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Activision and EA also tried to buy Minecraft

More details emerge regarding Microsoft's new studio.

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As we all know, Microsoft bought Mojang to get Minecraft for a whopping $2.5 billion. But as it turns out, they weren't the only company trying to get the brand.

Activision and EA were also interested. This was revealed yesterday in an interview with Marcus "Notch" Persson in Forbes.

As it turns out it didn't work out with Activision, and Persson won't say what happened with EA, but adds that he didn't want to sell to someone "who did game play in a way we didn't like."

Microsoft obviously passed that test and everything began after Persson posted a Tweet stating: Anyone want to buy my share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig.

Forbes writes that Mojang's CEO Carl Manneh was sitting at home with his family when he first saw the Tweet from Persson. Within 30 seconds of reading it his phone rang. It was Microsoft wanting to know if they were serious or not.

One of the main reasons Microsoft bought Mojang is, according to Forbes, that the platform holder has an anormous cash reserve of $93 billion outside the US that they can't take home without paying enormous taxes. By buying out Mojang they avoided this and got to use some of this money.

Forbes also reminded Persson of his famous statement where he said that he didn't want to sell his work to some giant, to which he answered: "You have to be responsible for what you said, of course, but I don't really feel a lot of shame for saying something that I've changed my mind about."

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