Microsoft is hosting a ten year celebration event on May 17 for seminal game Minecraft. A spokesperson from Microsoft told Variety that Markus “Notch” Persson, the original creator of Minecraft and founder of game studio Mojang, has been purposefully excluded from the event due to his past comments. “His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and are not representative of Minecraft,” the spokesperson told Variety.
Persson famously sold Mojang and Minecraft to Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion. He has not been actively involved in the game’s development since.
In the past several years, Persson, who currently has 3.7 million twitter followers, has broadcasted several controversial and frankly abhorrent opinions and views regarding politics, race, gender, and sexuality, and even full-blown conspiracy theories.
The most recent Minecraft update quietly removed any mention of Notch in the loading screens, though his name is still present in the credits as the original creator. Many fans of Minecraft, upset with Notch’s behavior, have elevated digitally-created vocal artist Hatsune Miku as the creator of Minecraft, thanks to a viral tweet.
Minecraft was originally released in 2011. To this day it’s one of the most popular games of all time, especially for younger kids and teens. It’s the second best-selling video game of all time, behind Tetris. As of last year Minecraft boasted over 90 million active players.
Minecraft is available on every console and platform, and is even used as a teaching tool in schools.
