When EA’s CEO met the men behind Minecraft

Earlier this year, EA CEO John Riccitiello took a flight to Stockholm.

His destination was not EA DICE, the much-admired Swedish studio responsible for Battlefield.

Instead, he was heading for a meeting with games development’s most wanted: Markus Persson, creator of Minecraft.

As an acquisitive CEO, you can imagine Riccitiello’s intentions.

But in an interview with Develop, Persson says that Riccitiello soon ‘picked up the vibe’ that Mojang, the studio he created to grow Minecraft, is not for sale.

“EA came to see us,” said Persson in anin-depth Q&Aand profile piece about his success, fame and his fans.

“I think they had plans, but picked up the vibe.

“Nothing’s been said since – it’s all very high politics,” he added. And certainly,

“I play their games, and they make great games, but we are too far from each other. They can make their games, and I’ll buy them. We’ll make ours, and they can buy them. Not the property – that’s ours. But they can play it like everyone else.”

Click here to read the full in-depth Q&A with Persson and his colleague Daniel Kaplan, or a shorter feature on the two taken from the latest issue of Develop.