company was because there were fans.” Then he made the shock decision to step down as lead designer – and took a year to rest.

A few weeks after stepping down, his dad died by suicide. He said: “It was shocking it took me a while to even realise it was real.” He told the New Yorker: “There’s a conflict between the joy of being able to do whatever I want and the remarkable pressure of a watching world. I don’t know how to switch it off.”

He got a taste for the high life, inviting Skrillex to his parties. One colleague said: “Markus loves getting wasted.” He had previously said: “If I get rich, I’m not gonna be one of those boring, stuffy rich people that never spends anything.”

In 2011, he gave $2.2million dividend to his employees. A year after marriage, he and Elin filed for divorce. And a year later he shelved his next game. One day he saw torrent of abuse on his phone when people reacted to a new rule, a limit on what players could charge each other for weapons.

He tweeted: “Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life.” Microsoft saw the tweet, and bought his share. Staffers felt “disappointed and empty” prompting Persson to say he “spoiled them and their reaction hurts me.” He then posted a statement saying “I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter… It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.”

Mojang was sold to Microsoft for $2.5billion and hit Forbes’ rich list – the first to become a billionaire from creating a game. Semi-retired at 36, he started Rubber brain saying the “gaming world doesn’t need more under-delivering visionaries.” It was at this point he outbid Jay-Z for his $70million Beverley Hills mansion.

He then posted to Twitter saying: “Hanging out in Ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I’ve never felt more isolated.” Shortly after he posted a follow-up saying: “To people out there with real problems: I’m sorry the whining of a newly wealthy programmer gets more attention than yours. Stay strong.”

On another X, formerly Twitter, tirade he posted comments, including transphobic statements and comments about a “heterosexual pride day,” saying anyone who opposes it should be “shot” and that “it’s ok to be white.” He also endorsed far right conspiracy theory Q Anon in 2019. He didn’t officially apologised for these tweets. Microsoft then scrubbed all references to his alter-ego Notch from Minecraft.

After briefly deleting his X account in 2020, he posted about starting various new projects . He even said he was excited about the new Minecraft film saying: “For a movie about a game with literally zero plot, it looks surprisingly fun!“

He now owns the most expensive apartment in Stockholm that he bought for $2.6million. He also bought a rare Aphex Twin vinyl, Caustic Window, for $46,000.

If you’re struggling and need to talk, the Samaritans operate a free helpline open 24/7 on 116 123. Alternatively, you can email jo@samaritans.org or visit their site to find your local branch.