Read Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything for Free Online Page B

of control during the whole process.
    But soon he realized that it wasn’t a love of quality games that determined which projects he and the other programmers were assigned. The management at Midasplayer had an ice-cold mathematical approach to their products. Games that immediately earned a lot of money or showed a high virality (Midasplayer-speak for spreading quickly via recommendations among friends and acquaintances) were praised as hits. The company quickly put the developers to work on sequels, enhanced with better graphics and new features, to entice the player to spend even more money and time.
    At the same time, innovative projects, usually the games Markus liked, were quickly brushed aside as uninteresting. Midasplayer’s successes came from an extreme reach—several million players who each paid a small sum—and a narrow concept of what they considered appropriate to produce. All the games were built on a few, well-established concepts. Card games and board games were popular, as well as clones of arcade classics like Puzzle Bobble (a “bubble shooter” or “bubble spinner,” as they were called). Many titles were almost identical to one another, differing only in graphic themes, sound effects, and scoring systems. Trying new things was just not a part of Midasplayer’s business plan.
    For Markus, that insight was depressing. Sometimes it felt more like he worked in a casino, responsible only for trimming the poker tables and roulette games, than in the world of game creation that he’d dreamt about.
    But there were advantages to having a stable job. Just before he started at Midasplayer, Markus was finally able to break his promise (or threat?) to live at home with his mom for the rest of his life. She wasn’t sure why he’d changed his mind, but one day Markus came home and told her that he’d found an apartment in Sollentuna, north of Stockholm, that he wanted to buy. The place wasn’t extraordinary, but at least it was his. When the paperwork was complete, Markus took his computer, clothes, and the rest of his stuff, gave Mom a hug and vanished.
    It’s common for parents to visit their children’s first own home and be appalled. Ritva describes Markus’s apartment in Sollentuna as a disaster zone: The bed unmade, the floor covered with dirty clothes and empty soda bottles. And everywhere, games. There were floppy disks, CDs, and game boxes in a glorious mess. The only thing that wasn’t covered with a thick layer of dust was Markus’s computer. When Ritva came to visit, she couldn’t resist going over the place with a vacuum cleaner and a wet rag, scrubbing away the worst of the grime.
    “It’s like he doesn’t see it. For him, it’s completely irrelevant if it’s a mess,” says a person close to Markus, who often visited him in Sollentuna.
    While Markus had moved out of the house, gotten a steady job, and was making money, his sister was sinking deeper into drugs. There were times when Anna was homeless and living on the street. The siblings kept in touch, and Anna describes her brother as the only fixed point in her life at that time. But they were seeing less of each other, and when they did meet, it was usually about money. Markus hated to see Anna losing control, but he didn’t know what to do to help her. Giving her money was meaningless, he knew that, but when she asked for it, he seldom had the heart to say no. Anna remembers one of the many instances when she called on her brother at home. Markus took a five-hundred-kronor bill ($70) from his wallet and held it out to his sister.
    “Take this now and you’ll never get anything else from me,” he said.
    Anna swallowed her pride, took the money, and disappeared.
    Perhaps his messy family life was one reason why Markus clung to his job. In spite of everything, it was still the best job he’d ever had and besides, he really liked the other programmers. Markus always describes himself as quiet and shy, but if you ask his