After 3.8 Million Dollars in Minecraft Sales, Dev to Form Own Studio

After a hefty $3.8 million success in selling Minecraft, developer Markus Persson (aka Notch) is looking to form his own studio on the back of sales of around $350,000 per day.

On his Tumblr, Persson described how he hasn’t had much time to focus on the game’s development, saying that he “didn’t know how much work setting up a company would be” and that most of his time is taken up by “meetings and lawyers, accountants, banks, potential partners, potential employees, and the occasional interview.”

He’s currently sold 279,055 copies and at €9.95 for a game which is not even into a beta yet, he’s done very well. GamesIndustry.biz notes his relaxed attitude to piracy and even him making the game free for a time when the game’s servers went down. Persson’s income has been so high that his PayPal account was temporarily shutdown due to suspicion.

With current talks underway, Perrson has confirmed four people so far will be joining him, with “several people” in discussions and that in the end it will result “a much nicer working environment, with talented people helping out with development, an actual office, and a much better way to deal with support issues, bug reports and feature requests.”

It’s quite an achievement, especially for what was essentially a single-man operation. He’s obviously got something very unique in Minecraft and in a world where indie development doesn’t always yield the greatest reward it’s nice to see somebody really taking off.