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Indie games sensation Minecraft has made over £19 million for its creator Markus Persson, the Swedish developer has said.
Persson explained the early edition of the title had sold about 800,000 copies at €9.95 each, while a later version – sold at €14.95 – had been purchased over a million times.
These transactions would mean Persson has made £19.2 million in revenues from the game.
“It all ends up in an account somewhere, and I try not to look at it,” he said in a message exchange with his fans.
“I get a normal salary these days for day-to-day stuff, but there’s a big pile somewhere. Paypal takes a cut, there are taxes, and such, but it’s still a huge wad of money.”
Minecraft was first released in May 2009, though the PC world-building game caused a big stir in the summer last year, as word of the game rapidly spread across social networking sites.
At one stage it was believed Perrson was making $350k each day.
The game’s success, and the manner in which Persson had engaged so deeply with his fans, resulted in a string of job offers for the Swedish game developer.
Perrson went on to found his own studio, Mojang Specifications.
Speaking to his fans, Perrson advocated the release-and-iterate development process – a method which returns riches for many social games studios.
"I think it’s a great way for a small studio to do game development," he said.
"It might not make sense for all types of games, though. I’d definitely want to release future games in the same way. Developing in the dark is scary and probably wrong."
