Minecraft Dev Talks About Investors, Role of Indie Developers

Minecraft creator Marcus Persson has spoken about his thrust into the limelight as he sets up his new studio off of the funds made from his hit game.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Persson was asked about the financial side of the company and said he generally stays separate from it, preferring to just focus on development.

“We’re getting other types of interest now, people who want to throw money at us,” he said, referring to previous interest from the likes of Bungie. “I don’t really understand that world that much, so I don’t really know what it means. I’m getting the business people to talk to them. I’m just focused on the development so I’m not really in the loop there,” said Persson.

When asked about whether he’d be happy with outside investors, he replied that he’d “rather have it just be self-funded, because we can run the company we want. If we fail with a game it’s because we failed it, not because we had to rush it to meet a deadline.”

He also made some interesting comments about the role of the indie developer. He spoke about how major developers are moving away from the PC and onto the console, leaving space for indies to show off their work.

“Something like in the early 90s, games that were made by id Software or Epic – small developer teams who actually took chances because they didn’t have huge projects,” he said. “So [now] the indie scene could blossom; there are a lot of indie games on console too and they’re selling really well as well. But I think it’s one result of the sort of abandonment of PC gaming,” he continued.

The role of indie developers is certainly an interesting one. As large studios become more conservative and publish more well-known franchises instead of new IPs it could be up to the indie developers to push new ideas. Smaller budgets and less risk could be the way forward as larger devs rely on millions of dollars per game.

While Minecraft may be the exception to the indie game success story, it certainly shows what’s possible.