Where Was Minecraft Developed? Stockholm, Sweden, 2009
Minecraft was developed in Stockholm, Sweden, where Markus Persson started it as a side project in May 2009. The origin story, timeline, Mojang today.
Minecraft was developed in Stockholm, Sweden. Markus “Notch” Persson started it as a side project in May 2009 while he was working a day job as a programmer, and the studio he founded to make it, Mojang, is still based in Stockholm today.
A side project in 2009
Persson had worked at the Swedish game company King and then at jAlbum, a photo-album software company, when he started tinkering with a block-building game in his free time. He was inspired by Infiniminer, a mining game, and by building and management games like Dwarf Fortress.
The first public build appeared on May 17, 2009, shared on the TIGSource indie game forums. It was a small creative-mode block world, the version now known as Classic. You can still play a version of it free: see Minecraft Classic in the browser.
The game was written in Java, which let it run on any computer and even in a web page. Our page on what Minecraft is coded in explains why that choice still matters.
From bedroom project to company
People paid for the alpha, and enough of them did that Persson left his job in 2010 to work on Minecraft full time. He set up Mojang in Stockholm with Jakob Porsér and Carl Manneh, and hired a small team. Jens “Jeb” Bergensten, also Swedish, joined and became lead designer at the end of 2011, after version 1.0 launched at MINECON in Las Vegas on November 18, 2011.
So the short version: written in Sweden, released worldwide, first official launch event in the US.
Where it’s made today
Microsoft bought Mojang in 2014 (what is Mojang covers the deal). The studio, now called Mojang Studios, still has its main office in Stockholm, and Minecraft’s design and much of its development happen there. Microsoft also has Minecraft teams in the United States, and other studios have built parts of the wider franchise:
- Pocket Edition, the start of today’s Bedrock Edition, was built by Mojang in Stockholm from 2011.
- The old console editions for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and others were made by 4J Studios in Scotland.
- Minecraft in China is published by NetEase.
Each of these is explained in every Minecraft edition, explained.
A quick timeline
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2009 | Persson starts the game in Stockholm; first public build on May 17 |
| 2010 | Mojang founded; alpha and beta sales grow quickly |
| 2011 | Pocket Edition launches; version 1.0 released on November 18 |
| 2014 | Microsoft buys Mojang for $2.5 billion |
| 2020 | Mojang AB renamed Mojang Studios |
For what changed in the game itself in each of those years, see the Minecraft version history.
Common questions
What country is Minecraft from?
Sweden. Markus Persson wrote it in Stockholm, and Mojang Studios is still headquartered there.
When was Minecraft first released?
The first public version came out on May 17, 2009. The official full release, version 1.0, came on November 18, 2011.
Is Minecraft an American game now?
It's owned by Microsoft, an American company, since 2014. But the core development team at Mojang Studios is still in Stockholm.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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