Minecraft Creator, Markus “Notch” Persson Wiki (Bio, Age, Height, Net Worth, Wife, Kids)
Markus person, 41 years of age and also called Notch, is a well-known designer and a video game programmer. He owns a video game company called Mojang and developed the Minecraft video game. So, let us reflect on the biography of Markus Persson, his personal life, education, where he hails from, and his career.
Markus Persson’s Early Years
Markus Alexej Persson was born on the 1st of June 1979 in a small town in Stockholm, Sweden. He is born of the parents Ritva and Birger. He is of mixed ethnicity as his father, Birger, is of Sweden nationality while his mother is of Finland nationality.
He was brought up in Edsbyn which is a town surrounded by forests and has been a passionate Lego builder.
His Family
His father, Birger person, worked in a railway station and his mother, Ritva Persson worked as a district nurse. Birger was a drug addict and he couldn’t control himself, so, he committed suicide by shooting himself as a result of depression and addiction. So, he was left of his mother and his sister.
Markus’s sister is named Anna Hemming Froberg. According to some sources, Anna escaped from home when she was very young because she was also addicted to drugs. Although sources also claimed that Anna is now in touch with her family, she now has tattoos all over her body.
In an interview with Ritva, Markus’s mother, Ritva claimed that her son is such a shy being and he loves being on the computer and so she helped him go through some online courses to help his programming skills.
His Education
In 1995, he joined the Sabyskolan, and then from 1995 to 1998, he attended the Tumba gymnasium and later on enrolled in Rotebergs Skola. Markus never completed his high school education but he had been learning programming and how to write codes since he was seven years of age. He also learned programming online through his mother’s influence.
Markus would pretend to be sick so he wouldn’t go to school, and he would stay back at home, writing programming codes.
His Relationship
Markus is currently divorced and single as announced by him. On the 13th of August 2011, Markus got married to Elin Zetterstrand after they had dated for four years. Elin is popularly known for the Ez role she took in the Minecraft game and was a former administrator for the Minecraft forum.
Elin’s Brother, Kristoffer Zetterstrand who is also a Swedish artist, was featured in Minecraft. Sadly, Markus and Elin got divorced on the 15th of August, 2012, a year after their marriage with the reasons behind it not stated. However, Markus is blessed with a daughter named Minna.
His Professional Career
Markus started writing codes and other programming languages at the age of seven. Then, his father brought a commodore 128 computer home, he got hold of it immediately and started writing codes on it. A year later, he wrote his first computer program.
He got his first programming job when he was 18 years of age before he later got a job with Midasplayer in 2004. Midasplayer, also known as King.com, is a famous gaming company that developed the popular “Candy Crush” game. He then bonded with two other game developers; Jakob Poser and Carl Manneh, which he met at Midasplayer.
After a while, Markus and Porser began writing their games, however, the Midasplayer top bosses weren’t happy with the attention the two were garnering. So, Markus left Midasplayer and joined jAlbum, and he was availed time to write his games. The gaming company “Mojang” was then founded in 2010 and a year after, on the 18th of November, 2011, his revolutionary game titled “Minecraft” was developed.
The game featured a playing field similar to Lego, and the players would gather various tools, implements, and natural resources that would be used to build houses and cities. This game has generated about one million sales already and earned Markus big recognition in the video game industry. It averaged about 400 copies of the game being sold for $6 per download each day, equaling about 20,000 downloads during its first year.
This huge success made both Markus and Porser quit their job and then establish Mojang. Later on, Mojang Company was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. After a while, Markus made a legal settlement with ZeniMax Media and then developed another game named “Caller’s Bane” in 2012.
In March 2012, Markus also worked on another reality space game which is known as 0x10c. The production of the reality space game was stopped however in 2013 due to some unknown reasons.
Controversies
Markus has been castigated several times about his tweets. He once tweeted on feminism, claiming in the tweet that feminism is a social disease and extreme hypocrisy against men. The members of the feminine gender were offended and they reacted against the post.
Another debate he caused was his Homophobic tweet, which he tweeted in June 2017, and a racist Tweet which he tweeted in November 2017. The two tweets were greatly criticized.
Also in March 2019, he commented on a transgender woman’s post by calling her “mentally ill”. This comment also received a lot of criticism. Due to the tweets, he expressed on his social media, Microsoft had to put an end to the deal between them.
His Body Features
Markus is about 5 feet and 9 inches tall (which is about 1.75m or 175cm), and weighs about 77kg. He has brown eyes and light brown hair.
His Net Worth & Earnings
In December 2014, Markus bought a home that costs about $70 million in Beverly Hills. The house measures about 23,000 square feet and is furnished with modern designs. Through its glass wall, you are availed with about 280 degrees view of the Pacific Ocean and the City of Angels.
The average pay of a video game developer ranges between $39,000 and $100,000 per annum. However, Markus Persson is estimated to be worth about US$1.6 billion.
