Microsoft May Buy Mojang, But They Won’t Get Notch

A Bloomberg report on the impending sale of Mojang to Microsoft has a bunch of details you're already heard, but buried within the sales figures and quotes is an interesting wrinkle: when the sale is complete, Mojang founder Markus "Notch" Persson won't be with the company anymore.

According to the report, Persson himself reached out to Microsoft months ago about a sale of his company based on a "positive working relationship on Minecraft for Xbox." Citing a source "familiar with Microsoft," Bloomberg also says that "two companies quickly agreed on a framework and approximate price and have been working out the details since."

But here's where things get weird: the very next line of the article reads: "Persson will help out with the transition, though he is unlikely to remain beyond that." That says pretty clearly that once the sale has completed, Mr. Mojang himself is off to work on his next great venture.

We can't understand why Notch would take his ball and go home once Microsoft is in charge of the studio. We suppose it's to maintain his indie developer credentials and to keep being able to make the games he wants, but until he speaks up for himself all we can do is speculate.