“You Did It, Markus. You Really Did It.”
We are approaching the end of the first day of MineCon in Las Vegas. The stage is still littered with the confetti Markus unleashed when he pulled the lever a couple of hours earlier, symbolically releasing the finished version of Minecraft to the public. The five thousand seats in the hall are empty. Now the audience is milling in the room next door, a space just as large but lacking seats. In one corner, the hotel personnel have installed a bar for serving drinks. The bartender picks around among the bottles, looking bored. Most of the participants are much too young to drink alcohol. Besides, they’re already flocking to the stage in one corner of the room for the cosplay contest, the highlight of the weekend for many, where fans dressed as Minecraft players compete for prizes.
“Let the squid through!” Lydia Winters shouts into the microphone, and a square person with knee-length arms stumbles forward through the audience. The finalists line up onstage, all dressed as figures from the game. Besides the squid, there is a human TNT-box, a female wolf in a bikini-like outfit, a huge green monster, and a skeleton dressed in a skintight leather suit. The front rows are filled with a hundred costumed fans who’d hoped to be invited up onstage. Most of them are dressed as Steve, Minecraft’s main character, each with a stone pick in hand.
Lydia Winters explains the rules to the boisterous audience. Voting will be done by shouting and applause from the crowd, and the contestant they shout the loudest for will be the winner. Lydia is the sole judge. With the patient voice of a kindergarten teacher, she repeats time and again that audience members may only shout and applaud once. She has her hands full with this rowdy bunch, both on and off the stage. On one occasion, the pressure is so great she is forced to ask everyone to take one step back. The scantily dressed wolf, already known as Wolfgirl, wins. If that has something to do with the high percentage of teenage boys in the room, we’ll leave it unsaid. Wolfgirl is beside herself with joy; first prize is a lunch with Markus.
On the other side of the expo floor, between the huge red-eyed black dragon and the photo corner, where fans line up to pose with a six-foot-tall Creeper statue, a group of indie programmers is squeezed in. They are specially invited guests, T-shirt–wearing guys and girls in sneakers and jeans. They have all created games that Markus or someone else at Mojang likes and have been invited to MineCon to show what they’re working on. Throughout the whole conference, they’ve been standing there, fidgeting while the audience pours into the room.
Some of their games are finished; others are not much more than sketchy demonstrations designed around a central idea. One booth displays Closure, a black and white puzzle game built by American programmer Tyler Glaiel. In Closure, players manipulate light and dark in order to travel through a dreamlike, sketchily drawn shadow world. Another booth offers a hard-to-fathom red-and-blue 3-D world on two side-by-side screens. This is a demo of British developer Terry Cavanagh’s new title, At a Distance. The game is completely incomprehensible to a single player, but if two players collaborate and compare what they see on their respective screens, together they can figure out the purpose of the game.
Many who wander by cast curious glances at the creations shown. Some plod onward, most toward the shop to buy Minecraft-themed T-shirts, stickers, and paper helmets. Others stop and pick up a controller to try one of the games. They are met with proud smiles from the creators themselves, who guide players through their creations and demonstrate features of which they’re extra proud.
In one corner, we meet James Green and Ken Klopp. They’ve come to MineCon from Seattle to exhibit their game, AirMech, the first produced by their company, Carbon Games. The two look like typical computer nerds—James is tall and skinny, with long, straight hair falling over his shoulders, while Ken is round and wears oversized glasses. And in many ways, AirMech is the ultimate nerd fantasy.
It’s a postapocalyptic, three-dimensional strategy game, viewed from a bird’s-eye perspective. The player controls an army of tanks and fighter planes that, with the push of a button, can transform into flame-and-bullet-throwing giant robots. The world of AirMech is embellished with hand-drawn manga-like graphics and filled with knowing winks to old game classics. The basic setup is borrowed from the cult classic Herzog Zwei, released for Sega Mega Drive in 1989. Among the units the player controls in AirMech is the Minecraft Creeper, a tribute to the hosts of MineCon.
Unlike many other indie developers, James and Ken have a long background in the established game industry. They worked from the mid-1990s for the big-name Ubisoft on large-scale productions such as Unreal Tournament, Splinter Cell, Far Cry, and King Kong (based on Peter Jackson’s blockbuster of the same name). In 2008, they moved to Epic Games China. There they developed Fat Princess on commission from Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released as a download for PlayStation 3 and unanimously praised by critics.
In spite of their successes, it was a strain to work for a large publisher. The pair was shot down when they proposed developing new features for Fat Princess and releasing it on more platforms. Since Sony owned the copyright and the developers didn’t, James and Ken had little say about the decision. Their ideas for future projects were given the cold shoulder. Their ideas weren’t in line with the company’s strategy, they were told. Instead, James and Ken were asked to work on a game engine to run online games for the Chinese market.
That was nowhere close to what the two of them had dreamed of doing. In the summer of 2011, they took their savings and started Carbon Games. There, they would make the games they wanted to and release them for sale on their own, without having to navigate the bureaucracy of a large company.
“It’s amazing. We can talk about the game whenever we want and interact with the players. We decide how AirMech will work, what to develop, and when to release it,” says Ken.
Now they’re here in Las Vegas, exhibiting their creation for more than five thousand gamers, all thanks to the Swedish man in the hat whose own game became a worldwide sensation. The significance of Minecraft to the indie scene cannot be overstated, James and Ken say in chorus.
“For everyone else on the indie scene, Minecraft is a benchmark. It is a signal that shows that it is possible to breakthrough on their own. It does not take a lot of marketing or a large publishing company. Just a really good game that people are talking about,” says James.
Of course, James and Ken are hoping that some of the thousands of people who paid to visit MineCon will also pay to play AirMech. It’s mainly due to Minecraft that indie developers today even dare to think they might earn decent returns on their games. All the millions of players who bought Minecraft through Markus’s homemade website have overcome a mental barrier, is what James Green and Ken Klopp figure. For those millions, buying a game no longer means visiting a store, taking down a cardboard box from a shelf, and paying a cashier. The transaction could just as likely happen on the Internet, buying a game from a completely unknown game developer, after getting a tip on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.
“I see Minecraft as a sign of the indie scene’s big breakthrough. There has probably never been a better time than now to be game developers,” says James.
Markus is sitting nearby in the same room and his hand is tired. He has written autographs for three hours already, and the line is still several hundred feet long, snaking through the room. Everyone wants Markus’s signature on a T-shirt, backpack, or plastic pickaxe. Before he’s had time to meet them all, his energy is depleted. Disappointed fans watch as he’s led away through the masses by his bodyguard, a middle-aged man with gray hair, white shirt, and a stern countenance—a police officer before he took this job, we’re told.
Maybe such security is needed. When Markus heads for the men’s room, the bodyguard has to push and shove to keep the fans away. The door closes behind Markus so he can do his business in peace, but the mob of fans gathers outside. Soon there are hundreds, most of them brandishing cell-phone cameras in hopes of getting a glimpse of their idol when he emerges. A single expo visitor happens to be inside. He greets Markus politely. Markus hesitates before exiting.
Just over a year ago, Markus had printed and framed the account balance showing his first million kronor in the bank. Then it had felt like proof he hadn’t gone mad, that all his hours in front of the screen had been worth it. Against all odds, his remarkable little game had found an audience.
Now, among the hordes of fans at MineCon, he’s had time to acclimate to his wealth: now a million kronor is the equivalent of one day’s average sales, over $150,000. If he so desired, Markus could spend the rest of his life on a sandy beach drinking cocktails.
In Sweden, that is very rare. But in Silicon Valley, a whole industry has arisen to cater to nouveau-riche entrepreneurs, offering not only to swab the decks of luxury yachts and deliver French vintage wines, but such services as psychological guidance for the suddenly wealthy.
Often, their clients are people who’ve worked at quickly expanding IT companies, with the usual stock options. When the company is sold or goes public, they are transformed overnight from programmers with normal salaries into multimillionaires. Suddenly, they no longer have any reason to go to work. Some of them buy new houses, some get new cars, and some become conflicted about their sudden wealth. At least, that is what San Francisco psychologists Stephen Goldbart and Joan DiFuria claim. They have coined the expression “Sudden Wealth Syndrome.” Armed with the toolbox of psychology, they’ve spent their professional lives guiding people who are suffering from the syndrome. They even founded the Money, Meaning & Choices Institute, a company specializing in psychological guidance for this at-risk group.
There are most likely more crass reasons than altruism for psychologists to want to specialize in therapy for absurdly rich people. Newspaper articles about court cases brought about by sudden wealth were most common around the turn of the millennium, when the value of IT companies was most inflated. When the bubble burst, many psychologists quickly adapted. Those who’d previously offered treatment for Sudden Wealth Syndrome began to focus on its opposite, Sudden Loss of Wealth Syndrome.
It’s easy to write off these psychologists as gold-digging opportunists. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be overwhelming to go from wage earner to multimillionaire in a very short time. Joan DiFuria describes three aspects of the wealth problems in an interview: denial, shock, and finally, and perhaps the most interesting, the feeling of not being worth so much money.
Markus mentions it immediately when the subject of wealth comes up. Throughout his childhood and youth, he saw for himself what it means to have little money. The fights that ensued when he or Anna had caused the family sky-high telephone bills (Markus, because of his constantly used modem, Anna because she talked to friends) are among his strongest memories from childhood. On the other hand, he doesn’t recall thinking of his family as particularly poor. In Salem, there weren’t many rich families to be compared to. But it’s clear that the contrast he now experiences has gotten him thinking. He wrings his hands when he talks about how he feels about his money.
“My job doesn’t actually produce anything for society. I don’t contribute food or anything like that. But I still make a lot more money than those who are truly needed. It is all because I can sell my product on the entire Internet. You can’t do that when you bake bread.”
Markus is very much aware that whether he gets out of bed or not, one day of Minecraft’s revenue is equal to what a nurse—like his mother—earns in four years. And yes, it bothers him some.
“I’m not complaining. It just feels a little backwards. I don’t think that there is an evil conspiracy to keep wages down, but people are doing things that really mean something, and they still don’t make any money.”
The concept of financial independence has no strict definition. For some, it means having enough money in the bank to be able to live without using up one’s savings, living on passive income in the form of interest and dividends from investments. Others see it as being rich enough to be able to have a reasonable standard of living for the rest of one’s life. But regardless of how you twist and turn the words, Minecraft made Markus financially independent about a year and a half after it was first released. In the autumn of 2010, he’d earned around $7 million. That was before Mojang had acquired an office, a CEO, partners, and employees, so all that money went straight into Markus’s own pocket. By late 2011, his personal fortune had increased tenfold.
There are plenty of stories about sudden riches that end in misery. Especially those about lottery winners who go from being broke to obscenely wealthy in literally one second, like the American mother of three who won $1.3 million a few years ago.
Before she won, she lived in a tiny apartment and worked four jobs in order to feed her family. When the money landed in her account, she bought a house and some new clothes, but she saved most of it. Then everything went wrong. A couple of years later, she told how letters begging for money, demands from relatives, and an obscene number of marriage proposals had completely overwhelmed her. She was threatened and accused by people who had previously been close to her. When CNN interviewed her, she asked the TV channel not to divulge her real name. She had had enough of the side effects of wealth.
“Sometimes I wish I could change my name and go somewhere and hide.”
Those who savor Schadenfreude can find plenty of material in tales like these; they usually end with the winners or someone close to them dying. But they don’t change a basic fact of wealth—the research does confirm that we humans become happier when we have a large sum of money in the bank.
For Markus, the money was not rolling in as fast as it does for a lottery winner, but things happened quickly when the media got a whiff of the mysterious Notch and his millions. From being just a popular indie developer, in just a few months’ time he became one of Sweden’s most discussed individuals. Patiently, he answered the journalists’ questions. No, he hadn’t been blinded by the money. No, he hadn’t spent it all on craziness.
When we speak with people close to Markus, they all maintain that the riches haven’t changed him. Some say that it’s because of his choice of friends; he has few instead of many, and most of them are slightly obsessive game developers rather than expensive-cocktail-drinking jet-setters. Others point out that Markus’s success came gradually, over the period of a few years. A third explanation is that Markus’s family has always kept him grounded. It would be a lie, however, to say that he’s never been tempted by conspicuous consumption.
For instance, there was the time he sat at his computer, randomly surfing the web while taking a break from programming. On a shopping site he had stumbled upon, he saw a watch he liked. It had a classic design, really sharp. And best of all, he could afford it. He called Elin, who looked over his shoulder at the screen.
Elin was silent for a while, looking at the price tag: $114,000.00.
“Markus, it’s a watch. A watch.”
After a short discussion, the purchase was averted. Markus realized that a gadget he would never dare wear was worthless anyway.
Many articles written about Markus’s sudden wealth are about how it doesn’t seem to have changed his behavior. He showed up for interviews in the same hat and clothes as before. One article mentions that he seemed to have been shopping on the way to the interview; the reporter noted that his bag was from Dressmann, a popular low-price chain in Sweden. But to a certain extent, Markus’s spartan lifestyle is a myth. He and Elin have moved into an exclusive residence in central Stockholm.
In the spring of 2011, Markus began talking about taking his family on a trip. He needed a break from working on Minecraft. His sister, Anna, had been talking about taking her youngest daughter on a flight for the first time, maybe to Turkey, a destination that was within her budget thanks to the charter flights to the coast. Instead, Markus booked a private jet to Paris. When the plane took off, Markus’s mother, Ritva, and Anna, accompanied by kids and fiancé, were aboard, along with Elin and her mother. After a few days of sightseeing and shopping, they flew home. When the plane was in the air, Markus leaned over to his sister, as far as the seatbelt would allow.
“Is this fun?” he asked.
The question might seem strange, but Anna saw that her answer was important to Markus. The money that had dropped into his lap would, first and foremost, make it possible for him and his family to have fun. He needed an answer.
“Yes, this is fun,” said Anna.
Five years had passed since Markus’s sister had kicked her drug habit. Her path had been via therapy, a new partner, and children. She continued to go to AA meetings. Her job as a care assistant didn’t pay very well, but she could live on what she earned. Now she was sitting back, gazing through the window of a private jet, on the way home from a trip to Paris.
The Mojang team at MineCon 2011 in Las Vegas, just before the opening ceremony. To the right, Markus's sister Anna Hemming. Photo by Elin Zetterstrand.
Anna and Markus have an agreement when it comes to how he shares his wealth. She has promised never to beg for money from her brother. Of course, she’ll gladly accept gifts, but it must always be Markus’s initiative. Part of it is that she’s afraid she’ll become greedy and the money will destroy their relationship. Besides, she got herself clean and off the streets all by herself, not with the help of a rich relative. When she began to get her life together, the condition of her teeth remained visible evidence of her troubled past. But instead of strewing money over his sister, Markus paid her dental bills.
In less private contexts, Markus’s fortune is a hot topic of speculation. Everyone who knows his background knows how important gaming is to him, and to developers, the thought that his money might finance other independent game is titillating. As a patron, Markus’s millions would go far in bankrolling promising-but-broke developers. Besides, the money would be funneled back into the world Markus was a part of and perhaps form the foundation of future success stories. That’s why many were overjoyed when he sent out a signal in early 2012 suggesting he was going to do just that.
It all began when famous game developer Tim Schafer wrote a few lines about wanting to do a follow-up to his game Psychonauts. Psychonauts had been released in 2005 and had been widely acclaimed by reviewers. Schafer, who in the nineties had worked at LucasArts on classic adventure games such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle, was already a legend in the gaming world. He was praised for his singular sense of humor and his ingenious way of telling stories with his games.
Even today, many people maintain that Psychonauts is one of the best games ever made. Markus is one of them. But Psychonauts was a commercial flop. Majesco, the publisher, lost a lot of money on it, and its CEO was forced to resign shortly thereafter. Among players who know their history, Psychonauts is a popular example of the moneyed publishers’ total disinterest in games with artistic ambitions. Indie developers in a bad mood like to point to it as proof of the unfairness of the world.
Now, Schafer says, he would like to make a sequel. To do that, he would need “a few million dollars.” With the memory of its predecessor’s miserable sales still fresh, he understood that the chance of anyone financing his project was minimal. Until Markus piped up and openly tweeted, “Let’s make Psychonauts 2 happen.” Everyone knew he could afford it, and what would be more beautiful than to use Minecraft’s millions to give new life to a classic game? The gaming world was in a whirlwind over the story. We meet with Markus a few days later. He’s already explained that the financing of Psychonauts 2 won’t happen. It turned out to be significantly more expensive than he’d expected, more money than the sequel could reasonably earn back in sales. Mojang is not interested in charity.
“There’s no purely altruistic help-others spirit,” says Markus, but quickly adds that he would like to invest in promising games. Cobalt, for example. Cobalt is a classic platform game that Mojang took under its wing shortly after the company was founded. Markus wants to do more of that. He’d rather Mojang act as a mother ship for game developers with great ideas but empty bank accounts than employ five hundred people.
Just before MineCon, Markus had decided to invite his family along, for the trip of their lives. Anna, Ritva, and Markus’s father, Birger, would each receive a plane ticket to Las Vegas. It would be one of the few times since Anna and Markus were teenagers that the whole family would be in the same place at the same time. The siblings recall that Birger was withdrawn during the whole stay. Markus had pleaded with his father before the trip. He was welcome to come, Markus told him, but only as long as he stayed drug-free. “I love you,” Markus said when he invited him. “But I can’t talk to you when you’re high.”
When the fans left his son alone for a short while, Birger told him he was proud and happy about what Markus had accomplished. But Birger had come directly to Las Vegas from the countryside of Hälsingland, so he also admitted that it was alarming to be among so many people. Maybe it was hard for him to come to terms with the fact that everyone was there to see Markus. Birger saw how the fans swarmed around his son, the boy who hadn’t been able to tear himself away from the Commodore 128 at home in Salem twenty years earlier. The Commodore 128 they’d both spent so much time together on before their relationship deteriorated.
MineCon ended with a giant party in classic Las Vegas style. Deadmau5 stood in the DJ booth. One of the world’s most acclaimed house producers, he plays Minecraft himself when he isn’t busy getting sold-out arenas full of people up and dancing. Great Britain’s Prince Harry was seen in the vicinity, which got game bloggers wondering if even royalty had come to love the shy Swede’s creation. At one point during the party, Anna turned to her brother.
“You did it, Markus. You really did it.”
When the family woke up the next day, only one thing remained to be done. A long time ago, Markus made his sister a promise that someday he would get rich and celebrate it by taking the family on a helicopter ride. Markus lay exhausted in bed, but Anna, Ritva, and Birger went down to the hotel lobby and into a waiting car. Still tired from yesterday’s festivities, they boarded the helicopter and flew out over the Grand Canyon.
Markus and Anna have thought a lot about what their father said and did during those days in Vegas. They both noticed that he was quiet and withdrawn, but thought it was just because he was overwhelmed. During the last few years, he’d lived far from both of his children and city life. Now he saw his son greeted like a rock star. Anna describes Birger as impressed by what he saw, but also as worn-out. The siblings knew that his most recent drug-free period had, like so many times before, ended in relapse. It would turn out to be his last.
Around a month later, they received word that Birger had committed suicide at home in his village in Hälsingland.