The People Who Stayed
In December of 2020, a business news site reported something that sounds like nothing at all. Mojang, the studio that makes Minecraft, had stopped paying its staff a holiday bonus.
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The People Who Stayed
Minecraft has given its updates away for free since 2009, and the people who make them are the part of the story nobody counts. This episode follows the studio instead of its founder: the twenty-five people who took in two hundred and thirty-eight million dollars in 2012, the colleague a founder handed the game to a month after launch, the retention payment a seller made out of his own pocket, and the December bonus a grown-up company stopped paying in 2019.
The story in short
Mojang was small for a long time. In 2012 the company had twenty-five employees and reported revenue of about 1.5 billion Swedish kronor, or $237.7 million, up nearly 177 percent on the fifteen months before it. Of that revenue, 640 million kronor, about $101.4 million, went to Markus Persson himself as a licensing fee, because he owned the game and the company paid him to use it. Pre-tax profit for the year was 580 million kronor, or $92 million. 1 Put those two figures side by side and the founder earned more out of the year than the business built around him did.
The chief executive, Carl Manneh, was candid about what forecasting looked like. "We had of course expected good numbers, but something like this you can never dream up," he said, and added that there were no good ways to forecast how much money the company would make. He also named the real constraint on growth: Brazil and Poland had plenty of Minecraft players, and Mojang's payment system did not work in those places. 1
In February 2012, Persson said his dividends from the company for 2011 came to about three million dollars before tax, and that he had given them to the other employees. That came to just under a hundred and twenty thousand dollars each, twenty-five ways, handed over at a party for five million copies sold. 2
The handover came earlier than that. On 2 December 2011, three weeks after the game was released on stage in Las Vegas, Persson stepped down as its lead developer and gave the game to Jens Bergensten, who had joined almost exactly a year before. "It's a scary move, but I feel strangely confident," Persson said. "He's exactly what Minecraft needs right now. He's a bit more mod friendly than I am, and we need to embrace mods more." Bergensten's stated priority was a mod interface, because "there is no way in hell I will be able to add as much content as the whole internet can do." 34
On 15 September 2014, Microsoft agreed to buy Mojang for $2.5 billion. The BBC reported the shape of what was bought: a studio of about forty people, a game that had sold more than fifty-four million copies, and over a hundred million dollars of profit in the previous year. 5 Mojang's own statement to players conceded why it was happening, saying there were "only a handful of potential buyers with the resources to grow Minecraft on a scale that it deserves," and that its founder no longer wanted "the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance." 5
The deal carried a retention offer. According to the book Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus Persson, everyone at Mojang was made the same offer: stay at least six months after the sale and receive two million Swedish crowns, about three hundred thousand dollars after tax, with two years of salary guaranteed even if the Stockholm office closed. At least one employee rejected it. Persson later said on Twitter that half the bonus was unconditional, that it was after tax, and that it came from his own personal money. 6 The same book reports that morale inside the studio collapsed, that some staff felt betrayed by the sale, and that the Microsoft executive overseeing the acquisition, Matt Booty, called Mojang "Minecraft" several times at a staff meeting where less than half the people worked on Minecraft. 6
The people who stayed kept working. By the end of 2020, Mojang said Minecraft reached 126 million players a month, and the Stockholm office alone had 125 full-time employees, roughly three times the size of the whole company at the sale. That office had been receiving a December bonus of 100,000 kronor, about twelve thousand dollars, for everyone from the c-suite down to customer service. In 2019 the company restructured pay, and most Stockholm staff stopped receiving the full amount. 7
Mojang described the change as an investment in long-term growth, and said the aim was to "enjoy Minecraft alongside our amazing community for decades to come." At an all-hands in Stockholm, an employee asked whether anyone who made the decision had taken the same cut; chief executive Jonas Mårtensson answered no. Employees said they had accepted lower salaries when they joined because the bonus was part of the offer. One of them, who lost money, said: "Even though I was negatively affected, that's what a real company would do — as painful as it was." 7
In October 2026, Xbox appointed Maria Angelidou-Smith, previously chief product officer at Reddit, as chief executive of Mojang and Minecraft, while the executive who had been leading Mojang moved to a new division for films, merchandise, brand partners and events. The announcement credited that work with consumer products worth billions of dollars and more than 250 licensees, and said of Minecraft's players that "the community doesn't just consume the product. It helps shape what the product becomes." 8
The timeline you hear
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1 December 2010 | Jens Bergensten joins Mojang as a game developer, starting on the studio's card game rather than Minecraft. 4 |
| 2 December 2011 | Persson steps down as Minecraft's lead developer and hands the game to Bergensten; his stated priority is a mod interface. 3 |
| February 2012 | Persson gives his 2011 dividends, about three million dollars before tax, to the other twenty-five employees at a party for five million copies sold. 2 |
| 1 February 2013 | Swedish accounts reported: 2012 revenue of about $237.7 million, a $101.4 million licensing fee to Persson, and $92 million of pre-tax profit. 1 |
| 15 September 2014 | Microsoft agrees to buy Mojang for $2.5 billion; the studio has about forty employees and its three founders will leave. 5 |
| 4 June 2015 | A book excerpt reports the retention offer: two million Swedish crowns, about $300,000 after tax, for six months, plus two years of guaranteed salary. 6 |
| 2019 | Mojang restructures its compensation model, and most Stockholm staff stop receiving the full December bonus. 7 |
| 11 December 2020 | Business Insider reports the change: 125 full-time employees in Stockholm, 126 million monthly players, and a chief executive who kept his own bonus. 7 |
| 8 October 2026 | Xbox names Maria Angelidou-Smith chief executive of Mojang and Minecraft, and credits the studio's consumer products business with more than 250 licensees. 8 |
The numbers behind the episode
Twenty-five people, $237.7 million. That is nine and a half million dollars of revenue per employee, in a year when the company's own pre-tax profit was $92 million. 1
$101.4 million against $92 million. The licensing fee paid to the game's owner was larger than the company's pre-tax profit, which is what happens when the founder holds the intellectual property and the company pays to use it. 1
Three million dollars, twenty-five ways. Just under $120,000 per employee, from Persson's own dividends, before tax. 2
$2.5 billion for forty people. About sixty-two million dollars paid per head, for a studio whose game had sold more than fifty-four million copies and made over a hundred million dollars of profit the year before. 5
Two million kronor, then 100,000. The 2014 offer was about $300,000 after tax for six months of staying. The annual December bonus was 100,000 kronor, about $12,000, for everyone in the Stockholm office. 67
125 in Stockholm, 126 million players. The office had roughly three times the staff of the whole company in 2014, serving an audience reported at 126 million monthly players. 7
250 licensees. The consumer products business built on Minecraft is described by Xbox as worth billions of dollars, across more than 250 licensees. 8
Quotes you hear
"It's a scary move, but I feel strangely confident. I guess we've worked close enough for long enough for me to feel confident about it." — Markus Persson, on handing Minecraft to Jens Bergensten, 2 December 2011 3
"He's exactly what Minecraft needs right now. He's a bit more mod friendly than I am, and we need to embrace mods more." — Markus Persson, 2 December 2011 3
"There is no way in hell I will be able to add as much content as the whole internet can do." — Jens Bergensten, on why a mod interface came first 3
"There simply are no good ways to forecast how much money we are going to make." — Carl Manneh, Mojang's chief executive, on the 2012 accounts 1
"Before tax, my dividends from Mojang for 2011 was about three million dollars. I chose to distribute that to the other employees." — Markus Persson, March 2012 2
"There are only a handful of potential buyers with the resources to grow Minecraft on a scale that it deserves." — Mojang, to its players, 15 September 2014 5
"Some felt betrayed by Persson's decision. Morale plummeted. People felt like the world was coming to an end." — a longtime Mojang employee, quoted in Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus Persson 6
"In 2019, Mojang Studios made the decision to restructure our compensation model, including our incentive program, to continue on our path toward sustainable long-term growth." — Mojang, December 2020 7
"Even though I was negatively affected, that's what a real company would do — as painful as it was." — a Mojang employee in Stockholm, on the end of the December bonus 7
"The community doesn't just consume the product. It helps shape what the product becomes." — Xbox, announcing new leadership at Mojang, 8 October 2026 8
One claim the episode does not make
You will hear that Microsoft cut the holiday bonus. The record does not support that, and the difference matters. Mojang said in its own statement that "Mojang Studios made the decision to restructure our compensation model," and the reporting describes an internal decision taken by the studio's leadership, not an instruction from Redmond. 7
What the episode does claim is narrower. A benefit created for twenty-five people was administered years later by a company several times that size, and the people who had signed contracts expecting it paid for the change.
Two things should stay labelled as reported rather than disclosed. The three hundred thousand dollar retention offer comes from a book's account, based on interviews, and not from any statement by Mojang or Microsoft. 6 And the headcount at the sale is approximate: the BBC reported "about 40 people," and neither company published a precise figure. 5
References
- 1Polygon
polygon.com
- 2GamesBeat
gamesbeat.com
- 3Game Developer
gamedeveloper.com
- 4Minecraft Wiki
minecraft.wiki
- 5BBC News
bbc.com
- 6GameSpot
gamespot.com
- 7Business Insider
businessinsider.com
- 8Xbox Wire
news.xbox.com
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