Minecraft earns £20 million in revenue
Notch: "I try not to look at it."
The creator of indie phenomenon Minecraft has revealed how much cash the world-building game has netted his tiny development studio Mojang.
Speaking in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread spotted by Gamasutra, Markus 'Notch' Persson explained that the game had sold 800,000 downloads at €9.95 a pop while in alpha status.
Then in the beta phase, when the price jumped to €14.95, the game sold an additional million copies. That totals a whopping €23 million (around £20 million).
"It all ends up in an account somewhere, and I try not to look at it," wrote Persson. "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."
Elsewhere in the discussion, Persson spoke up in favour of releasing a game in the middle of the development cycle - as was the case with Minecraft.
"I think it's a great way for a small studio to do game development," he explained. "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."