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Markus PerssonSwedish programmer and video game developer
Date of Birth: 01.06.1979
Country:  Sweden |
Content:
Biography of Markus Persson
Early Life and CareerMarkus Persson was born on June 1, 1979, in Stockholm, Sweden. His mother is of Finnish descent, while his father is Swedish. He spent the first seven years of his life in Edsbyn, where he developed an interest in programming at the age of seven. Persson's first computer was his father's Commodore 128. He experimented with various programs and a year later, he created his first game - a text adventure.
Before 2009, Persson worked as a game developer for King.com for four years. He then worked as a programmer for the company Jalbum AB. He is also one of the creators of "Wurm Online," although he no longer works on the game.
Outside of his professional duties, Persson developed seven games to participate in the Java 4K Game Programming Contest, including "Left 4K Dead" and "MEGA4kMAN," and participated in the Ludum Dare competition. Persson is the main subject of the documentary film "Minecraft: The Story of Mojang," released by 2 Player Productions.
Mojang and Minecraft
Persson is the owner of Mojang, a video game development company he founded with Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser in late 2010. His main venture after the establishment of Mojang was Minecraft, a first-person sandbox survival game that gained popularity and support when Persson released a technical demo in 2009.
Since the release of Minecraft, Persson has become a significant figure in the video game industry, receiving several awards and establishing working relationships with other well-known developers and companies. He retained the position of lead developer of Minecraft until the official release of the game in 2011, after which creative responsibilities were handed over to Jens Bergensten.
Personal Life and Other Endeavors
On August 3, 2011, Persson married Elin Zetterstrand, known among Minecraft fans as "EZ" and as "ezchili" on Twitter. However, on August 15, 2012, he announced on his Twitter page that he was now completely single.
Persson is a member of the Swedish branch of Mensa, an international organization that brings together individuals with high levels of intelligence. He is also interested in creating electronic music under the name Markus Alexei.
Persson criticizes both piracy and the position of major gaming companies towards piracy, being a member of the Swedish Pirate Party. Under his leadership, Mojang participated in the development of the game "Catacomb Snatch" from the Humble Indie Bundle series, and the $458,248 raised was donated to charity.
Legacy
Persson's most famous project remains Minecraft, a game that was released on November 18, 2011. By January 12, 2011, the company had sold one million copies of the game, less than a month after starting beta testing. Meanwhile, the game received no advertising. By April 2011, Persson announced that Minecraft had generated $33 million in revenue. In November 2011, just before the official release of the game, Minecraft had 16 million registered users and 4 million copies sold. By March 2012, Minecraft became the sixth best-selling computer game of all time, and by early April 2013, the number of copies sold for the computer surpassed 10 million.
