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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Windows_Central:_Dungeons-59] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia] | [TOKENS: 10941] |
Contents Transphobia Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender or transsexual people, or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. Transphobia is a type of prejudice and discrimination, similar to racism, sexism, or ableism,[page needed] and it is closely associated with homophobia. People of color who are transgender experience discrimination above and beyond that which can be explained as a simple combination of transphobia and racism. Transgender youth often experience a combination of abuse from family members, sexual harassment, and bullying or school violence. They are also disproportionately placed in foster care and welfare programs compared to their peers. Adult transgender people regularly encounter sexual violence, police violence, public ridicule, misgendering, or other forms of violence and harassment in their daily lives. These issues cause many trans people to feel unsafe in public. Other issues include healthcare discrimination, workplace discrimination or feeling under siege by conservative political or religious groups who oppose LGBT-rights laws. Discrimination and violence sometimes originates from people within the LGBT community or feminist movements. As well as increased risk of violence and other threats, the stress created by transphobia causes negative mental health outcomes and leads to drug use disorders, running away from home (in minors), and suicide. In much of the Western world, there has been a gradual establishment of policies combatting discrimination and supporting equal opportunity in all aspects of life since the 1990s. The trend is also taking shape in some developing nations. In addition, campaigns regarding the LGBT community are being spread around the world to improve social acceptance of nontraditional gender identities. The "Stop the Stigma" campaign by the UN is one such example. However, transphobic violence has been on the rise since 2021, accompanied with an increase in anti-trans discriminatory laws being enacted in many countries. Etymology and use The word transphobia is a classical compound patterned on the term homophobia. The first component is the neo-classical prefix trans- (originally meaning "across, on the far side, beyond") from transgender, and the second component -phobia comes from the Ancient Greek φόβος (phóbos, "fear"). Along with lesbophobia, biphobia and homophobia, transphobia is a member of the family of terms used when intolerance and discrimination is directed toward LGBT people. Transphobia is not a phobia as defined in clinical psychology (i.e., an anxiety disorder). Its meaning and usage parallels xenophobia. The noun transphobe denotes someone who harbors transphobia. The adjectival form transphobic may be used to describe a transphobe or their actions. The words transphobia and transphobic were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013. Origins According to a 2022 meta-analysis by Hailey A. Hatch and colleagues, a range of underlying factors contribute to transphobia. They found that the strongest predictor for transphobic attitudes were a person's corresponding attitudes towards lesbian, gay, or bisexual people, i.e., homophobia was strongly associated with transphobia. However, other factors were also statistically significant, including individual differences such as aggressiveness, gender role beliefs, demographics, and gender essentialism. Rad et al. (2019) published a study they said had implications for understanding transphobia. Rad and colleagues surveyed a sample of 1323 American adults, asking them to identify the gender of transgender people who medically transitioned. Biological changes resulted in the target being more identified with their self-identified gender than their birth-assigned gender. Moreover, compared to male test subjects, female test subjects were more likely to identify the targets as their self-identified gender. This gender difference was larger in younger, more liberal, and less religious non-Midwestern respondents. The authors further showed that gender category beliefs (ratings of the transgender person's post-transition gender identity) were strongly associated with attitudes and feelings of warmth towards transgender people. However, gender category beliefs performed better in predicting bathroom policy preferences compared to feelings in unseen data, indicating that beliefs about what gender is and how it is determined are significantly linked to transphobia and support for anti-transgender policies. The authors argue that this pattern is consistent with theories that transphobia is rooted in a hierarchical social classification system where low-status groups (e.g., females) view the hierarchy in less essentialist ways than high-status groups (e.g., males). Transfeminist theorist and author Julia Serano argues that the root of transphobia is "oppositional sexism", i.e. the belief that male and female are "rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and nonoverlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires". She contrasts this against the belief that males and masculinity are superior to females and femininity along with people's insecurities about gender and gender norms, which she calls "traditional sexism". Other transgender rights authors argue that a significant part of the oppositional sexist origin of transphobia and violence towards transsexual people is linked to psychological claims of difference between male sexuality and female sexuality in the brain's protection mechanisms from committing sex crimes. These authors argue that the paradigm of acceptable sexual behavior that assumes men's sexual arousal is category-specific and women's sex drive is lower and more inhibited causes allegations that transsexual people have neither safety system in the brain and are therefore sex criminals. They argue that studies that claim to show such sex differences have flaws, such as the possibility that more men are deterred from participating in sexual arousal studies than women due to fear of being alleged to be inappropriately sexually aroused.[page needed][clarification needed] Some authors have linked transphobia's origins to colonialism, arguing that gendercide against third gender people carried out during the European colonization of the Americas reflect the historical roots of transphobia. Sociologists McLean and Stretesky argue that "a veritable miasma of anti-trans campaign groups [...] united in their antipathy toward transgender people" has contributed to an anti-trans moral panic in the United Kingdom, which they link to authoritarian beliefs. Transgender author and critic Jody Norton believes that transphobia is an extension of homophobia and misogyny. She argues that transgender people, like gays and lesbians, are hated and feared for challenging and undermining gender norms and the gender binary, and the "male-to-female transgender incites transphobia through her implicit challenge to the binary division of gender upon which male cultural and political hegemony depends". Drawing on theory of radicalization, Craig McLean argues that discourse on transgender-related issues in the UK has been radicalized in response to the activities of what he terms the "anti-transgender movement," claiming that the movement pushes "a radical agenda to deny the basic rights of trans people (...) under the cover of 'free speech.'" Related concepts Cissexism (also termed cisgenderism, and related to but distinct from cisnormativity or cissexual assumption) is the appeal to norms that enforce the gender binary and gender essentialism, resulting in the oppression of gender variant, non-binary, and transgender identities. Cissexism refers to the assumption that, due to human sexual differentiation, one's gender is determined solely by a "biological" sex of male or female (or, in the case of cisgenderism, a bivalent male or female expression), and that trans people are inferior to cisgender people. Cisgender privilege is the set of "unearned rights afforded to nontransgender people by virtue of the fact that they are not transgender", such as access to gender-segregated spaces and teams, lower exposure to gender-based violence, and easier access to gender-specific healthcare.[page range too broad] Harassment and violence directed against transgender people is often called trans bashing, and can be physical, sexual or verbal. Whereas gay bashing is directed against a target's real or perceived sexual orientation, trans bashing is directed against the target's real or perceived expressed gender identity. The term has also been applied to hate speech directed at transgender people and to depictions of transgender people in the media that reinforce negative stereotypes about them. Transprejudice is a term similar to transphobia, and refers to the negative valuing, stereotyping, and discriminatory treatment of individuals whose appearance or identity does not conform to current social expectations or conventional conceptions of gender. Manifestations Transgender people are often excluded from entitlements or privileges reserved for cisgender people of the same gender: for example, it is common for transgender women to be stopped or questioned when they use public bathrooms designated for women. Homeless shelters, hospitals and prisons have denied trans women admission to women's areas and forced them to sleep and bathe in the presence of men.[page needed][page needed] The stigma against transgender people often results in physical violence or bodily harm, sexual violence or assault, and verbal or emotional abuse. Transgender individuals are at increased risk for experiencing aggression and violence throughout their life when compared to cisgender individuals, especially when it comes to sexual violence. Other kinds of abuse include bullying, harassment, and multiple forms of discrimination. Abuse against transgender people can come from many different sources, including family and friends, partners, co-workers and acquaintances, strangers, and the police, and the abuse can occur at each developmental stage in life. As homophobia and transphobia are correlated, many trans people experience homophobia and heterosexism due to people who associate trans people's gender identity with homosexuality, or because trans people may also have a sexual orientation that is non-heterosexual. Author Thomas Spijkerboer [Wikidata] stated that "transgender people subjected to violence, in a range of cultural contexts, frequently report that transphobic violence is expressed in homophobic terms." According to the American Psychological Association, transgender children are more likely than other children to experience harassment and violence in school, foster care, residential treatment centers, homeless centers, and juvenile justice programs. Researchers say trans youth routinely experience taunting, teasing and bullying at school, and that nearly all trans youth say they were verbally or physically harassed in school, particularly during gym class, at school events, or when using single-sex restrooms. Three-quarters report having felt unsafe. As adults, transgender people are frequently subjected to ridicule, taunting, and threats of violence, even when just walking down the street or walking into a store. A U.S. survey of 402 older, employed, high-income transgender people found that 60% reported violence or harassment because of their gender identity. Among other things, 56% of the respondents reported being harassed or verbally abused, 30% reported being assaulted, and 8% reported unjustified arrest. A study of 81 transgender people in Philadelphia found that 30% of the respondents reported feeling unsafe in public because they were transgender, with 19% feeling uncomfortable for the same reason. When asked if they had ever been forced to have sex, experienced violence in their home, or been physically abused, the majority answered yes to each question. In 2009, researcher Rebecca L. Stotzer published an article in Aggression and Violent Behavior that compiled information from numerous studies reporting violence against transgender people, describing it as "shockingly common" and noting that transgender people have a high risk of experiencing sexual violence throughout their lifetimes, and while reported rates vary considerably among studies for methodological and other reasons, the most common finding is that around 50% of transgender people have been sexually assaulted. A meta-analysis on the rates of intimate partner violence found that transgender individuals are 66% more likely to experience violence of some kind from an intimate partner than cisgender subjects, and more than twice as likely to experience both sexual and physical intimate partner violence than their cisgender peers. Perpetrators of physical violence against transgender people are reported to have been influenced by negative attitudes against transgender people, many of whom do not report their assault to the police. In the United States, the available homicide data suggests that transgender people are murdered at a lower rate than cisgender people. However, young Black and Latina trans women appear to be at greater risk of homicide than their cisgender peers. Misgendering is the act of labelling or referring to others with a gender that does not match their gender identity. Misgendering can be deliberate or accidental; common examples of misgendering a person are using the wrong pronouns to describe someone, calling a person "ma'am" or "sir" in contradiction to the person's gender identity, using a person's previous, pre-transition name for them in place of their current name ("deadnaming"), or insisting that a person must adhere to the norms of their sex assigned at birth rather than the ones that align with their gender identity; for example, using a bathroom designated for males even though the person identifies as female. The experience of being misgendered is common for all transgender people before they transition, and for many afterwards as well. Transgender people are regularly misgendered by doctors, police, media, and peers, experiences that have been described as "mortifying", cruel, and "only making our lives harder". A 2018 study of 129 transgender and other gender-expansive youth published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that "for each additional social context in which a youth's chosen name was used, there was a statistically significant decrease in depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and suicidal behaviors," though the study was "correlational so causality cannot be assumed, and the sample size was small." Deliberately misgendering a transgender person is considered extremely offensive by transgender individuals. In society A study of 81 transgender people in Philadelphia found 14% said they had been refused routine medical care because they were transgender. 18% answered 'yes' when asked if, when they went in for a check-up, "being transgender created a problem" for them. Additionally, a study of 223 healthcare providers indicated a correlation between transphobia and decreased performance on survey questions regarding the treatment of transgender patients, with no significant correlation to the amount of time spent learning about transgender health, leading researchers to state that "broader efforts to address transphobia in society in general, and in medical education in particular, may be required to improve the quality of medical care for [transgender and gender diverse] patients." In the United States–based National Center For Transgender Equality's 2011 survey, 19% of respondents reported being refused medical care due to their transgender or gender non-conforming status, such as Robert Eads, who died of ovarian cancer after being refused treatment by more than two dozen doctors due to fears that taking him on as a patient might harm their practice, or Tyra Hunter, who was involved in an automobile accident; when rescue workers discovered she was transgender, they backed away and stopped administering treatment. She later died in a hospital. In many European countries, laws require that any transgender person who wishes to change their legal gender must first be sterilized. Sweden repealed its law in December 2012, and the European Court of Human Rights struck down such laws in 2017. Transphobia also manifests itself in the workplace. Some transgender people lose their jobs when they begin to transition and a 1995 study from Willamette University stated that a transgender person fired for following the recommended course of treatment rarely wins it back through federal or state statutes. A survey of 392 trans women and 123 trans men conducted by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in 1997 and released in 1999 found that 40% of trans women surveyed had earned money from full or part-time employment over the preceding six months. For trans men, the equivalent statistic was 81%. The survey also found that 46% of trans women and 57% of trans men reported employment discrimination. The Associated Press and the Out Traveler later reported the San Francisco Department of Public Health had found 70% of trans respondents in San Francisco were unemployed.[better source needed] A 2002 American study found that among educators, trans educators are 10–20% more likely to experience workplace harassment than their gay and lesbian colleagues. In the hiring process, discrimination may be either open or covert, with employers sometimes finding other ostensible reasons to not hire a candidate. Additionally, when an employer fires a transgender employee, it may be a "mixed motive" case, with the employer openly citing obvious wrongdoing or job performance issues while keeping silent in regards to transphobia. Employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression is illegal in the United States. Such discrimination is outlawed by specific legislation in the State of New Jersey and might be in other states (as it is in the states of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington) or city ordinances; additionally, it is covered by case law in some other states. (For example, Massachusetts is covered by cases such as Lie vs. Sky Publishing Co. and Jette vs. Honey Farms.) Several other states and cities prohibit such discrimination in public employment. Sweden and the United Kingdom have also legislated against employment discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Sometimes, however, employers discriminate against transgender employees in spite of such legal protections. In 2000, the southern U.S. grocery chain Winn-Dixie fired long-time employee Peter Oiler, despite a history of repeatedly earning raises and promotions, after management learned that Oiler identified as transgender and occasionally cross-dressed off the job. Management argued that this hurt Winn-Dixie's corporate image. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Winn-Dixie on behalf of Oiler, but a judge dismissed it. Transgender people facing employment discrimination may turn to sex work to survive, placing them at additional risk of encountering troubles with the law, including arrest and criminal prosecution, workplace violence, the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. Lack of employment has also resulted in the transgender community resorting to illegal means of earning money such as drug-dealing. A study conducted by Anneliese Singh and Vel McKleroy on transgender people of color revealed that difficulty finding a job or losing a job due to transphobia resulted in some respondents living in crime-ridden neighborhoods and getting involved in abusive relationships. A 2021 study in the Journal of Career Development looked at 18 Latino transgender immigrants to the United States and found five themes related to these participants' experiences while seeking employment: discrimination, limited options, positive experiences, and disability benefits as financial relief. Voter identification laws in the United States often impact transgender individuals' ability to vote, since many lack photo identification with their current name and gender. Prisons frequently make no attempt to accommodate transgender individuals, assigning them to facilities using only the criteria of genitalia, which is believed to contribute to the pervasiveness of prison rape with regards to transgender women. Prison staff have been noted to frequently deny trans women privileges disproportionately, and the Eighth Amendment right for an individual not to be given cruel or unusual punishment has historically not been liberally enforced in cases involving transgender inmates. In July 2023, Russia enacted a law which had, among other measures, banned gender-affirming healthcare for all transgender people regardless of age and had also banned them from adopting children. Transgender people also face the denial of right of asylum or inhuman treatment in process of asylum-seeking. Within the school system, many transgender teens are harassed and mistreated with reported negative effects on both victim and the school's population in general. Transgender youth frequently report fear and anxiety about using restrooms and locker rooms at school because of harassment by both peers and adults when using them. Over 80% of transgender teens report feeling unsafe in a school environment, more than 40% report having been physically abused, and over 65% report being bullied online or via social media. Such discrimination is generally underreported, and school officials may even participate in transphobic name-calling or victim-blaming. Additionally, administrative practices such as misgendering students in school records can contribute to transgender students' distress in school. A study done on Canadian high school students between December 2007 and June 2009 illustrated how the LGBTQ students felt unsafe at the school and were exposed to insults and discrimination by their peers and sometimes even by their teachers. Online transphobia remains a growing problem across various online spaces. A study by Brandwatch analyzing over ten million posts in transgender-related discussions on various social media platforms between 2015 and 2019 found over 1.5 million transphobic posts. These posts varied from promoting transphobic sentiment to advocating for anti-transgender violence and genocide. Transgender people are often victims of online harassment and experience higher reported levels of online harassment compared to their cisgender heterosexual counterparts. One study on transphobic cyberbullying by Evelyn et al. found that participants most frequently reported being bullied on social media platforms, alongside frequently reporting bullying in online video games and dating apps. Most of the bullying was found to be from anonymous users or people unknown to the participants, and often in the form of transphobic insults, intersectional sexist, homophobic and/or racist insults, outing their identity, threats of harm, and sexual harassment. Participants even reported transphobic cyberbullying from other transgender individuals, usually by policing or outing their identity. Online transphobia has potential to lead to real-world violence and threats. An example of this is when far-right Twitter account Libs of TikTok made a series of posts spreading misinformation that Boston Children's Hospital was performing hysterectomies on minors. This led to a series of death threats and bomb threats being made against the hospital and individual physicians, and individual physicians being doxxed and harassed in person. Libs of TikTok has similarly posted about several other LGBT-themed events, such as Drag Queen Story Hours, often leading to said events receiving mass threats of violence and being canceled or postponed by organizers. The LGBT grooming conspiracy theory—claiming that LGBTQ people and allies are systematically grooming children—has been promoted online by both users and mainstream politicians such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. Former US President Donald Trump claimed in a video posted to Truth Social on 31 January 2023, that "the left-wing gender insanity being pushed at our children is an act of child abuse" and that if re-elected, he would pass numerous laws significantly limiting gender-affirming care for minors. One study on Twitter found that use of the term "groomer" in tweets spiked on multiple occasions, including the passing of the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, the signing into law of said act, and Twitter posting a statement that tweets calling transgender or nonbinary people "groomers" violates its hate speech policy. Despite Twitter's prior public stance against transphobia and homophobia on its platform, the company was criticized by organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign for being inefficient. One audit by the organization found that Twitter failed to act on 99 out of 100 of the most viewed anti-LGBT tweets between January and July 2022. The acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk has led to a significant increase in hate speech, especially in terms of anti-LGBTQ content. Following Musk's takeover, tweets linking LGBT people to grooming rose by 119%, and retweets and mentions of right-wing figures' anti-LGBT tweets increased by over 1200%. Under Elon Musk, Twitter has also relaxed transgender hate speech policies, such as misgendering. GLAAD described Twitter as "the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ people", ranking the lowest on its Social Media Safety Index. Similarly, a 2020 study on Facebook by Media Matters for America found that right-leaning sources took up a vast majority of interactions in transgender topics compared to left-leaning or queer sources, with anti-LGBT outlets such as The Daily Wire and LifeSiteNews earning the highest engagements out of any source analyzed in the study. In North America, organizations associated with the Christian right, including the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, believe that "transgenderism" is unnatural and that transgender people are and remain the sex they were assigned at birth. These organizations oppose laws and policies intended to accommodate transgender people, such as allowing them to change their legal sex, use the washroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify, or become ordained Christian ministers. It is their position that God created people's bodies as they are meant to be, that accepting transgender people would violate scripture and natural law, and that the Bible refers to male and female only. According to the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance website, under Pope John Paul II, the Holy See first stated its opposition to reassignment surgery in 2000, although it was not made public until 2003. Transgender people face particular challenges in attempting to integrate their faith with their gender identity. One author says "expectations [based on gender] are usually predicated upon our genitalia and begin from the moment of birth, continuing throughout our lives." Many Christian denominations use biblical notions of gender and gender roles to support their views. These include "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27) and "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Deuteronomy 22:5). Views of gender identity based on the Christian faith do not always coincide with the perspectives of transgender individuals.[clarification needed] However, if they do not conform to these expectations, they may face rejection. Many transgender Christians seek out an "individualized relationship with God", often facing "a period of denial and struggle" as well as depression, disconnection, dissatisfaction, and spiritual difficulty before "discovering a sense of self that feels integral and true". Many transgender individuals face barriers within the church, such as "fear and unfamiliarity on the part of the congregation, language issues, physical layout that separates people by gender, programs that exclude or separate by gender, pathologizing or designating trans issues as sinful, and overt hostility". The Islamic faith has historically supported heteronormative, binary gender identification. This support is reinforced by cultural norms and traditional readings of sacred texts which prohibit a wide range of identities. Despite this history, progressive Muslims have built arguments that support transgender Muslims on long-established doctrine, and support for gender transition has even been found among influential conservative scholars.[citation needed] In 1988, gender reassignment surgery was declared acceptable under Islamic law by scholars at Egypt's Al-Azhar, the world's oldest Islamic university. In Iran during 1987, Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme religious leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran at that time, also declared transgender surgical operations as acceptable (see transgender rights in Iran). The foundation for this accepting attitude in contrast to intolerance of homosexuality is the belief that a person is born transgender but chooses to be homosexual. Despite this acceptance among some conservative Muslim scholars and leaders, transgender individuals within the Muslim community still face particular challenges.[citation needed] Today, there are some Muslim communities that explicitly welcome transgender Muslims, including some which have trans leadership. Masjid Al-Rabia, founded in 2017, is a trans-led, women-centred, LGBTQ+ affirming mosque based in Chicago, IL. In Northampton, Massachusetts, the Pioneer Valley Progressive Muslims (Masjid Al-Inshirah) was founded in 2010 by a transgender Muslim. Muslims for Progressive Values has founded Unity Mosques in Atlanta, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; and Los Angeles, California; as well as outside the United States. The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity hosts an annual retreat for LGBTQ+ Muslims in Pennsylvania each May. The Trans and Muslim Project of TransFaith is a project devoted specifically to the support of transgender Muslims. Transphobia can manifest in attacks on inclusive language. Dorothee Beck writes that gender-inclusive language "is a trigger point for 'anti-gender' attacks," and describes it as "an important aspect of a broader political 'crusade' against gender." Lucy Jones writes, in her review of scholarly literature on language, gender, and sexuality, that anti-gender and gender-critical actors often resist the adoption of inclusive and nonbinary language, particularly in relation to pronouns and the recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities. Jones notes that gender-critical actors frequently reject linguistic practices that affirm trans and nonbinary identities, often citing the preservation of "sex-based rights" as justification. She observes that this resistance is typically framed by a binary and essentialist ideology that defines "woman" exclusively as someone assigned female at birth. Drawing on this scholarship, Jones characterizes gender-critical resistance to inclusive language as part of a broader "cisnormative preoccupation with trans people's bodies" and a form of linguistic policing aimed at denying the legitimacy of trans and nonbinary identities. Jones situates these discursive patterns within a wider political context by citing Borba (2022), who examines the emergence of an "anti-gender register" used in trans-exclusionary discourse, including gender-critical feminism. Borba argues that this register, which draws on essentialist ideas about sex and gender, has gained traction through a process of enregisterment, a way of making certain ideological positions appear natural or commonsensical. He further suggests that this has been achieved in part by appropriating the language of feminist and LGBTQ+ antidiscrimination activism, reframing it to emphasize threats to the rights of cisgender women and children. Scholars have highlighted the activity of anti-trans voices in international legal arenas in the 2020s. Legal scholars Tamsin Phillipa Paige and Claerwen O'Hara describe what they call an increasingly aggressive anti-queer and transphobic movement that is now active also in legal circles, citing the activities of Reem Alsalem as a prominent example. In feminism In her cross-cultural study on prejudice against transgender people, social psychologist Jaime L. Napier found that while prejudice against transgender people is more common in men, it is also found among some self-identified feminists, highlighting Sweden as an outlier and the only country in her research where anti-trans prejudice was more common among women. Some positions within feminism have been considered transphobic. This may include criticism of transitioning or sex reassignment surgery (SRS) as a personal choice or medical invention, or the position that trans women are not women in a literal sense and should not be allowed access to women-only spaces. Some second-wave feminists perceive trans men and women respectively as "traitors" and "infiltrators" to womanhood. Second-wave feminist and activist Gloria Steinem expressed concerns in 1977 about transsexuality and SRS, writing that in many cases, transsexuals "surgically mutilate their own bodies.": 227 She concluded that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism.": 228 For some years, this led to Steinem being characterized as transphobic. In 2013, she repudiated the interpretation of her text as an altogether condemnation of SRS, stating that her position was informed by accounts of gay men choosing to transition as a way of coping with societal homophobia. She added that she sees transgender people as living "authentic lives" that should be "celebrated". Radical feminist Janice Raymond's 1979 book, The Transsexual Empire, was and is still controversial due to its unequivocal condemnation of transsexual surgeries. In the book Raymond says, "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves .... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive" and that trans people should be "morally mandated out of existence". Another site of conflict between feminists and trans women has been the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. In the early 1990s, the festival ejected a transsexual woman, Nancy Burkholder. In 2014, the festival "passionately rejected" accusations that it believed transgender women are "less than" other women. The activist group Camp Trans had protested the "womyn-born-womyn" intention and advocated for greater acceptance of trans women within the feminist community. The festival had considered allowing only post-operative trans women to attend, but this was criticized as classist, as many trans women cannot afford sex reassignment surgery. Trans women such as Sandy Stone challenged the feminist conception of "biological woman". Stone worked as a sound engineer for Olivia Records from about 1974 to 1978, resigning as the controversy over a trans woman working for a lesbian-identified enterprise increased. The debate continued in Raymond's book, which devoted a chapter to criticism of "the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist." Groups like Lesbian Organization of Toronto then voted to exclude trans lesbians. Sheila Jeffreys described "transgenderism" as "deeply problematic from a feminist perspective and [stated] that transsexualism should be seen as a violation of human rights." The work of poststructuralist feminist and lesbian Judith Butler, particularly their books Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter (1993), argues that the "violent inscription" of gender as a social construct on human bodies leads to violence against those who do not conform to such binaristic gender dichotomies. Feminists who oppose the inclusion of trans women in women's spaces have been labeled "TERFs", short for "trans-exclusionary radical feminists". Some of those at whom the term is directed, in turn, have perceived their labeling as "TERF" to be a slur. In gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities Transphobia is documented in the lesbian, gay and bisexual communities, despite historic cooperation between these communities in campaigns for equality. Authors and observers, such as transgender author Jillian Todd Weiss, have written that "there are social and political forces that have created a split between gay/lesbian communities and bisexual/transgender communities, and these forces have consequences for civil rights and community inclusion. 'Biphobia' and 'transphobia' are a result of these social and political forces, not psychological forces causing irrational fears in aberrant individuals." Historian Joanne Meyerowitz documented transphobia within the gay rights movement in the mid 20th century in response to publicity surrounding the transition of Christine Jorgensen. Jorgensen, who made frequent homophobic remarks and insisted she was not connected to or identified with gay men, was a polarizing figure among activists: In 1953, for example, ONE magazine published a debate among its readers as to whether gay men should denounce Jorgensen. In the opening salvo, the author Jeff Winters accused Jorgensen of a "sweeping disservice" to gay men. "As far as the public knows," Winters wrote, "you were merely another unhappy homosexual who decided to get drastic about it." For Winters, Jorgensen's story simply confirmed the false belief that all men attracted to other men must be basically feminine," which, he said, "they are not." Jorgensen's precedent, he thought, encouraged the "reasoning" that led "to legal limitations upon the homosexual, mandatory injections, psychiatric treatment – and worse." In the not-so-distant past, scientists had experimented with castrating gay men. — Joanne Meyerowitz[page needed] Several prominent figures in second wave feminism have also been accused of transphobic attitudes, culminating in 1979 with the publication of The Transsexual Empire by radical lesbian feminist Janice Raymond, who popularized the term shemale as derogatory slur referring to trans women in 1994, and her statements on transsexuality and transsexual people have been criticized by many in the LGBT and feminist communities as extremely transphobic and as constituting hate speech. In 1950s America, there was a debate among gay men and women about those who felt they were of the opposite sex. Gay men and women who were trying to melt quietly into the majority society criticized them as "freaks" who brought unwanted disreputable attention upon them. Such attitudes were widespread at the time. Some trans men face rejection from lesbian communities they had been part of prior to transition. Journalist Louise Rafkin writes, "there are those who are feeling curiously uncomfortable standing by as friends morph into men. Sometimes there is a generational flavor to this discomfort; many in the over-40 crowd feel particular unease", stating that this was "shaking the foundation of the lesbian-feminist world". Trans men were part of the protest at the 2000 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, the first time the 'womyn-born womyn only' policy has been used against trans males, women supporting the transgender community and young gender-variant women.[full citation needed] In the early 1970s, conflicts began to emerge due to different syntheses of lesbian, feminist and transgender political movements, particularly in the United States. San Francisco trans activist and entertainer Beth Elliott became the focus of debate over whether to include transgender lesbians in the movement, and she was eventually blacklisted by her own movement.[page needed][page needed] One view is that the word bisexual is transphobic, as "bi" means "two" (thus implying a belief in the binary view of gender). Some people, such as scholar Shiri Eisner, say that some make the claim that the term "erases nonbinary genders and sexes out of existence", as many dictionaries define bisexuality as "of, relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of either sex", "sexually attracted to both men and women" and other similar definitions. However, some bisexual individuals and scholars object to the notion that bisexuality means sexual attraction to only two genders, arguing that since bisexual is not simply about attraction to two sexes and encompasses gender as well, it can include attraction to more than one or more than two genders and is occasionally defined as such. Others, such as the American Institute of Bisexuality, say that the term "is an open and inclusive term for many kinds of people with same-sex and different-sex attractions" and that "the scientific classification bisexual only addresses the physical, biological sex of the people involved, not the gender-presentation." To deal with issues related to transphobia and the gender binary, some individuals have taken on terms such as pansexual, omnisexual, or polysexual in place of the term bisexual. The American Institute of Bisexuality argues that these terms "describe a person with homosexual and heterosexual attractions, and therefore people with these labels are also bisexual" and that the notion that bisexuality is a reinforcement of a gender binary is a concept that is founded upon "anti-science, anti-Enlightenment philosophy that has ironically found a home within many Queer Studies departments at universities across the Anglophone world". Eisner agrees with this view, stating that "allegations of binarism have little to do with bisexuality's actual attributes or bisexual people's behavior in real life" and that the allegations are an attempt to separate the bisexual and transgender communities politically. Consequences Whether intentional or not, transphobia and cissexism have severe consequences for the target of the negative attitude. Transphobia creates significant stresses for transgender people which can lead them to feel shame, low self-esteem, alienation and inadequacy. Transgender youth often try to cope with the stress by running away from home, dropping out of school, using drugs or self-harming. Suicide rates among transgender people are thought to be especially high, because of how they are treated by their families and by society. Polyvictimization is experiencing multiple forms of abuse and victimization throughout a person's life, such as physical or sexual violence, bullying/aggression, parental neglect or abuse, experiencing crime, etc. Polyvictimization can start in childhood and has consequences for adolescent health and thus adult health. Transgender, gender diverse, and sexual minority adolescents (TGSA) are more likely to experience polyvictimization when compared to their cisgender peers. Family traits more associated with polyvictimization in TGSA include: families that have higher than average levels of violence and adversity in their life, families that give their child higher than average levels of microaggressions and lower levels of microaffirmations, and families that have average levels of violence and adversity, and also give their child higher levels of microaffirmations. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms reported by TGSA has shown to be a significant link between TGSA grouped by their family experiences and polyvictimization. Research supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) assessed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents and noted that those who had moderate to high, and steady or increasing rates of victimization or verbal or physical threats, were at heightened risk for developing PTSD. Relational and physical bullying victimization, as well as various other forms of emotional distress, are increasingly experienced by the transgender and gender diverse (TGD) adolescent population. Those who experience the most physical and relational bullying victimization and emotional distress, are AMAB youth whom others perceived as very, or mostly, feminine. Moreover, regardless of assigned gender at birth, relational bullying victimization, depression, and suicidal ideation is common among adolescents that can be perceived as anything other than very, or mostly, masculine. Repeatedly, research on the effects of aggression and violence against TGD youth and young adults shows – when compared to their cisgender peers – higher rates of PTSD, depression, non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, intent, plan, and attempts, higher rates of substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana), trauma, skipping school due to safety concerns, and poorer health outcomes. The 2015 United States Transgender Survey, the largest such survey ever carried out (with 27,715 respondents), found that one in ten respondents suffered transphobic violence at the hands of a family member and 8% were forced to leave their homes for being transgender. The majority of those who were openly transgender or perceived as transgender at school were victims of some form of mistreatment on account of this, including verbal abuse (54%), physical attacks (24%), and sexual assault (13%). 17% experienced such severe mistreatment that they had to leave school. Support from one's community or family was correlated with more positive outcomes related to mental health and social functioning. In adulthood, the effects of aggression and violence against various groups of transgender people has also been documented in domains such as mental and physical health, and safety and discrimination in the military. Transgender related bias, or discrimination, victimization, and rejection, affects transgender adults and the severity of PTSD symptoms they report. A systematic review completed in 2018 examined 77 studies that reported mental health disparities and social stress felt by TGD adults. The analysis found associations between TGD identity and anxiety, depression, PTSD, substance use, and suicidality, as well as added social stress factors such as violence, discrimination, and exclusion. When examining posttraumatic stress disorder and substance use in transgender adult communities, records indicated that transgender adults who have PTSD are more likely to be diagnosed with a substance use disorder within their lifetime. A National Institute of Health (NIH) analysis conducted with data collected at a community health center in the United States compared transgender and cisgender adult patients on various possible health disparities. Their research showed that within their lifetime, transgender patients experienced more violence, childhood abuse, discrimination, and suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts when compared to their cisgender counterparts who had a similar age, education, ethnicity/race, and income. Strong associations between military sexual assault (MSA) and PTSD have been documented in both men and women. A nationwide survey of military personnel in 2015 found that 17.2% of transgender veterans reported experiencing MSA. Links have been found between MSA experienced by transgender veterans and increased depression symptom severity, past-year drug use, and PTSD symptom severity. Posttraumatic stress disorder has also been associated with suicidality and substance use among adults. For instance, records reflect that veterans who identify as transgender increasingly experience PTSD and suicide ideation, plans, and attempts. Further, transgender specific stigma experienced while in the military and PTSD have been associated with deaths by suicide. This could be worsened by racial health disparities that exist within the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare System. Particularly, racial health disparities between non-Hispanic Black transgender veterans (BTV) and non-Hispanic White transgender veterans (WTV) have been acknowledged. Non-Hispanic Black transgender veterans are at increased odds of having an array of physical health issues/diseases, serious mental illnesses, alcohol use, tobacco use, homelessness, and previous incarceration when compared to the WTV. Non-Hispanic White transgender veterans had increased odds of depression, obesity, and hypercholesterolemia when compared to BTV. Previous incarceration plays a larger role in the PTSD and homelessness that transgender veterans may experience. Specifically, transgender veterans that have a history of previous incarceration are more likely to have PTSD or to experience homelessness when compared to previously incarcerated veterans who are not transgender. Nearly one third of U.S. transgender people responding to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey lived in poverty, compared to 14% of the population. During the 12 months prior to the survey, 30% of employed transgender people were either fired or mistreated for being transgender, from verbal abuse to sexual violence. 30% had been homeless at some point in their life, and 12% had been homeless during the previous year. Family and community support were correlated with significantly lower rates of homelessness and poverty. During the year prior to the 2015 U.S. survey, 46% of respondents had been verbally harassed and 9% had been physically attacked for being transgender. 10% had been sexually assaulted during the previous year, and 47% had been sexually assaulted at some point in their life. Evidence collected by the Transgender Day of Remembrance and National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs on the homicide rates of transgender individuals suggests that the homicide rates of young trans women who are Black or Latina are "almost certainly higher" than those of cisgender women of the same race. During the year prior to the 2015 U.S. survey, 12% of respondents reported being verbally harassed in a public restroom. 1% reported being sexually assaulted in a public restroom for being transgender, and 1% reported being otherwise physically assaulted for being transgender. 9% reported being denied the right to use a public restroom consistent with their gender. During the year prior to the 2015 U.S. survey, 59% of respondents reported avoiding using a public restroom out of fear of violence or harassment. 32% limited the amount they ate or drank in order to avoid using a public restroom. 8% reported suffering a urinary tract infection, kidney infection, or other kidney problem as a result of avoiding public restrooms. 33% reported having negative experiences with a healthcare professional related to being transgender, such as verbal harassment or denial of treatment. 23% reported that they did not seek treatment for a condition out of fear of being mistreated, while 33% did not seek treatment because they were unable to afford it. During the month prior to the survey, 39% of American transgender people experienced major psychological distress, compared to 5% of the general population of the United States. 40% had attempted suicide at some point in their life, compared to 4.6 percent of the American population. Family and community support were correlated with far lower rates of suicide attempts and of major psychological distress. A study conducted on transgender women of color in San Francisco has shown a higher correlation between transphobia and risk of transgender women engaging in HIV risk behavior. The study shows that the transgender youth face social discrimination, and they may not have a social role model. The young adults in this group have shown a higher risk of engaging in unprotected receptive anal intercourse when the exposure to transphobia is high. Therefore, as per the study shows a correlation between transphobia and high risk of HIV. People who are transgender are more likely to experience some type of psychological distress because of the harassment and discrimination that comes with transphobia. Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education conducted a nationwide survey on college campuses examining the psychological effects on transgender people, with a sample size of 86. Out of these 86 participants, 54% stated they have attended psychological counseling before and 10% had been hospitalized for reasons related to mental health. The final results of the study show that over twice as many participants who considered themselves transgender (43%) had engaged in self-injurious behavior, versus those who considered themselves male or female (16%). According to Virupaksha, Muralidhar, and Ramakrishna, suicide attempts among transgender people globally range from 32% to 50%. In India, 31% to 50% of transgender people have tried to commit suicide before age 20. 50% of transgender people in Australia and 45% of those in England have attempted suicide at least once. In the United States, suicide attempts reported by transgender and gender nonconforming adults exceed the rate of the general population: 41% versus 4.6 percent. In San Francisco alone, the suicide attempt rate among transgender people is 32% overall, and for those under age 25 it is 50%. According to the study Transphobia Among Transgenders of Color by the University of California, San Francisco, transphobia affects the psychological vulnerability of transgender people of color as compared to those of other ethnicities. Acts of transphobia such as undue denial of services, unfair dismissal from work places or stigmatization have far-reaching effects on the subjects such as low self-esteem, under-performance, stress, withdrawal or even depression. When it comes to the minorities, who are already proven to be undergoing various forms of discrimination, the consequences are even more exaggerated. Transgender people of color are more significantly associated with depression than their white counterparts. Information regarding the effects of transphobia with respect to minority identities has not been well documented. In a 2018 review of mental health research regarding transgender individuals, only 4 out of 77 studies that were reviewed examined the intersectionality of transgender and racial identities. There were other studies that included disproportionately high amounts of transgender individuals who are in multiple minority groups, but the authors note that it is difficult to tell if these studies generalize to the transgender/ gender nonconforming community as a whole due to lack of extensive study. To help transgender people work through traumatic experiences, minority stress, and internalized transphobia, mental health practitioners have begun integrating the gender-affirmative model into cognitive behavioral therapy, person-centered therapy,[page needed] and acceptance and commitment therapy. Many transgender people transition without undergoing surgery to remove reproductive organs or to reconstruct genitals, thus transition does not necessarily remove the ability or the desire to reproduce. While the same-sex issues surrounding the birth and parenting of children have gained a degree of acceptance, trans practices of parenting have received much less attention and acceptance. In 2007 a transgender man, Thomas Beatie, became pregnant because his wife was infertile. His pregnancy drew world-wide attention. He commented: Doctors have discriminated against us, turning us away due to their religious beliefs. Health care professionals have refused to call me by a male pronoun or recognize Nancy as my wife. Receptionists have laughed at us. Friends and family have been unsupportive; most of Nancy's family doesn't even know I'm transgender. Countering prejudice The contact hypothesis is the influential theory that contact between groups reduces prejudice. The findings from a 2009 study by Mark E. King, PhD and his colleagues supported that the contact can reduce prejudice towards transgender people, in a studied Hong Kong population. Walch et al. (2012) found a significant reduction in prejudice following viewership of a transgender speaker panel. In 2020, professor Jordan R. Axt and colleagues found an association between tested subjects' results in "a novel Implicit Association Test (IAT) assessing implicit attitudes toward transgender people", and their beliefs about transgender people, as well as their contact with transgender people. However, Cheso et al. (2024) suggested contact has a larger effect in reducing prejudice towards transgender people depending on certain factors, such as the level of knowledge about transgender people, and the level of contact quality. Findings from Fitzgerald et al. (2023) suggested that intergroup contact with lesbian, gay, or bisexual people also had "secondary transfer effects" that reduced prejudice against transgender people. A study published 2016 found that ten minute deep canvassing conversations could reduce transphobia, with "decreases greater than Americans' average decrease in homophobia from 1998 to 2012." The effect persisted in a follow-up survey three months later. See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TvOS] | [TOKENS: 2637] |
Contents tvOS tvOS (formerly Apple TV Software) is an operating system developed by Apple for the Apple TV, a digital media player. In the first-generation Apple TV, Apple TV Software was based on Mac OS X. The software for the second-generation and later Apple TVs is based on the iOS operating system and has many similar frameworks, technologies, and concepts. The second- and third-generation Apple TV have several built-in applications, but do not support third-party applications. On September 9, 2015, Apple announced the fourth-generation Apple TV, with support for third-party applications. Apple also changed the name of the Apple TV operating system to tvOS, adopting the camel case nomenclature that they were using for their other operating systems, iOS and watchOS. The latest version, tvOS 26, was released on September 15, 2025. History On October 30, 2015, the fourth-generation Apple TV became available; it shipped with tvOS 9.0. On November 9, 2015, tvOS 9.0.1 was released, primarily an update to address minor issues. tvOS 9.1 was released on December 8, 2015, along with OS X 10.11.2, iOS 9.2, and watchOS 2.1. Apple also updated the Remote apps on iOS and watchOS, enabling basic remote functionality for the fourth-generation Apple TV (previously, the app only worked with past versions of Apple TV). On November 25, 2015, Facebook debuted their SDK for tvOS, allowing applications to log into Facebook, share to Facebook, and use Facebook Analytics in the same way that iOS applications can. On December 2, 2015, Twitter debuted their login authentication service for tvOS – "Digits" – allowing users to log into apps and services with a simple, unique code available online. On June 13, 2016, at WWDC 2016, Apple SVP of Internet Services Eddy Cue announced tvOS 10. It brought new functionality, such as Siri search improvements, single sign-on for cable subscriptions, a dark mode, and a new Remote application for controlling the Apple TV; it was released on September 13, 2016, along with iOS 10. On June 4, 2018, at WWDC 2018, tvOS 12 was announced. It brought support for Dolby Atmos E-AC3 and was released on September 17, 2018, along with iOS 12. On April 13, 2020, it was discovered that Apple's Siri Smart Speaker HomePod began to run variants of the tvOS software. On June 22, 2020, at WWDC 2020, tvOS 14 was announced. It brought support for the Home app and 4K YouTube videos and was released on September 16, 2020, along with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. On June 7, 2021, at WWDC 2021, tvOS 15 was announced. It brought new features and improvements, including SharePlay, a new "Shared with You" section on the TV app, and the ability to play content via voice command. It was released on September 20, 2021, along with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. On June 6, 2022, at WWDC 2022, tvOS 16 was announced. It brought support for Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con and Pro Controllers and additional Bluetooth and USB game controllers. It was released on September 12, 2022, along with iOS 16. On June 5, 2023, at WWDC 2023, tvOS 17 was announced. tvOS 17 brings new features, such as support for FaceTime and video conferencing apps when paired with an iPhone or iPad, a redesigned control center interface, and third-party VPN support. It was released on September 18, 2023, along with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17. On June 10, 2024, at WWDC 2024, tvOS 18 was announced. It was released on September 16, 2024, along with iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. On June 9, 2025, at WWDC 2025, tvOS 26 was announced. It is the first tvOS to feature the new Liquid Glass design and a new year-based numbering system. It was released on September 15, 2025, along with iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. Features tvOS 9 shipped with several new features on the fourth-generation Apple TV. One major new feature was the ability to move through the interface with the new touchpad remote using multi-touch gestures. It also introduced a new App Store in which users can download and install new applications (such as apps and games) made available by developers for the Apple TV and tvOS. tvOS 9 adds support for Siri, which offers a multitude of features such as a cross-application search for a movie/TV show, rewind, fast forward, name and actor/director of the current movie, and skip back 15 seconds. tvOS added support for an application switcher on the Apple TV, more application customization options, cinematic screensavers, and control the TV using the included Siri Remote with the built-in support for HDMI-CEC in tvOS. In addition, tvOS allows the user to control the Apple TV in many different ways, such as using the included Siri Remote, pairing a third-party universal remote, pairing an MFi Gamepad to control games, using the Remote app on iOS, and pairing a Bluetooth keyboard to aid in the typing experience of the user. Accessibility tvOS, derived from iOS, incorporates many of the accessibility features found in iOS and macOS. These include VoiceOver, Zoom, and Siri, which support users who are blind or have low vision. VoiceOver, a screen reader available in over 30 languages, provides spoken descriptions of on-screen content and supports navigation through gestures such as flicks, taps, and the rotor. The system includes options to increase screen contrast by reducing background transparency in various interface elements. A high-contrast cursor can be enabled to highlight focused content, and a Reduce Motion setting simplifies certain animations to minimize visual strain. tvOS supports audio descriptions for films, indicated by the AD (Audio Description) icon in the iTunes Store and in iTunes on macOS and Windows. Bluetooth keyboard support is also available. When used with VoiceOver, characters are read aloud as they are typed and confirmed. While designed for Apple's keyboards, the system is compatible with most third-party Bluetooth keyboards. Closed captioning and SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing) are supported for video content, with customizable caption styles and fonts. Compatible media is marked with CC or SDH icons in the iTunes Store. The Siri Remote allows for customization of the touch surface, including tracking speed adjustments and the option to disable the touch functionality entirely in second-generation or later models, using directional buttons instead. Apple's Remote app for iOS devices can also control Apple TV. It includes support for Switch Control, which enables users with motor impairments to navigate the interface using compatible switch devices. Development tvOS 9 shipped with all-new development tools for developers, adding support for a new SDK for developers to build apps for the TV including all of the APIs included in iOS 9 such as Metal. It also adds the tvOS App Store which allows users to browse, download, and install a wide variety of applications. In addition, developers can now use their own interface inside of their application rather than only being able to use Apple's interface. Since tvOS is based on iOS, it is easy to port existing iOS apps to the Apple TV with Xcode while making only a few refinements to the app to better suit the larger screen. Apple provides Xcode free to all registered Apple developers. To develop for the new Apple TV, it is necessary to make a parallax image for the application icon. In order to do this, Apple provides a Parallax exporter and previewer in the development tools for the Apple TV. Version history Information about software updates for Apple TV (2nd generation) onwards is published on Apple's support website. Apple TV software 1.0 presented the user with an interface similar to that of Front Row. Like Front Row on the Mac, it presents the user with seven options for consuming content. Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos, Settings, and Sources. It was a modified version of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. In February 2008, Apple released a major and free upgrade to the Apple TV, labelled "Take Two" (2.0). This update did away with Front Row and introduced a new interface in which content was organized into six categories, all of which appeared in a large square box on the screen upon startup (movies, TV shows, music, YouTube, podcasts, and photos) and presented in the initial menu, along with a "Settings" option for configuration, including software updates. It also made updates over the air, meaning the computer was no longer required. In October 2009, Apple released another update for the Apple TV called "Apple TV Software 3.0". This update replaced the interface in version 2.0 with a new interface which presented seven horizontal columns across the top of the screen for the different categories of content (Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, Photos, Internet, and Settings). This update also added features such as content filtering, iTunes Extras, new fonts, and a new Internet radio app. One new feature in particular was the 'Genius' playlist option allowing for easier and more user friendly playlist creating. Apple TV Software 4, based on iOS 4 and 5, was the first version of Apple TV Software available on the Apple TV (2nd generation). It ended support for the Apple TV (1st generation). Apple TV Software 4.4 brought My Photo Stream, AirPlay mirroring (from iPhone 4S and iPad 2), NHL, Wall Street Journal, slideshow themes and Netflix subtitles. Contrary to rumors and code found in iOS 5, the release did not bring support for Bluetooth or apps to the Apple TV (2nd generation). Bug fixes Bug fixes Bug fixes Upgrading from this version resets the device to factory settings as part of the upgrade process. On September 24, 2012, Apple TV (2nd generation) onwards received the Apple TV Software 5 software update, based on iOS 5 and 6, with Shared Photo Streams, iTunes account switching, better AirPlay functionality, and Trailers searching, among other smaller improvements. Further channels added on August 27, 2013, without a software update: Vevo, Weather Channel, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Smithsonian Channel (some sources depend on country) On September 20, 2013, Apple TV (second generation) onwards received the Apple TV Software 6 software update, based on iOS 7, with iTunes Radio and AirPlay from iCloud. Third-party US-only content added on September 26, 2013, without a software update: Major League Soccer (MLS) and Disney Junior. iMovie Theater app was added on October 22, 2013, without a software update. Final release on Apple TV (2nd generation) As of May 2015, the YouTube app only works on newer Apple TVs that have software 7.2 or later due to an API change implemented by Google. On September 18, 2014, the third generation Apple TV received the Apple TV Software 7.0 software update based on iOS 8, with a redesigned UI, Family Sharing and peer-to-peer AirPlay. This release dropped support for the second generation Apple TV. As of May 2015, the YouTube app only works on Apple TVs that have software 7.2 or later due to an API change implemented by Google. Amazon Video was automatically added to Apple TVs running 7.2.2 on December 6, 2017. tvOS 9 is based on iOS 9, with adaptations made for a television interface. It was announced on September 9, 2015, alongside the first-generation iPad Pro and the iPhone 6S. Tim Cook introduced tvOS, calling it a modern OS with support for apps. It was only available on the Apple TV (4th generation), released in October 2015. It adds a native SDK to develop apps, an App Store to distribute them, Siri, and universal search across multiple apps. Initial release on Apple TV (4th generation). Bug fixes and improvements Security fixes See also Other operating systems developed by Apple: Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS] | [TOKENS: 8668] |
Contents iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple for its iPhone line of smartphones. It was unveiled in January 2007 alongside the first-generation iPhone, and was released in June 2007. Major versions of iOS are released annually; the current stable version, iOS 26, was released to the public on September 15, 2025. Besides powering iPhone, iOS is the basis for three other operating systems made by Apple: iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. iOS formerly also powered iPads until iPadOS was introduced in 2019 and the iPod Touch line of devices until its discontinuation. iOS is the world's second most widely installed mobile operating system, after Android. As of December 2023, Apple's App Store contains more than 3.8 million iOS mobile apps. iOS is based on macOS. Like macOS, it includes components of the Mach microkernel and FreeBSD. It is a Unix-like operating system. Although some parts of iOS are open source under the Apple Public Source License and other licenses, iOS is proprietary software. History In 2005, when Steve Jobs began planning the iPhone, he stated that he had a choice to either "shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or enlarge the iPod". Jobs favored the former approach but pitted the Macintosh and iPod teams, led by Scott Forstall and Tony Fadell, respectively, against each other in an internal competition, with Forstall winning by creating iPhone OS. The decision enabled the success of the iPhone as a platform for third-party developers: using a well-known desktop operating system as its basis allowed the many third-party Mac developers to write software for the iPhone with minimal retraining. Forstall was also responsible for creating a software development kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes. The operating system was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9, 2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed: "iPhone runs OS X" and runs "desktop class applications", but at the time of the iPhone's release, the operating system was renamed "iPhone OS". Initially, third-party native applications were not supported. Jobs' reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that "would behave like native apps on the iPhone". In October 2007, Apple announced that a native software development kit (SDK) was under development and that they planned to put it "in developers' hands in February". On March 6, 2008, Apple held a press event, announcing the iPhone SDK. The iOS App Store was opened on July 10, 2008, with an initial 500 applications available. This quickly grew to 3,000 in September 2008, 15,000 in January 2009, 50,000 in June 2009, 100,000 in November 2009, 250,000 in August 2010, 650,000 in July 2012, 1 million in October 2013, 2 million in June 2016, and 2.2 million in January 2017. As of March 2016[update], 1 million apps are natively compatible with the iPad tablet computer. These apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times. App intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimated that the App Store would reach 5 million apps by 2020. In September 2007, Apple announced the iPod Touch, a redesigned iPod based on the iPhone form factor. On January 27, 2010, Apple introduced their much-anticipated media tablet, the iPad, featuring a larger screen than the iPhone and iPod Touch, and designed for web browsing, media consumption, and reading, and offering multi-touch interaction with multimedia formats including newspapers, e-books, photos, videos, music, word processing documents, video games, and most existing iPhone apps using a 9.7-inch (25 cm) screen. It also includes a mobile version of Safari for web browsing, as well as access to the App Store, iTunes Library, iBookstore, Contacts, and Notes. Content is downloadable via Wi-Fi and optional 3G service or synced through the user's computer. AT&T was initially the sole U.S. provider of 3G wireless access for the iPad. In June 2010, Apple rebranded iPhone OS as "iOS". The trademark "IOS" had been used by Cisco for over a decade for its operating system, IOS, used on its routers. To avoid any potential lawsuit, Apple licensed the "IOS" trademark from Cisco. The Apple Watch smartwatch was announced by Tim Cook on September 9, 2014, being introduced as a product with health and fitness-tracking. It was released on April 24, 2015. It uses watchOS as its operating system; watchOS is based on iOS, with new features created specially for the Apple Watch such as an activity tracking app. In October 2016, Apple opened its first iOS Developer Academy in Naples inside University of Naples Federico II's new campus. The course is completely free, aimed at acquiring specific technical skills on the creation and management of applications for the Apple ecosystem platforms. At the academy there are also issues of business administration (business planning and business management with a focus on digital opportunities) and there is a path dedicated to the design of graphical interfaces. Students have the opportunity to participate in the "Enterprise Track", an in-depth training experience on the entire life cycle of an app, from design to implementation, to security, troubleshooting, data storage and cloud usage. As of 2020, the academy graduated almost a thousand students from all over the world, who have worked on 400 app ideas and have already published about 50 apps on the iOS App Store. In the 2018–2019 academic year, students from more than 30 countries arrived. 35 of these have been selected to attend the Worldwide Developer Conference, the annual Apple Developer Conference held annually in California in early June. On June 3, 2019, iPadOS, the branded version of iOS for iPad, was announced during the WWDC 2019 keynote; it was launched on September 25, 2019. On June 9, 2025, at WWDC 2025, Apple introduced iOS 26. The version number indicates the year following the year in which the version was introduced; this numbering scheme is now being used for all Apple operating systems, keeping their version numbers synchronized. Features The iOS user interface is based upon direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch. Interface control elements include sliders, switches, and buttons. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching between portrait and landscape mode). Various accessibility described in § Accessibility functions enable users with vision and hearing disabilities to properly use iOS. iOS devices boot to the lock screen. The lock screen shows the time and a user's lock screen widgets, which display timely information from apps. The lock screen also has two buttons, called Controls, which are only available on iPhone. These default to flashlight and camera, but they can be customized to any control available in Control Center and can also be removed. Upon unlock, a user is directed to the home screen, which is the primary navigation and information "hub" on iOS devices, analogous to the desktop found on personal computers. iOS home screens are typically made up of app icons and widgets; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as a weather forecast, the user's email inbox, or a news ticker directly on the home screen. Along the top of the screen is a status bar, showing information about the device and its connectivity. The Control Center can be "pulled" down from the top right of the notch or Dynamic Island on iPhones with Face ID, or can be "pulled" up from the bottom to top of the screen on iPhones with Touch ID, giving access to various toggles to manage the device more quickly without having to open the Settings. It is possible to manage brightness, volume, wireless connections, music player, etc. Scrolling from the top left to the bottom (or top to bottom on iPhones with Touch ID) will open the Notification Center, which in the latest versions of iOS is very similar to the lock screen. It displays notifications in chronological order and groups them by application. From the notifications of some apps it is possible to interact directly, for example by replying to a message directly from it. Notifications are sent in two modes, critical alerts that are displayed on the lock screen and signaled by a distinctive sound and vibration (e.g. emergency alerts or severe weather alerts), accompanied by a warning banner and the app badge icon, and standard alerts which use a default sound and vibration. Both can be found in the Notification Center, and show for a set amount of time on the lock screen (unless the user has Notification Center allowed when locked). On iPhones with Touch ID, screenshots can be created with the simultaneous press of the home and power buttons. In comparison to Android, which requires the buttons to be held down, a short press does suffice on iOS. On iPhone with Face ID, screenshots are captured using the volume-up and power buttons instead. The camera application used a skeuomorphic closing camera shutter animation prior to iOS 7. Since then, it uses a simple short blackout effect. Notable additions over time include HDR photography and the option to save both normal and high dynamic range photographs simultaneously where the former prevents ghosting effects from moving objects (since iPhone 5 on iOS 6), automatic HDR adjustment (since iOS 7.1), "live photo" with short video bundled to each photo if enabled (iPhone 6s, iOS 9), and a digital zoom shortcut (iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 10). Some camera settings such as video resolution and frame rate are not adjustable through the camera interface itself, but are outsourced to the system settings. A new feature in iOS 13 called "context menus" shows related actions when you touch and hold an item. When the context menu is displayed, the background is blurred. To choose from a few options, a selection control is used. Selectors can appear anchored at the bottom or in line with the content (called date selectors). Date selectors take on the appearance of any other selection control, but with a column for day, month, and optionally year. Alerts appear in the center of the screen, but there are also alerts that scroll up from the bottom of the screen (called "action panels"). Destructive actions (such as eliminating any element) are colored red. The official font of iOS is San Francisco. It is designed for small text readability, and is used throughout the operating system, including third-party apps. The icons are 180x180px in size for iPhones with a larger screen, usually models over 6 inches, including iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 8 Plus, while they are 120x120px on iPhones with smaller displays. The home screen, rendered by SpringBoard, displays application icons and a dock at the bottom where users can pin their most frequently used apps. iOS home screens are typically made up of app icons and widgets; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as a weather forecast, the user's email inbox, or a news ticker directly on the home screen. The home screen appears whenever the user unlocks the device, presses the physical "Home" button while in an app, or swipes up from the bottom of the screen using the home bar. The screen has a status bar across the top to display data, such as time, battery level, and signal strength. The rest of the screen is devoted to the current application. When a passcode is set and a user switches on the device, the passcode must be entered at the Lock Screen before access to the Home screen is granted. In iPhone OS 3, Spotlight was introduced, allowing users to search media, apps, emails, contacts, messages, reminders, calendar events, and similar content. In iOS 7 and later, Spotlight is accessed by pulling down anywhere on the home screen (except for the top and bottom edges that open Notification Center and Control Center). In iOS 9, there are two ways to access Spotlight. As with iOS 7 and 8, pulling down on any homescreen will show Spotlight. However, it can also be accessed as it was in iOS versions 3 through 6. This endows Spotlight with Siri suggestions, which include app suggestions, contact suggestions and news. In iOS 10, Spotlight is at the top of the now-dedicated "Today" panel. With the release of iPhone OS 3.2, users gained the ability to set a wallpaper for the Home Screen. The feature was initially only available on the iPad (1st generation) until the release of iOS 4 a few months after the release of iPhone OS 3.2, which brought the feature to all iPhone and iPod Touch models that could run the operating system, with the exception of the iPhone 3G and the iPod touch (2nd generation) due to performance issues with icon animations. iOS 7 introduced a parallax effect on the Home Screen, which shifts the device's wallpaper and icons in response to the movement of the device, creating a 3D effect and an illusion of floating icons. This effect is also visible in the tab view of Mail and Safari. Researchers found that users organize icons on their homescreens based on usage frequency and relatedness of the applications, as well as for reasons of usability and aesthetics. iOS originally used Helvetica as the system font. Apple switched to Helvetica Neue exclusively for the iPhone 4 and its Retina Display, and retained Helvetica as the system font for older iPhone devices on iOS 4. With iOS 7, Apple announced that they would change the system font to Helvetica Neue Light, a decision that sparked criticism for inappropriate usage of a light, thin typeface for low-resolution mobile screens. Apple eventually chose Helvetica Neue instead. The release of iOS 7 also introduced the ability to scale text or apply other forms of text accessibility changes through Settings. With iOS 9, Apple changed the font to San Francisco, an Apple-designed font aimed at maximum legibility and font consistency across its product lineup. iOS 4 introduced folders, which can be created by dragging an application on top of another, and from then on, more items can be added to the folder using the same procedure. A title for the folder is automatically selected by the category of applications inside, but the name can also be edited by the user. When apps inside folders receive notification badges, the individual numbers of notifications are added up and the total number is displayed as a notification badge on the folder itself. Originally, folders on an iPhone could include up to 12 apps, while folders on iPad could include 20. With increasing display sizes on newer iPhone hardware, iOS 7 updated the folders with pages similar to the home screen layout, allowing for a significant expansion of folder functionality. Each page of a folder can contain up to nine apps, and there can be 15 pages in total, allowing for a total of 135 apps in a single folder. In iOS 9, Apple updated folder sizes for iPad hardware, allowing for 16 apps per page, still at 15 pages maximum, increasing the total to 240 apps. Before iOS 5, notifications were delivered in a modal window and could not be viewed after being dismissed. In iOS 5, Apple introduced Notification Center, which allows users to view a history of notifications. The user can tap a notification to open its corresponding app, or clear it. Notifications are now delivered in banners that appear briefly at the top of the screen. If a user taps a received notification, the application that sent the notification will be opened. Users can also choose to view notifications in modal alert windows by adjusting the application's notification settings. Introduced with iOS 8, widgets are now accessible through the Notification Center, defined by 3rd parties. When an app sends a notification while closed, a red badge appears on its icon. This badge tells the user, at a glance, how many notifications that app has sent. Opening the app clears the badge. iOS devices come with preinstalled apps developed by Apple including Mail, Maps, TV, Music, FaceTime, Wallet, Health, and many more. Applications ("apps") are the most general form of application software that can be installed on iOS. They are downloaded from the official catalog of the App Store digital store, where apps are subjected to security checks before being made available to users. In June 2017, Apple updated its guidelines to specify that app developers will no longer have the ability to use custom prompts for encouraging users to leave reviews for their apps. IOS applications can also be installed directly from an IPA file provided by the software distributor, via unofficial ways. They are written using iOS Software Development Kit (SDK) and, often, combined with Xcode, using officially supported programming languages, including Swift and Objective-C. Other companies have also created tools that allow for the development of native iOS apps using their respective programming languages. Applications for iOS are mostly built using components of UIKit, a programming framework. It allows applications to have a consistent look and feel with the OS, nevertheless offering customization. Elements automatically update along with iOS updates, automatically including new interface rules. UIKit elements are very adaptable, this allows developers to design a single app that looks the same on any iOS device. In addition to defining the iOS interface, UIKit defines the functionality of the application. At first, Apple did not intend to release an SDK to developers, because they did not want third-party apps to be developed for iOS, building web apps instead. However, this technology never entered into common use, this led Apple to change its opinion, so in October 2007 the SDK for developers was announced, finally released on March 6, 2008. The SDK includes an inclusive set of development tools, including an audio mixer and an iPhone simulator. It is a free download for Mac users. It is not available for Microsoft Windows PCs. To test the application, get technical support, and distribute applications through App Store, developers are required to subscribe to the Apple Developer Program. Over the years, the Apple Store apps surpassed multiple major milestones, including 50,000, 100,000, 250,000, 500,000, 1 million, and 2 million apps. The billionth application was installed on April 24, 2009. App Library automatically categorizes apps into folders based on their function or type and includes an alphabetical list of all installed apps. For example, it might group all social media apps into one folder and productivity apps into another. Users can quickly find and access apps by using the search bar at the top of the App Library. Users can choose to hide specific app pages from the home screen, making it easier to focus on the apps they use most frequently. iOS enforces strict sandboxing to maintain security and privacy. Apps are generally limited to accessing their own containers and specific system-provided directories, such as the Photos library. To access files outside of their sandbox, iOS uses mechanisms like document pickers, file providers, and app extensions. iOS 8 introduced the Document Picker and Document Provider extensions as part of the document interaction controller. This allows apps to open, save, and interact with documents stored in a central location or cloud storage services. With iOS 11, Apple introduced the Files app and the File Provider extension, providing a central location for users to manage and organize their files. Apps can integrate with the Files app to make their documents accessible and editable directly from the Files app. The storage of iOS devices can be expanded through iCloud, the Apple's cloud-based storage solution that provides 5GB of storage for free to all users, while other plans require a paid subscription. iCloud Drive allows users to store various types of files, such as documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, in the cloud. These files can be accessed across multiple devices as long as the user is signed in with the same Apple ID. iOS offers various accessibility features to help users with vision and hearing disabilities. One major feature, VoiceOver, provides a voice reading information on the screen, including contextual buttons, icons, links and other user interface elements, and allows the user to navigate the operating system through gestures. Any apps with default controls and developed with a UIKit framework gets VoiceOver functionality built in. One example includes holding up the iPhone to take a photo, with VoiceOver describing the photo scenery. As part of a "Made for iPhone" program, introduced with the release of iOS 7 in 2013, Apple has developed technology to use Bluetooth and a special technology protocol to let compatible third-party equipment connect with iPhones and iPads for streaming audio directly to a user's ears. Additional customization available for Made for iPhone products include battery tracking and adjustable sound settings for different environments. Apple made further efforts for accessibility for the release of iOS 10 in 2016, adding a new pronunciation editor to VoiceOver, adding a Magnifier setting to enlarge objects through the device's camera, software TTY support for deaf people to make phone calls from the iPhone, and giving tutorials and guidelines for third-party developers to incorporate proper accessibility functions into their apps. In 2012, Liat Kornowski from The Atlantic wrote that "the iPhone has turned out to be one of the most revolutionary developments since the invention of Braille", and in 2016, Steven Aquino of TechCrunch described Apple as "leading the way in assistive technology", with Sarah Herrlinger, Senior Manager for Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives at Apple, stating that "We see accessibility as a basic human right. Building into the core of our products supports a vision of an inclusive world where opportunity and access to information are barrier-free, empowering individuals with disabilities to achieve their goals". Criticism has been aimed at iOS depending on both internet connection (either WiFi or through iTunes) and a working SIM card upon first activation. This restriction has been loosened in iOS 12, which no longer requires the latter. Multitasking for iOS was first released in June 2010 along with the release of iOS 4. Only certain devices—iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch 3rd generation—were able to multitask. The iPad did not get multitasking until iOS 4.2.1 in that November. The implementation of multitasking in iOS has been criticized for its approach, which limits the work that applications in the background can perform to a limited function set and requires application developers to add explicit support for it. Before iOS 4, multitasking was limited to a selection of the applications Apple included on the device. Users could however "jailbreak" their device in order to unofficially multitask. Starting with iOS 4, on third-generation and newer iOS devices, multitasking is supported through seven background APIs: In iOS 5, three new background APIs were introduced: In iOS 7, Apple introduced a new multitasking feature, providing all apps with the ability to perform background updates. This feature prefers to update the user's most frequently used apps and prefers to use Wi-Fi networks over a cellular network, without markedly reducing the device's battery life. In iOS 4.0 to iOS 6.x, double-clicking the home button activates the application switcher. A scrollable dock-style interface appears from the bottom, moving the contents of the screen up. Choosing an icon switches to an application. To the far left are icons which function as music controls, a rotation lock, and on iOS 4.2 and above, a volume controller. With the introduction of iOS 7, double-clicking the home button also activates the application switcher. However, unlike previous versions it displays screenshots of open applications on top of the icon and horizontal scrolling allows for browsing through previous apps, and it is possible to close applications by dragging them up, similar to how WebOS handled multiple cards. With the introduction of iOS 9, the application switcher received a significant visual change; while still retaining the card metaphor introduced in iOS 7, the application icon is smaller, and appears above the screenshot (which is now larger, due to the removal of "Recent and Favorite Contacts"), and each application "card" overlaps the other, forming a rolodex effect as the user scrolls. Now, instead of the home screen appearing at the leftmost of the application switcher, it appears rightmost. In iOS 11, the application switcher receives a major redesign. In the iPad, the Control Center and app switcher are combined. The app switcher in the iPad can also be accessed by swiping up from the bottom. In the iPhone, the app switcher cannot be accessed if there are no apps in the RAM. In iOS 4.0 to iOS 6.x, briefly holding the icons in the application switcher makes them "jiggle" (similarly to the homescreen) and allows the user to force quit the applications by tapping the red minus circle that appears at the corner of the app's icon. Clearing applications from multitasking stayed the same from iOS 4.0 through 6.1.6, the last version of iOS 6. As of iOS 7, the process has become faster and easier. In iOS 7, instead of holding the icons to close them, they are closed by simply swiping them upwards off the screen. Up to three apps can be cleared at a time compared to one in versions up to iOS 6.1.6. Task completion allows apps to continue a certain task after the app has been suspended. As of iOS 4.0, apps can request up to ten minutes to complete a task in the background. This doesn't extend to background uploads and downloads though (e.g. if a user starts a download in one application, it won't finish if they switch away from the application). Siri (/ˈsɪri/) is a virtual assistant integrated into iOS. The assistant uses voice queries and a natural-language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Internet services. The software adapts to users' individual language usages, searches, and preferences, with continuing use. Returned results are individualized. Originally released as an app for iOS in February 2010, it was acquired by Apple two months later, and then integrated into iPhone 4S at its release in October 2011. At that time, the separate app was also removed from the iOS App Store. Siri supports a wide range of user commands, including performing phone actions, checking basic information, scheduling events and reminders, handling device settings, searching the Internet, navigating areas, finding information on entertainment, and is able to engage with iOS-integrated apps. With the release of iOS 10 in 2016, Apple opened up limited third-party access to Siri, including third-party messaging apps, as well as payments, ride-sharing, and Internet calling apps. With the release of iOS 11, Apple updated Siri's voices for more clear, human voices, it now supports follow-up questions and language translation, and additional third-party actions. iOS 17 enabled users to activate Siri by simply saying "Siri", while the previous command, "Hey Siri", is still supported. Game Center is an online multiplayer "social gaming network" released by Apple. It allows users to "invite friends to play a game, start a multiplayer game through matchmaking, track their achievements, and compare their high scores on a leaderboard." iOS 5 and above adds support for profile photos. Game Center was announced during an iOS 4 preview event hosted by Apple on April 8, 2010. A preview was released to registered Apple developers in August. It was released on September 8, 2010, with iOS 4.1 on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch 2nd generation through 4th generation. Game Center made its public debut on the iPad with iOS 4.2.1. There is no support for the iPhone 3G, original iPhone and the first-generation iPod Touch (the latter two devices did not have Game Center because they did not get iOS 4). However, Game Center is unofficially available on the iPhone 3G via a hack. Supported processors The instruction set architectures supported by iOS are the ARM architectures. With currently supported ARM architectures being various versions of the ARMv8 and ARMv9 architectures. iOS, prior to the release of iOS 7 in 2013, only supported devices with 32-bit ARM processors supporting the ARMv6 or ARMv7-A architectures, however iOS 7 added full support for the 64-bit architecture (including a native 64-bit kernel, libraries, drivers as well as all built-in applications), after Apple announced that they were switching to 64-bit ARMv8-A processors with the introduction of the Apple A7 chip. 64-bit support has been enforced for all app submissions made to the App Store since 2015; specifically, new apps since February 2015, and all updates to apps since June 1, 2015. iOS 11, released in 2017, dropped support for all iOS devices with 32-bit ARM processors as well as 32-bit applications, making iOS 64-bit only. Devices iOS powers almost exclusively Apple hardware. It is used for all iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Further, Apple Watches, Apple TVs, and iPads either also use iOS for some models or use OSes based on iOS for other models. Development The iOS software development kit (SDK) allows for the development of mobile apps that can run on iOS. While originally developing iPhone prior to its unveiling in 2007, Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs did not intend to let third-party developers build native apps for iOS, instead directing them to make web applications for the Safari web browser. However, backlash from developers prompted the company to reconsider, with Jobs announcing in October 2007 that Apple would have a software development kit available for developers by February 2008. The SDK was released on March 6, 2008. The SDK is a free download for users of Mac personal computers. It is not available for Microsoft Windows PCs. The SDK contains sets giving developers access to various functions and services of iOS devices, such as hardware and software attributes. It also contains an iPhone simulator to mimic the look and feel of the device on the computer while developing. New versions of the SDK accompany new versions of iOS. In order to test applications, get technical support, and distribute apps through App Store, developers are required to subscribe to the Apple Developer Program. Combined with Xcode, the iOS SDK helps developers write iOS apps using officially supported programming languages, including Swift and Objective-C. Other companies have also created tools that allow for the development of native iOS apps using their respective programming languages. Apple provides major updates to the iOS operating system annually. Since iOS 5, the primary method of delivery has been over-the-air. Updates are also available using iTunes on older versions of macOS and Windows, using Finder on macOS starting with macOS Catalina, and using the Apple Devices app on Windows starting with Windows 10 version 22H2. The device checks an XML-based PLIST file on mesu.apple.com [citation needed] for updates. Updates are delivered as unencrypted ZIP files. Updates are checked for regularly, and are downloaded and installed automatically if enabled. Otherwise, the user can install them manually or are prompted to allow automatic installation overnight if plugged in and connected to Wi-Fi. iPod Touch users originally had to pay for system software updates due to accounting rules that designated it not a "subscription device" like the iPhone or Apple TV, causing many iPod Touch owners not to update. In September 2009, a change in accounting rules won tentative approval, affecting Apple's earnings and stock price, and allowing iPod Touch updates to be delivered free of charge. Apple significantly extended the cycle of updates for iOS-supported devices over the years. The iPhone (1st generation) and iPhone 3G only received two iOS updates, while later models had support for five, six, and seven years. iOS uses the XNU kernel included in the Darwin operating system and used by macOS, adapted to work with devices that run iOS. It is additionally used as the kernel for Apple's other platforms and operating systems, including iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS, and also serves as the kernel used by the software powering the HomePod range of smart speakers. iOS 18, the second-to-latest stable version of iOS, uses version 24 of Darwin. Darwin, and by definition XNU, is open source software dual-licensed under the 3-clause BSD license for components developed specifically for BSD, and the Apple Public Source License (APSL) for components of the operating system and kernel that have been developed by Apple; however, XNU is licensed specifically under the APSL. Since the release of iOS 6 in 2012, the kernel uses kernel address space layout randomization (KASLR), a technology and security technique introduced in OS X Mountain Lion and included in later versions of macOS that makes it harder to exploit known and future memory corruption security vulnerabilities by randomizing the memory addresses used by the kernel. Since its initial release, iOS has been subject to a variety of different hacks centered around adding functionality not allowed by Apple. Prior to the 2008 debut of Apple's native iOS App Store, the primary motive for jailbreaking was to bypass Apple's purchase mechanism for installing the App Store's native applications. Apple claimed that it would not release iOS software updates designed specifically to break these tools (other than applications that perform SIM unlocking); however, with each subsequent iOS update, previously un-patched jailbreak exploits are usually patched. When a device is booting, it loads Apple's own kernel initially, so a jailbroken device must be exploited and have the kernel patched each time it is booted up. There are different types of jailbreak. An untethered jailbreak uses exploits that are powerful enough to allow the user to turn their device off and back on at will, with the device starting up completely, and the kernel will be patched without the help of a computer – in other words, it will be jailbroken even after each reboot. However, some jailbreaks are tethered. A tethered jailbreak is only able to temporarily jailbreak the device during a single boot. If the user turns the device off and then boots it back up without the help of a jailbreak tool, the device will no longer be running a patched kernel, and it may get stuck in a partially started state, such as Recovery Mode. In order for the device to start completely and with a patched kernel, it must be "re-jailbroken" with a computer (using the "boot tethered" feature of a tool) each time it is turned on. All changes to the files on the device (such as installed package files or edited system files) will persist between reboots, including changes that can only function if the device is jailbroken (such as installed package files). In more recent years, two other solutions have been created – semi-tethered and semi-untethered. A semi-tethered solution is one where the device is able to start up on its own, but it will no longer have a patched kernel, and therefore will not be able to run modified code. It will, however, still be usable for normal functions, just like stock iOS. To start with a patched kernel, the user must start the device with the help of the jailbreak tool. A semi-untethered jailbreak gives the ability to start the device on its own. On first boot, the device will not be running a patched kernel. However, rather than having to run a tool from a computer to apply the kernel patches, the user is able to re-jailbreak their device with the help of an app (usually sideloaded using Cydia Impactor) running on their device. In the case of the iOS 9.2-9.3.3 and 64-bit 10.x jailbreaks, Safari-based exploits were available, thereby meaning websites could be used to re-jailbreak. In more detail: Each iOS device has a bootchain that tries to make sure only trusted/signed code is loaded. A device with a tethered jailbreak is able to boot up with the help of a jailbreaking tool because the tool executes exploits via USB that bypass parts of that "chain of trust", bootstrapping to a pwned (no signature check) iBEC, or iBoot to finish the boot process. Since the arrival of Apple's native iOS App Store, and—along with it—third-party applications, the general motives for jailbreaking have changed. People jailbreak for many different reasons, including gaining filesystem access, installing custom device themes, and modifying SpringBoard. An additional motivation is that it may enable the installation of pirated apps. On some devices, jailbreaking also makes it possible to install alternative operating systems, such as Android and the Linux kernel. Primarily, users jailbreak their devices because of the limitations of iOS. Depending on the method used, the effects of jailbreaking may be permanent or temporary. In 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) successfully convinced the U.S. Copyright Office to allow an exemption to the general prohibition on circumvention of copyright protection systems under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The exemption allows jailbreaking of iPhones for the sole purpose of allowing legally obtained applications to be added to the iPhone. The exemption does not affect the contractual relations between Apple and an iPhone owner, for example, jailbreaking voiding the iPhone warranty; however, it is solely based on Apple's discretion on whether they will fix jailbroken devices in the event that they need to be repaired. At the same time, the Copyright Office exempted unlocking an iPhone from DMCA's anticircumvention prohibitions. Unlocking an iPhone allows the iPhone to be used with any wireless carrier using the same GSM or CDMA technology for which the particular phone model was designed to operate. Initially most wireless carriers in the US did not allow iPhone owners to unlock it for use with other carriers. However AT&T allowed iPhone owners who had satisfied contract requirements to unlock their iPhone. Instructions to unlock the device are available from Apple, but it is ultimately at the sole discretion of the carrier to authorize unlocking the device. This allows the use of a carrier-sourced iPhone on other networks. Modern versions of iOS and the iPhone fully support LTE across multiple carriers wherever the phone was purchased. Programs to remove SIM lock restrictions are available, but are not supported by Apple, and most often not a permanent unlock – a soft unlock, which modifies the iPhone so that the baseband will accept the SIM card of any GSM carrier. SIM unlocking is not jailbreaking, but a jailbreak is also required for these unofficial software unlocks. The legality of software unlocking varies in each country; for example, in the US, there is a DMCA exemption for unofficial software unlocking of devices purchased before January 26, 2013. Digital rights management The closed and proprietary nature of iOS has garnered criticism, particularly by digital rights advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, computer engineer and activist Brewster Kahle, Internet-law specialist Jonathan Zittrain, and the Free Software Foundation who protested the iPad's introductory event and have targeted the iPad with their "Defective by Design" campaign. Competitor Microsoft, via a PR spokesman, criticized Apple's control over its platform. At issue are restrictions imposed by the design of iOS, namely digital rights management (DRM) intended to lock purchased media to Apple's platform, the development model (requiring a yearly subscription to distribute apps developed for the iOS), the centralized approval process for apps, as well as Apple's general control and lockdown of the platform itself. Particularly at issue is the ability for Apple to remotely disable or delete apps at will. Some[who?] in the tech community have expressed concern that the locked-down iOS represents a growing trend in Apple's approach to computing, particularly Apple's shift away from machines that hobbyists can "tinker with" and note the potential for such restrictions to stifle software innovation. Former Facebook developer Joe Hewitt protested against Apple's control over its hardware as a "horrible precedent" but praised iOS's sandboxing of apps. Security and privacy iOS utilizes many security features in both hardware and software. Reception iOS is the second most popular mobile operating system in the world, after Android. Sales of iPads in recent years are also behind Android, while, by web use (a proxy for all use), iPads (using iOS) are still the most popular. At WWDC 2014, Tim Cook said 800 million devices had been sold by June 2014. During Apple's quarterly earnings call in January 2015, the company announced that they had sold over one billion iOS devices since 2007. By February 2023, there were 2 billion devices activated, and 1.5 billion iPhones had been sold since 2007. By late 2011, iOS accounted for 60% of the market share for smartphones and tablets. By the end of 2014, iOS accounted for 14.8% of the smartphone market and 27.6% of the tablet and two-in-one market. In May 2023, StatCounter reported iOS was used on 31.44% of smartphones and 55.75% of tablets worldwide, measured by internet usage instead of sales. In the third quarter of 2015, research from Strategy Analytics showed that iOS adoption of the worldwide smartphone market was at a record low 12.1%, attributed to lackluster performance in China and Africa. Android accounted for 87.5% of the market, with Windows Phone and BlackBerry accounting for the rest. See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone] | [TOKENS: 6756] |
Contents Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market. It was first launched in October 2010 with Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 8 succeeded it in 2012, replacing the Windows CE-based kernel of Windows Phone 7 with the Windows NT kernel used by the PC versions of Windows (and, in particular, a large amount of internal components from Windows 8). Due to these changes, the OS was incompatible with all existing Windows Phone 7 devices, although it still supported apps originally developed for Windows Phone 7. In 2014, Microsoft released the Windows Phone 8.1 update, which introduced the Cortana virtual assistant, and Windows Runtime platform support to create cross-platform apps between Windows PCs and Windows Phone. In 2015, Microsoft released Windows 10 Mobile, which promoted increased integration and unification with its PC counterpart, including the ability to connect devices to an external display or docking station to display a PC-like interface. Although Microsoft dropped the Windows Phone brand at this time in order to focus more on synergies with Windows 10 for PCs, it was still a continuation of the Windows Phone line from a technical standpoint, and updates were issued for selected Windows Phone 8.1 devices. While Microsoft's investments in the platform were headlined by a major partnership with Nokia (whose Lumia series of smartphones, including the Lumia 520 in particular, would represent the majority of Windows Phone devices sold by 2013) and Microsoft's eventual acquisition of the company's mobile device business for just over US$7 billion (which included Nokia's then-CEO Stephen Elop joining Microsoft to lead its in-house mobile division), the duopoly of Android and iPhone remained the dominant platforms for smartphones, and interest in Windows Phone from app developers began to diminish by mid-decade. Microsoft laid off the Microsoft Mobile staff in 2016, after having taken a write-off of $7.6 billion on the acquired Nokia hardware assets, while market share sank to 1% that year. Microsoft began to prioritize software development and integrations with Android and iOS instead, and ceased active development of Windows 10 Mobile in 2017. History Work on a major Windows Mobile update may have begun as early as 2004 under the codename "Photon", but work moved slowly and the project was ultimately cancelled. In 2008, Microsoft reorganized the Windows Mobile group and started work on a new mobile operating system. The product was to be released in 2009 as Windows Phone, but several delays prompted Microsoft to develop Windows Mobile 6.5 as an interim release. Following this, Windows Phone was developed quickly. One result was that the new OS would not be compatible with Windows Mobile applications. Larry Lieberman, senior product manager for Microsoft's Mobile Developer Experience, told eWeek: "If we'd had more time and resources, we may have been able to do something in terms of backward compatibility." Lieberman said that Microsoft was attempting to look at the mobile phone market in a new way, with the end user in mind as well as the enterprise network. Terry Myerson, corporate VP of Windows Phone engineering, said, "With the move to capacitive touch screens, away from the stylus, and the moves to some of the hardware choices we made for the Windows Phone 7 experience, we had to break application compatibility with Windows Mobile 6.5." From the beginning of Windows Phone until at least 2015, Joe Belfiore was the head of development and the face of the platform's initiatives. On February 11, 2011, at a press event in London, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced a partnership between their companies in which Windows Phone would become the primary smartphone operating-system for Nokia, replacing Symbian. The event focused largely on setting up "a new global mobile ecosystem", suggesting competition with Android and iOS with the words "It is now a three horse race". Elop stated the reason for choosing Windows Phone over Android, saying: "the single most important word is 'differentiation'. Entering the Android environment late, we knew we would have a hard time differentiating." While Nokia would have had more long-term creative control with Android (MeeGo as used by Nokia resembles Android more than it does Windows Phone 7 as both Android and MeeGo are based on the Linux kernel), Elop enjoyed familiarity with his past company where he had been a top executive. The pair announced integration of Microsoft services with Nokia's own services; specifically: The partnership involves "funds changing hands for royalties, marketing and ad-revenue sharing", which Microsoft later announced as "measured in billions of dollars". Jo Harlow, whom Elop tapped to run Nokia's smartphone business, rearranged her team to match the structure led by Microsoft's VP of Windows Phone, Terry Myerson. Myerson was quoted as saying, "I can trust her with what she tells me. She uses that same direct and genuine communication to motivate her team." The first Nokia Lumia Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, were announced in October 2011 at Nokia World 2011. At the Consumer Electronics Show in 2012 Nokia announced the Lumia 900, featuring a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, a 1.4 GHz processor and 16 GB of storage. The Lumia 900 was one of the first Windows Phones to support LTE and was released on AT&T on April 8, 2012. An international version launched in Q2 2012, with a UK launch on May 11, 2012. The Lumia 610 was the first Nokia Windows Phone to run the Tango Variant (Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh) and was aimed at emerging markets. On September 2, 2013, Microsoft announced a deal to acquire Nokia's mobile phone division outright, retaining former CEO Stephen Elop as the head of Microsoft's devices operation. The merger was completed after regulatory approval in all major markets in April 2014. As a result, Nokia's hardware division became a subsidiary of Microsoft operating under the name Microsoft Mobile. On February 24 2014, Nokia released the Nokia X series of smartphones (later discontinued on July 17 2014) using a version of Android forked from the Android Open Source Project. The operating system was modified; Google's software was not included in favor of competing applications and services from Microsoft and Nokia, and with a user interface highly modified to resemble Windows Phone. Versions Windows Phone 7 was announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, on February 15, 2010, and released publicly on November 8, 2010 in the United States. In 2011, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. The update included a mobile version of Internet Explorer 9 that supports the same web standards and graphical capability as the desktop version, multi-tasking of third-party apps, Twitter integration for the People Hub, and Windows Live SkyDrive access. A minor update released in 2012 known as "Tango", along with other bug fixes, lowered the hardware requirements to allow for devices with 800 MHz CPUs and 256 MB of RAM to run Windows Phone. Windows Phone 7 devices can not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8 due to hardware limitations. Windows Phone 7.8 was released as a stopgap update in 2013 to include some of the user interface features from Windows Phone 8. On October 29, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Phone 8, a new generation of the operating system. Windows Phone 8 replaced its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based on the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8. Windows Phone 8.1 was announced on April 2, 2014, after being released in preview form to developers on April 10, 2014. New features added include a notification center, support for the Internet Explorer 11 web browser, with tab syncing among Windows 8.1 devices, separate volume controls, and the option to skin and add a third column of live tiles to the Start Screen. Starting with this release, Microsoft dropped the requirement that all Windows Phone OEMs include a camera button and physical buttons for back, Start, and Search. Windows Phone 8.1 introduced Cortana, a voice assistant similar to Siri and Google Now. Cortana replaced the previous Bing search feature, and was released as a beta in the United States in the first half of 2014, before expanding to other countries in early 2015. Windows 10 Mobile was announced on January 21, 2015, as a mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets running on ARM architecture. Its primary focus is unification with Windows 10, its PC counterpart, in software and services; in accordance with this strategy, the Windows Phone name has been phased out in favor of branding the platform as an edition of Windows 10, although it is still a continuation of Windows Phone, and most Windows Phone 8.1 devices can be upgraded to the platform. Windows 10 Mobile emphasized software using the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), which allowed apps to be designed for use across multiple Windows 10-based product families with nearly identical code, functionality, and adaptations for available input methods. When connected to an external display, devices could also render a stripped-down desktop interface similar to Windows on PCs, with support for keyboard and mouse input. Windows 10 Mobile featured Skype message integration, updated Office Mobile apps, notification syncing with other Windows 10 devices, support for the Microsoft Edge web browser, and other user interface improvements. Microsoft developed a middleware known as Windows Bridge to allow iOS Objective-C and Android C++ or Java software to be ported to run on Windows 10 Mobile with limited changes to code. With the diminishing interest and application development for the platform, Microsoft discontinued active development of Windows 10 Mobile in 2017, and the platform was declared end of life on January 14, 2020. Features Windows Phone features a user interface based on Microsoft's "Metro" design language, and was inspired by the user interface in the Zune HD. The home screen, called the "Start screen", is made up of "Live Tiles", which have been the inspiration for the Windows 8 live tiles. Tiles are links to applications, features, functions and individual items (such as contacts, web pages, applications or media items). Users can add, rearrange, or remove tiles. Tiles are dynamic and update in real time – for example, the tile for an email account would display the number of unread messages or a tile could display a live update of the weather. Since Windows Phone 8, live tiles can also be resized to either a small, medium, or large appearance. Several features of Windows Phone are organized into "hubs", which combine local and online content via Windows Phone's integration with popular social networks such as Facebook, Windows Live, and Twitter. For example, the Pictures hub shows photos captured with the device's camera and the user's Facebook photo albums, and the People hub shows contacts aggregated from multiple sources including Windows Live, Facebook, and Gmail. From the hub, users can directly comment and 'like' on social network updates. The other built-in hubs are Xbox Music and Video, Xbox Live Games, Windows Phone Store, and Microsoft Office. Windows Phone uses multi-touch technology. The default Windows Phone user interface has a dark theme that prolongs battery life on OLED screens as fully black pixels do not emit light. Alternatively, users may choose a light theme in their phone's settings menu. The user may also choose from several accent colors. User interface elements such as links, buttons and tiles are shown in the user's chosen accent color. Third-party applications can be automatically themed with these colors. Windows Phone 8.1 introduces transparent tiles and a customizable background image for the Start screen. The image is visible through the transparent area of the tiles and features a parallax effect when scrolling which gives an illusion of depth. If the user does not pick a background image the tiles render with the accent color of the theme. Users input text by using an on-screen virtual keyboard, which has a dedicated key for inserting emoticons, and features spell checking and word prediction. App developers (both inhouse and ISV) may specify different versions of the virtual keyboard in order to limit users to certain character sets, such as numeric characters alone. Users may change a word after it has been typed by tapping the word, which will invoke a list of similar words. Pressing and holding certain keys will reveal similar characters. The keys are somewhat larger and spaced farther apart when in landscape mode. Phones may also be made with a hardware keyboard for text input. Users can also add accents to letters by holding on an individual letter. Windows Phone 8.1 introduces a new method of typing by swiping through the keyboard without lifting the finger, in a manner similar to Swype and SwiftKey. Internet Explorer on Windows Phone allows the user to maintain a list of favorite web pages and tiles linking to web pages on the Start screen. The browser supports up to 6 tabs, which can all load in parallel. Other features include multi-touch gestures, smooth zoom in/out animations, the ability to save pictures that are on web pages, share web pages via email, and support for inline search which allows the user to search for a word or phrase in a web page by typing it. Tabs are synced with Windows 8.1 devices using Internet Explorer 11. Contacts are organized via the "People hub", and can be manually entered into contacts or imported from Facebook, Windows Live Contacts, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and Outlook. A "What's New" section shows a user's Facebook news feed and a "Pictures" section show pictures from those social networks, while a "Me" section within the "People" hub shows a user's own social network status and wall and allows them to view social network updates. Contacts can also be pinned to the Start Screen. The contact's "Live Tile" displays their social network status and profile picture on the homescreen. Clicking on a contact's tile or accessing their card within the "People" hub will reveal their recent social network activity as well as the rest of their contact information. If a contact has information stored on multiple networks, users can link the two separate contact accounts, allowing the information to be viewed and accessed from a single card. As of Windows Phone 7.5, contacts can also be sorted into "Groups". Here, information from each of the contacts is combined into a single page which can be accessed directly from the Hub or pinned to the Start screen. Windows Phone supports Outlook.com, Exchange, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail natively and supports many other services via the POP and IMAP protocols. Updates added support for more services such as iCloud and IBM Notes Traveler. Contacts and calendars may be synced from these services as well. Users can also search through their email by searching in the subject, body, senders, and receivers. Emails are shown with threads, and multiple email inboxes can be combined into a single view (a feature commonly referred to as "combined inbox") or can viewed separately. Xbox Music and Xbox Video are built-in multimedia hubs providing entertainment and synchronization capabilities between PC, Windows Phone, and other Microsoft products. The two hubs were previously combined until standalone apps were released in late 2013, shortly before Windows Phone 8.1 debuted. The hubs allow users to access music, videos, and podcasts stored on the device, and links directly to the "Xbox Music Store" to buy or rent music and the "Xbox Video Store" to purchase movies and TV episodes. Xbox Music also allows the user to stream music with an Xbox Music Pass. When browsing the music by a particular artist, users are able to view artist biographies and photos. The Xbox Music hub also integrates with many other apps that provide video and music services, including, but not limited to, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Vevo. This hub also includes Smart DJ which compiles a playlist of songs stored on the phone similar to the song or artist selected. The Pictures hub displays the user's Facebook and OneDrive photo albums, as well as photos taken with the phone's built-in camera. Users can also upload photos to social networks, comment on photos uploaded by other people, and tag photos posted to social networks. Multi-touch gestures permit zooming in and out of photos. An official file manager app called Files, which is available for download from the Windows Phone Store, enables users to move and rearrange documents, videos, music and other files within their device's hard drive or to an external SD card. Windows Phone supports WAV, MP3, WMA, AMR, AAC/MP4/M4A/M4B and 3GP/3G2 standards. The video file formats supported on WP include WMV, AVI, MP4/M4V, 3GP/3G2 and MOV (QuickTime) standards. These supported audio and video formats would be dependent on the codecs contained inside them. It has also been previously reported that the DivX and Xvid codecs within the AVI file format are also playable on WP devices. Windows Phone does not support DRM protected media files that are obtained from services other than Xbox Music Pass. The image file formats that are supported include JPG/JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIF and Bitmap (BMP). Users can also add custom ringtones which are less than 1MB in size and less than 40 seconds long. DLNA streaming and stereoscopic 3D are also supported. The "Games hub" provides access to games on a phone along with Xbox Live functionality, including the ability for a user to interact with their avatar, view and edit their profile, see their achievements and view leaderboards, and send messages to friends on Xbox Live. The hub also features an area for managing invitations and turn notifications in turn-based multiplayer games. Games are downloaded from Windows Phone Store. Bing is the default search engine on Windows Phone handsets because its functions are deeply integrated in the OS (which also include the utilization of its map service for location-based searches and queries). However, Microsoft has stated that other search engine applications can be used. In the area of location-based searches, Bing Maps (which is powered by Nokia's location services) provides turn-by-turn navigation service to Windows Phone users, and Local Scout shows interest points such as attractions and restaurants in the nearby area. On Nokia devices, Nokia's Here Maps is preinstalled in place of Bing Maps. Furthermore, Bing Audio allows the user to match a song with its name, and Bing Vision allows the user to scan barcodes, QR codes, and other types of tags. Every Windows Phone has either a dedicated physical Search button or an on-screen Search button, which was previously reserved for a Bing Search app, but has been replaced on Windows Phone 8.1 devices and later in the United Kingdom and United States by Cortana, a digital personal assistant which can also double as an app for basic searches. Cortana allows users to do tasks such as set calendar reminders and alarms, and recognizes a user's natural voice, and can be used to answer questions (like current weather conditions, sports scores, and biographies). The app also keeps a "Notebook" to learn a user's behavior over time and tailor reminders for them. Users can edit the "Notebook" to keep information from Cortana or reveal more about themselves. All Windows Phones come preinstalled with Microsoft Office Mobile, which provides interoperability between Windows Phone and the desktop version of Microsoft Office. Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and SharePoint Workspace Mobile apps are accessible through a single "Office Hub", and allow most Microsoft Office file formats to be viewed and edited directly on a Windows Phone device. The "Office Hub" can access files from OneDrive and Office 365, as well as files which are stored locally on the device's hard drive. Although they are not preinstalled in Windows Phone's "Office Hub", OneNote Mobile, Lync Mobile, and OneDrive for Business can be downloaded separately as standalone applications from the Windows Phone Store. Multitasking in Windows Phone is invoked through long pressing the "back" arrow, which is present on all Windows Phones. Windows Phone 7 uses a card-based task switcher, whereas later versions of Windows Phone utilize true background multitasking. Zune Software manages the contents on Windows Phone 7 devices and Windows Phone can wirelessly sync with Zune Software. Syncing content between Windows Phone 8 and 8.1 and Windows PCs or Macs is provided through the Windows Phone App, which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. It is the official successor to Zune software only for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1, and allows users to transfer content such as music, videos, and documents. Users also have the ability to use a "Tap and Send" feature that allows for file transfer between Windows phones, and NFC-compatible devices through NFC. Software updates are delivered to Windows Phone users via Microsoft Update, as is the case with other Windows operating systems. Microsoft initially had the intention to directly update any phone running Windows Phone instead of relying on OEMs or wireless carriers, but on January 6, 2012, Microsoft changed their policy to let carriers decide if an update will be delivered. While Windows Phone 7 users were required to attach their phones to a PC to install updates, starting with Windows Phone 8, all updates are done via over-the-air downloads. Since Windows Phone 8, Microsoft has also begun releasing minor updates that add features to a current OS release throughout the year. These updates were first labeled "General Distribution releases" (GDRs), but were later rebranded simply as "Updates". All third-party applications can be updated automatically from the Windows Phone Store. Microsoft has also launched an advertising platform for the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft's General Manager for Strategy and Business Development, Kostas Mallios, said that Windows Phone will be an "ad-serving machine", pushing advertising and brand-related content to the user. The platform will feature advertising tiles near applications and toast notifications, which will bring updating advertising notifications. Mallios said that Windows Phone will be able to "preserve the brand experience by going directly from the web site right to the application", and that Windows Phone "enables advertisers to connect with consumers over time". Mallios continued: "you're now able to push information as an advertiser, and stay in touch with your customer. It's a dynamic relationship that is created and provides for an ongoing dialog with the consumer." Windows Phone supports the following Bluetooth profiles: Windows Phone BTF support is available from Windows Phone 7.8, but is limited to the transferring of pictures, music and videos via a 'Bluetooth Share' app. Microsoft kept a site where people can submit and vote on features they would like to see added to Windows Phone. Store The Windows Phone Store was used to digitally distribute music, video content, podcasts, and third-party applications to Windows Phone handsets. The store was accessible using the Zune Software client or the Windows Phone Store hub on devices (though videos were not downloadable through the store hub and must be downloaded and synced through the Zune software). The Store was managed by Microsoft, which included an approval process. As of March 2012, the Windows Phone Store was available in 54 countries. Xbox Music offered approximately 50 million songs up to 320 kbit/s in DRM-free MP3 format from the big four music groups (EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group), as well as smaller music labels. Xbox Video offered HD movies from Paramount, Universal, Warner Brothers, and other studios and plus television shows from popular television networks. Microsoft offered the Xbox Music Pass music subscription service, which allowed subscribers to download an unlimited number of songs for as long as their subscription was active and play them on current Microsoft devices. Third-party applications and games for Windows Phone can be based on XNA, a Windows Phone-specific version of Silverlight, the GUI-based Windows Phone App Studio, or the Windows Runtime, which allows developers to develop an app for both the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store simultaneously. App developers can develop apps using C# / Visual Basic.NET (.NET), C++ (CX) or HTML5/JavaScript. For Windows Phone apps to be designed and tested within Visual Studio or Visual Studio Express, Microsoft offers Windows Phone Developer Tools, which run only on Windows Vista SP2 and later, as an extension Microsoft also offers Expression Blend for Windows Phone for free. On November 29, 2009, Microsoft announced the Release-to-web (RTW) version of its Visual Basic .NET Developer Tool, to aid development of Windows Phone apps in Visual Basic. Later versions of Windows Phone support the running of managed code through a Common Language Runtime similar to that of the Windows operating system itself, as opposed to the .NET Compact Framework. This, along with support for native C and C++ libraries, allows some traditional Windows desktop programs to be easily ported to Windows Phone. Registered Windows Phone and Xbox Live developers can submit and manage their third-party applications for the platforms through the App Hub web applications. The App Hub provides development tools and support for third-party application developers. The submitted applications undergo an approval process for verifications and validations to check if they qualify the applications standardization criteria set by Microsoft. The cost of the applications that are approved is up to the developer, but Microsoft will take 20% of the revenue (the other 80% goes to the developer). Microsoft will only pay developers once they reach a set sales figure, and will withhold 30% tax from non-US developers, unless they first register with the United States Government's Internal Revenue Service. Microsoft only pays developers from a list of thirty countries. A yearly fee is also payable for developers wishing to submit apps. In order to get an application to appear in the Windows Phone Store, the application must be submitted to Microsoft for approval. Microsoft has outlined the content that it will not allow in the applications, which includes content that, among other things, advocates discrimination or hate, promotes usage of drugs, alcohol or tobacco, or includes sexually suggestive material. Hardware Windows Phone 7 devices were first produced by HTC, LG and Samsung. These hardware partners were later joined by Acer, Alcatel, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Nokia, and Chinese OEM ZTE. Windows Phone 8 devices were being produced by HTC, Huawei, Nokia, and Samsung. At the 2014 Mobile World Congress, Microsoft announced that upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 devices would be manufactured by Celkon, Gionee, HTC, Huawei, JSR, Karbonn, LG, Lenovo, Longcheer, Micromax, Microsoft Mobile, Samsung, Xolo, and ZTE among others. Sony (under the Xperia or Vaio brand) had also stated its intention to produce Windows Phone devices in the near future. Yezz announced two smartphones in May, and at Computex 2014 BYD, Compal, Pegatron, Quanta and Wistron were also named as new Windows Phone OEMs. In August 2014, Huawei said it was dropping support for Windows Phone due to low sales. Reception The Metro UI and overall interface of the OS were highly praised for their style, with ZDNet noting their originality and fresh, clean look. Engadget and ZDNet applauded the integration of Facebook into the People Hub as well as other built-in capabilities, such as Windows Live, etc. However, in version 8.1, the once tight Facebook and Twitter integration was removed, so updates from those social media sites had to be accessed via their respective apps. For the first months, market specialists were optimistic about its adoption, with IDC forecasting that Windows Phone would surpass the iPhone by 2015. According to Gartner, there were 1.6 million devices running Microsoft OS sold to customers in Q1 2011 worldwide. 1.7 million smartphones using a Microsoft mobile OS were sold in Q2 2011, for a 1.6% market share. In Q3 2011, Microsoft's worldwide market share dropped slightly to 1.5%. In Q4 2011 market share increased to 1.9%, and it stayed at 1.9% for Q1 2012. Reports for Q2, Q3 and Q4 of year 2011 include both Windows Phone and small part of Windows Mobile marketshare under the same "Microsoft mobile OS" banner, and do not make the distinction of separating the marketshare values of the two. According to Nielsen, Windows Phone had a 1.7% market share in Q1 2012, and then dropped back to 1.3% in Q2 2012. After the release of Windows Phone 8, Gartner reported that Windows Phone's market share jumped to 3% in Q4 2012, a 124% increase over the same time period in 2011. In mid-2012, IDC had suggested that Windows Phone might surpass the faltering BlackBerry platform and potentially even Apple iOS because of Nokia’s dominance in emerging markets like Asia, Latin America, and Africa, as the iPhone was considered too expensive for most of these regions and BlackBerry OS was possibly going to feature a similar fate as Symbian. IDC's projections were partially correct, as in Q1 2013 Windows Phone shipments surpassed BlackBerry shipment volume for the first time. IDC had to slash the Windows Phone predictions once again, to 7 percent of total market in 2018, because of the slow growth. As of the third quarter of 2013, Gartner reported that Windows Phone holds a worldwide market share of 3.6%, up 123% from the same period in 2012 and outpacing Android's rate of growth. According to Kantar's October 2013 report, Windows Phone accounted for 10.2% of all smartphone sales in Europe and 4.8% of all sales in the United States. Some analysts have been attributing this spike in sales to both Windows Phone 8 and Nokia's successful push to market low and mid-range Windows Phones like the Lumia 520 and Lumia 620 to a younger audience. Gartner reported that Windows Phone market share finished 2013 at 3.2%, which while down from the third quarter of 2013 was still a 46.7% improvement from the same period in 2012. IDC reported that Windows Phone market share, having peaked in 2013 at 3.4%, had dropped to 2.5% by the second quarter of 2014. In August 2017, the New York Police Department ordered Apple iPhone products to replace its deployment of 36,000 Lumia 830 and Lumia 640 XL Windows Phone devices, partly citing Microsoft's end of support for Windows Phone 8.1 on July 11, 2017, and its minuscule market share. Microsoft's developer initiative programs and marketing have gained attention from application developers. As of Q3 2013, an average of 21% of mobile developers used the Windows Phone platform, with another 35% stating they are interested in adopting it. Some reports have indicated that developers may be less interested in developing for Windows Phone because of the lower ad revenue when compared to competing platforms. The main criticism of Windows Phone was the lack of applications when compared to iOS and Android. This also affected Microsoft's largest partner in the platform, Nokia, whose vice president showed his frustration at the lack of apps for the platform. A few developers refused to develop apps while preventing third-party alternatives. A well-known example was Snapchat, which announced a crackdown on third-party apps for its service and its users in November 2014. Microsoft was forced to remove third-party Snapchat apps (including the popular 6snap) from the Windows Phone Store a month later, while Snapchat never developed an official app for those users. A petition from users requesting an official Snapchat app reached 43,000 signatures in 2015. In addition, Google twice blocked Microsoft's own YouTube app for violating its terms of service, objecting to the app's ability to download videos and prevent ads. The app returned in October 2013 but stripped of many features. By 2014, Windows Phone was losing share and relevance; between 2014 and 2015, it was reported that developers were backing out of the platform and retiring apps because of the low market share. Many high-profile apps were discontinued by 2015 such as American Airlines, NBC, Pinterest and others. In addition, Microsoft itself retired some of its own first-party apps. See also Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Eleven_(company)] | [TOKENS: 1019] |
Contents Double Eleven (company) Double Eleven Limited (also known as Double Eleven Studios) is a British video game developer and publisher based in Middlesbrough. History Double Eleven was founded by Lee Hutchinson and Matt Shepcar on 23 December 2009. Both had previously worked as lead programmers for Rockstar Leeds, where Hutchinson had been involved with the iOS versions of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Beaterator, while Shepcar had contributed to multiple Grand Theft Auto games. According to Hutchinson, their decision to leave Rockstar Leeds was amicable and driven by the desire to work on smaller projects, principally indie games for iOS. The name "Double Eleven" was derived from Hutchinson's lucky number. By February 2010, Hutchinson had assumed the role of studio director, whereas Shepcar would join him a few weeks later. Hutchinson initially ran Double Eleven from his loft in his hometown, Durham, and occasionally received support from his younger sister, Kimberley Turner, outside of her day job. In late 2010, Double Eleven relocated to the Boho One office building in Middlesbrough and Turner joined the company full-time as finance director. In 2010, Double Eleven began working on an undisclosed title with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, revealed at E3 2011 to be LittleBigPlanet for PlayStation Vita. In 2011, they joined the trade association TIGA. Between 2011 and 2012, Double Eleven were contracted to work exclusively with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. During this time, they opened an additional studio in Leeds, West Yorkshire. In 2013, they announced that they are working on a remake of Frozen Synapse - originally by Mode 7 Games - for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3, entitled Frozen Synapse: Tactics. After finishing PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate for PS4 and Vita in June 2014, development for Frozen Synapse: Tactics quickly took off and by 5 September 2014 it took on a new name of Frozen Synapse Prime along with a release date of 24 September 2014 for the PlayStation Vita. Two months later it was released on the PlayStation 3 and Windows. In August 2014, at Gamescom 2014, it was announced that they were working on the next PixelJunk game, Nom Nom Galaxy for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita and Goat Simulator for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Goat Simulator was released in April 2015. In 2017, Double Eleven announced they were releasing two new titles, Super Cloudbuilt by Coilworks (PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One) and Songbringer by Wizard Fu Games (PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows 10), which released between July and September. Double Eleven received recognition from GamesIndustry.biz, named one of the 'Best Places To Work 2017'. The company was also featured in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100, placing at number 42 out of 100 with a sales rise of 92.32% over three years. In 2019, Double Eleven announced their acquisition of VooFoo Studios. Based in Birmingham, UK, and developer of Hustle Kings, the purchase on 1 December 2018 included multiple intellectual properties, including the announced This Is Pool and This is Snooker with Stephen Hendry (coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam) and their proprietary Mantis Engine which used in 2016's Mantis Burn Racing. On 20 June 2019, it was announced that Double Eleven had partnered with Paradox Interactive to become the new lead developer of Prison Architect, previously Introversion Software, for Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. Double Eleven have previous experience with the game and initially ported and updated the title for all major consoles. Double Eleven subsequently announced their involvement in Mojang's Minecraft Dungeons and that they will be publishing Facepunch Studios' Rust on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Double Eleven announced in January 2020 that they will be opening a second office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as to gain an in-roads into the Asian marketplace. On 28 March 2022, Double Eleven announced their collaboration with Bethesda Game Studios to develop content for Fallout 76 later in the year. In April 2022, Double Eleven hired its 300th employee. On 18 November 2022, Double Eleven was acquired by Pneuma Group, an investment firm owned by Hutchinson. On 7 August 2023, Double Eleven was announced as the lead developer on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch ports of the original Red Dead Redemption in collaboration with publisher Rockstar Games. It was released in August 2023, with the Windows version released on 29 October 2024. On 16 January 2024, Double Eleven was announced as the lead developer for Prison Architect 2 in collaboration with publisher Paradox Interactive. Games References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Engadget:_Mojam_2-66] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Gamasutra:_Games_Against_Ebola-67] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Humble_Bundle:_Ebola-71] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
======================================== |
[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Game_Informer:_FPS-73] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_trading_and_combat_simulator] | [TOKENS: 4378] |
Contents Space flight simulation game Space flight simulation is a genre of flight simulator video games that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Common mechanics include space exploration, space trade and space combat. Overview Some games in the genre aim to recreate a realistic portrayal of space flight, involving the calculation of orbits within a more complete physics simulation than pseudo space flight simulators. Others focus on gameplay rather than simulating space flight in all its facets. The realism of the latter games is limited to what the game designer deems to be appropriate for the gameplay, instead of focusing on the realism of moving the spacecraft in space. Some "flight models" use a physics system based on Newtonian physics, but these are usually limited to maneuvering the craft in its direct environment, and do not take into consideration the orbital calculations that would make such a game a simulator. Many of the pseudo simulators feature faster than light travel. Examples of true simulators which aim at piloting a space craft in a manner that conforms with the laws of nature include Orbiter, Kerbal Space Program and Microsoft Space Simulator. Examples of more fantastical video games that bend the rules of physics in favor of streamlining and entertainment, include Wing Commander, Star Wars: X-Wing and Freelancer. The modern space flight game genre emerged at the point when home computers became sufficiently powerful to draw basic wireframe graphics in real-time. The game Elite is widely considered to be the breakthrough game of the genre, and as having successfully melded the "space trading" and flight sim genres. Elite was highly influential upon later games of its type, although it did have some precursors. Games similar to Elite are sometimes called "Elite-clones". Space flight games and simulators, at one time popular, have for much of the new millennium been considered a "dead" genre. However, the early 2010s saw a temporary reversal in this trend when open-source and enthusiast communities managed to produce some working, modern titles (e.g. Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator); and 2011's commercially released Kerbal Space Program was notably well-received, even by the aerospace community. 2014 saw one of the most successful entries in this genre, most notably Elite: Dangerous, which brought new attention to the space trading and combat game subgenre, but after its release the genre returned to relative quiet. Subgenres Realistic space simulators seek to represent a vessel's behaviour under the influence of the laws of physics. As such, the player normally concentrates on following checklists or planning tasks. Piloting is generally limited to dockings, landings or orbital maneuvers. The reward for the player is on mastering real or realistic spacecraft, celestial mechanics and astronautics. Classical games with this approach include Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space (1982), Rendezvous: A Space Shuttle Simulation (1982), The Halley Project (1985), Shuttle (1992) and Microsoft Space Simulator (1994). If the definition is expanded to include decision making and planning, then Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (1992) is also notable for historical accuracy and detail. In this game, the player takes the role of Administrator of NASA or Head of the Soviet Space Program with the ultimate goal of being the first side to conduct a successful human Moon landing. Orbiter and, to an extent, Space Shuttle Mission 2007, provide more elaborate simulations. They have 3D virtual cockpits and external views. Orbiter has been continually developed into modern times including having modern graphics, while others above have not been. FlightGear is used professionally in aerospace engineering and research, with a flight dynamics engine (JSBSim) that is used in a 2015 NASA benchmark to judge new simulation code to the standards of the space industry. FlightGear simulates orbital and atmospheric flight, but as of 2021 does not cover flight between planets (although its flight dynamics engine supports Mars and has been used to model the NASA ARES glider). The simulation has been continually developed into modern times, as FlightGear is free and open-source - the project receives development from people with scientific and engineering backgrounds, and is open to contributions from any source. FlightGear can accurately handle speeds from subsonic, transonic, through to high hypersonic or re-entry regimes with a flight dynamics engine that can incorporate windtunnel data or computational fluid dynamics, and uses a 3D model of gravity used for spaceflight based on spherical harmonics which can simulate the twisting force caused by gravity varying over a craft. It has an accurate celestial simulation that also feeds star tracker instruments for navigation. FlightGear has the ability to accelerate time supported by the fact that the physics simulation runs on a separate clock than the visuals - this is very important to simulate long space missions. Being modern, FlightGear has realistic graphics and an orbital renderer that can handle calculations of light scattering and auroral emission with huge distances involved. Of particular note is FlightGear's Space Shuttle project, whose simulation is backed by NASA windtunnel data and is the most detailed and accurate simulation outside of NASA's internal ones. Kerbal Space Program can be considered a space simulator, even though it portrays an imaginary universe with tweaked physics, masses and distances to enhance gameplay. Nevertheless, the physics and rocket design principles are much more realistic than in the space combat or trading subgenres. Mods for the game such as Real Solar System, Realism Overhaul, Principia, FAR and Kerbalism can be installed to add more realism to the game by replacing the standard in-game solar system with a 1:1 replica of the real Solar System as well as adding more realistic rocket engines, radiation, life support and other elements to make the game more realistic. Whilst the original graphics remain dated, several user-made mods have dramatically increased fidelity of the visuals. Some examples include, Scatterer, Firefly, Environmental Visual Enhancements, Waterfall, and Parallax Continued. The game Lunar Flight (2012) simulates flying around the lunar surface in a craft resembling the Apollo Lunar Module, while Perilune (2019) is an example of a lunar landing simulation with realistic physics designed for Android mobile devices. The game/program SpaceEngine includes a realistic space flight simulator within its full scale representation of the universe (including both real and procedurally generated astronomical objects), utilizing realistic orbital mechanics and an atmospheric model for certain flyable shuttles. It also includes interstellar travel using the hypothetical Alcubierre drive, but this is implemented in a realistic method to complement the more realistic elements of the game. Most games in the space combat genre feature futuristic scenarios involving space flight and extraplanetary combat. Such games generally place the player into the controls of a small starfighter or smaller starship in a military force of similar and larger spaceships and do not take into account the physics of space flight, often citing some technological advancement to explain the lack thereof. The prominent Wing Commander, X-Wing and Freespace series all use this approach. Exceptions include Independence War, Independence War 2 and the Star Trek: Bridge Commander series, which model craft at a larger scale and/or in a more strategic fashion. I-War also features Newtonian style physics for the behaviour of the spacecraft, but not orbital mechanics. Space combat games tend to be mission-based, as opposed to the more open-ended nature of space trading and combat games. The general formula for the space trading and combat game, which has changed little since its genesis, is for the player to begin in a relatively small, outdated ship with little money or status and for the player to gain in status and power through trading, exploration, combat or a mix of different methods. The ship the player controls is generally larger than that in pure space combat simulator. Notable examples of the genre include Elite, the X series, Wing Commander: Privateer, Freelancer, and No Man's Sky. In some instances, plot plays only a limited role and only a loose narrative framework tends to be provided. In certain titles of the X series, for instance, players may ignore the plot for as long as they wish and are even given the option to disable the plot completely and instead play in sandbox mode. Many games of this genre place a strong emphasis on factional conflict, leading to many small mission-driven subplots that unravel the tensions of the galaxy. Games of this type often allow the player to choose among multiple roles to play and multiple paths to victory. This aspect of the genre is very popular, but some people have complained that, in some titles, the leeway given to the player too often is only superficial, and that, in reality, the roles offered to players are very similar, and open-ended play too frequently restricted by scripted sequences. As an example, Freelancer has been in one reviewer's opinion critiqued as being rigid in its narrative structure, being in one case compared negatively with Grand Theft Auto, another series praised for its open-ended play. All space trading and combat games feature the core gameplay elements of directly controlling the flight of some sort of space vessel, generally armed, and of navigating from one area to another for a variety of reasons. As technology has improved it has been possible to implement a number of extensions to gameplay, such as dynamic economies and cooperative online play. Overall, however, the core gameplay mechanics of the genre have changed little over the years. Besides the array of space-themed trade and combat games, there also exist a small number of games with similar mechanics, but with a less traditional historical setting. These include the Sid Meier's Pirates! and Mount and Blade franchises. Some more recent games, such as 2003's EVE Online, have expanded the scope of the experience by including thousands of simultaneous online players in what is sometimes referred to as a "living universe" – a dream some have held since the genre's early beginnings. Also with massive battles, Star Citizen, a title in development by Cloud Imperium Games (headed by Chris Roberts, who was involved in Freelancer and Wing Commander), aims to bridge the gap between the EVE-like living universe game and the fast action of other games in the genre. An additional sub-class of space trading games eliminate combat entirely, focusing instead entirely on trading and economic manipulation in order to achieve success.[citation needed] Control systems Most modern space flight games on the personal computer allow a player to utilise a combination of the WASD keys of the keyboard and mouse as a means of controlling the game (games such as Microsoft's Freelancer use this control system exclusively). By far the most popular control system among genre enthusiasts, however, is the joystick. Most fans prefer to use this input method whenever possible, but expense and practicality mean that many are forced to use the keyboard and mouse combination (or gamepad if such is the case). The lack of uptake among the majority of modern gamers has also made joysticks a sort of anachronism, though some new controller designs and simplification of controls offer the promise that space sims may be playable in their full capacity on gaming consoles at some time in the future. In fact, X3: Reunion, sometimes considered one of the more cumbersome and difficult series to master within the trading and combat genre, was initially planned for the Xbox but later cancelled. Realistic simulators feature spacecraft systems and instrument simulation, using a combination of extensive keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks on virtual instrument panels. Most of the maneuvers and operations consist of setting certain systems into the desired configuration, or in setting autopilots. Real time hands on piloting can happen, depending on the simulated spacecraft. For example, it is common to use a joystick analog control to land a Space Shuttle (or any other spaceplane) or the Apollo Lunar Module (or similar landers). Dockings can be performed more precisely using the numerical keypad. Overall, the simulations have more complex control systems than game, with the limit being the physical reproduction of the actual simulated spacecraft (see Simulation cockpit). History Early attempts at 3D space simulation date back as far as 1974's Spasim, an online multi-player space simulator in which players attempt to destroy each other's ships. The earliest known space trader dates to 1974's Star Trader, a game where the entire interface was text-only and included a star map with multiple ports buying and selling 6 commodities. It was written in BASIC. Star Raiders was introduced in 1980 for the then-new Atari 8-bit computers and became the killer app for the system. Doug Neubauer created the game as a combination of Star Wars and the text-based Star Trek mainframe game. Using smoothly scaled 2D sprites and 3D particles to mimic a first person view of a volume of space, Star Raiders simulates clearing sectors of enemy ships while managing resources and damage to the ship's different systems. In addition to forward and rear views from the ship, the game provides both a galactic map and sector scanner to show enemy and friendly starbase locations. The game does not pause while these displays are active; they keep updating in real-time. It is one of the games that inspired Elite and the Wing Commander series. It also resulted in direct clones, including Space Spartans for Intellivision and Starmaster for the Atari 2600, both from 1982. Elite has made a lasting impression on developers, worldwide, extending even into different genres. In interviews, senior producers of CCP Games cited Elite as one of the inspirations for their acclaimed MMORPG EVE Online. Þórólfur Beck, CCP's co-founder, credits Elite as the game that impacted him most on the Commodore 64. Developers of Jumpgate Evolution, Battlecruiser 3000AD, Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Hard Truck: Apocalyptic Wars and Flatspace likewise all claim Elite as a source of inspiration. Elite was named one of the sixteen most influential games in history at Telespiele, a German technology and games trade show, and is being exhibited at such places as the London Science Museum in the "Game On" exhibition organized and toured by the Barbican Art Gallery. Elite was also named #12 on IGN's 2000 "Top 25 PC Games of All Time" list, the #3 most influential video game ever by the Times Online in 2007, and "best game ever" for the BBC Micro by Beebug Magazine in 1984. Elite's sequel, Frontier: Elite II, was named #77 on PC Zone's "101 Best PC Games Ever" list in 2007. Similar praise has been bestowed elsewhere in the media from time to time. Elite is one of the most popularly requested games to be remade, and some argue that it is still the best example of the genre to date, with more recent titles—including its sequels—not rising up to its level. It has been credited as opening the door for future online persistent worlds, such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, and as being the first truly open-ended game. It is to this day one of the most ambitious games ever made, residing in only 22 kilobytes of memory and on a single floppy disk. The latest incarnation of the franchise, titled Elite: Dangerous, was released on 16 December 2014, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Though not as well known as Elite, Trade Wars is noteworthy as the first multiplayer space trader. A BBS door, Trade Wars was released in 1984 as an entirely different branch of the space trader tree, having been inspired by Hunt the Wumpus, the board game Risk, and the original space trader, Star Trader. As a pure space trader, Trade Wars lacked any space flight simulator elements, instead featuring abstract open world trading and combat set in an outer space populated by both human and NPC opponents.[citation needed] In 2009, it was named the #10 best PC game by PC World Magazine. Other notable early examples include Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space (1982), Rendezvous: A Space Shuttle Simulation (1982), and Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1982), which featured five different controls to learn, six different enemies, and 40 different simulation levels of play, making it one of the most elaborate vector games ever released. Other early examples include Nasir Gebelli's 1982 Apple II computer games Horizon V which featured an early radar mechanic and Zenith which allowed the player ship to rotate, and Ginga Hyoryu Vifam, which allowed first-person open space exploration with a radar displaying the destination and player/enemy positions as well as an early physics engine where approaching a planet's gravitational field pulls the player towards it. Following Elite were games such as The Halley Project (1985), Echelon (1987) and Microsoft Space Simulator (1994). Star Luster, released for the NES console and arcades in 1985, featured a cockpit view, a radar displaying enemy and base locations, the ability to warp anywhere, and a date system keeping track of the current date. Another notable Apple II game by developer FTL Games was SunDog: Frozen Legacy (1984) which allowed the player to fly through many systems, choose multiple planets to land on in several of those systems, and even walk around on the surface within the cities. Many other space sim games have allowed the player to exit their ship on planets, but the "walking" is just clicking on a location such as "Bar," "Ship Dealer," etc. The game also featured a unique story line involving cryogenics. SunDog: Frozen Legacy was also released on the Atari ST in 1985. Some tabletop and board games, such as Traveller or Merchant of Venus, also feature themes of space combat and trade. Traveller influenced the development of Elite (the main character in Traveller is named "Jamison"; the main character in Elite is named "Jameson") and Jumpgate Evolution. The Wing Commander (1990–2007) series from Origin Systems, Inc. was a marked departure from the standard formula up to that point, bringing space combat to a level approaching the Star Wars films. Set beginning in the year 2654, and characterized by designer Chris Roberts as "World War II in space", it features a multinational cast of pilots from the "Terran Confederation" flying missions against the predatory, aggressive Kilrathi, a feline warrior race (heavily inspired by the Kzinti of Larry Niven's Known Space universe).[citation needed] Wing Commander (1990) was a best seller and caused the development of competing space combat games, such as LucasArts' X-Wing. Wing Commander eventually became a media franchise consisting of space combat simulation video games, an animated television series, a feature film, a collectible card game, a series of novels, and action figures. Game designer Chris Crawford said in an interview that Wing Commander "raised the bar for the whole industry", as the game was five times more expensive to create than most of its contemporaries. Because the game was highly successful, other publishers had to match its production value in order to compete. This forced a large portion of the video game industry to become more conservative, as big-budget games need to be an assured hit for it to be profitable in any way. Crawford opined that Wing Commander in particular affected the marketing and economics of computer games and reestablished the "action game" as the most lucrative type of computer game. The seeming decline of the space flight simulators and games in the late 1990s also coincided with the rise of the RTS, FPS and RPG game genres, with such examples as Warcraft, Doom and Diablo. The very things that made these games classics, such as their open-endedness, complex control systems and attention to detail, have been cited as reasons for their decline. It was believed that no major new space sim series would be produced as long as the genre relied on complex control systems such as the keyboard and joystick. There were outliers, however, such as the X series (1999–2018) and Eve Online. Crowdfunding was a good source for space sims in early 2010s, however. In November 2012 Star Citizen set a new record, managing to raise more than $114 million as of May 2016, and is still under development. Elite: Dangerous was also successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter in November and December 2012. The game was completed and released in 2014, and expansions are being released in stages, or "seasons". Born Ready Games also closed a successful Kickstarter campaign at the end of 2012, having raised nearly $180,000 to assist with the completion of Strike Suit Zero. The game was completed and released in January 2013. Lastly, the non-linear roguelike-like space shooter Everspace garnered almost $250,000 on Kickstarter, was released in May 2017. The open source community was also been active, with projects such as FS2 Open and Vega Strike serving as platforms for non-professional efforts. Unofficial remakes of Elite[citation needed] and Privateer are being developed using the Vega Strike engine, and the latter has reached the stage where it is offered as a working title to the public. In 2013 a hobbyist space flight simulator project was realized under usage of the open source Pioneer software. After 2014, the genre saw another extended period without any notable or successful releases, as of 2026. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lego_Group] | [TOKENS: 5104] |
Contents The Lego Group Lego Systems A/S, also known as the Lego Group (stylised as the LEGO Group), is a Danish construction toy manufacturer and media company based in Billund. It manufactures Lego-branded toys, consisting mostly of interlocking acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic and rubber bricks. The Lego Group has also built several amusement parks around the world, each known as Legoland, and operates numerous retail stores. The name Lego is derived from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well". The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen. In the first half of 2015, the Lego Group became the world's largest toy company by revenue, with sales amounting to US$2.1 billion, surpassing Mattel, which had US$1.9 billion in sales. As of 2025, the company is owned by the Kristiansen family via their family office, investment firm Kirkbi. History The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter whose primary business of producing household goods had suffered due to the Great Depression. Initially producing wooden toys, the company later developed a system of interlocking bricks. Manufacturing of plastic Lego bricks began in Denmark in 1947. After a fire in the woodworking department, Ole's son, Godtfred, decided to stop the production of wooden toys and solely focus on plastic products and the Lego system. In 1961, Christiansen built the beginning of Billund Airport to facilitate the sale of Lego toys around the world. In North America, Samsonite managed the Lego brand from 1961 until 1972 (United States) and 1986 (Canada). The name Lego is a contraction of the Danish words "Leg godt" (English: "Play well"). However, the name also means in Latin either "I collect", "I compose", "I choose", or "I read". These additional meanings, the first three of which are very relevant, only made sense when the company started making plastic blocks with studs (Lego blocks) that could be put together. In 1995, the company's ruling Kristiansen/Christiansen family began running the Lego Group through the Kirkbi investment firm. The basic Lego brick has remained unchanged since its patent, and this enduring design has been associated with the toy's widespread popularity. These bricks have become a recognizable part of childhood in many parts of the world. The Lego Group, which has remained family-owned by the Christiansen family, was among the first inductees to the U.S. National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. Additionally, it was recognized as "Toy of the Century" by several organizations in 2000. Lego bricks have been utilized in various creative projects, including large-scale replicas of famous monuments such as the Eiffel Tower and Mount Rushmore, as well as modern art installations. In the 21st century, the Lego brand expanded into various electronic games, including a series of Minifigure-based action-adventure games inspired by popular cultural franchises such as Star Wars, Batman, Marvel Comics, and the Harry Potter series. The brand also released The Lego Movie (2014), a computer-animated feature film centered on the adventures of Lego minifigures. A spin-off, The Lego Batman Movie (2017), focused on Batman, introduced in the original film. In January 2026, the Lego Group announced the Smart Play system at CES, introducing Smart Bricks, Smart Tags, and Smart Minifigures with embedded electronics designed to enable interactive play without screens. The system uses near-field magnetic positioning and a Bluetooth-based protocol called BrickNet to allow components to recognize and interact with each other. Trademark and patents Since the expiry of the last standing Lego patent in 1989, several companies have produced interlocking bricks that are similar to Lego bricks. The toy company Tyco Toys produced such bricks for a time; other competitors include Mega Bloks and Best-Lock. These competitor products are typically "compatible" with Lego bricks, and are often marketed at a lower cost than Lego sets. One such competitor is Coko, manufactured by Chinese company Tianjin Coko Toy Co., Ltd. In 2002, Lego Group's Swiss subsidiary Interlego AG sued the company for copyright infringement. A trial court found many Coko bricks to be infringing; Coko was ordered to cease manufacture of the infringing bricks, publish a formal apology in the Beijing Daily, and pay a small fee in damages to Interlego. On appeal, the Beijing High People's Court upheld the trial court's ruling. In 2003, the Lego Group won a lawsuit in Norway against the marketing group Biltema for its sale of Coko products, because the company used product confusion for marketing purposes. Also in 2003, a large shipment of Lego-like products marketed under the name "Enlighten" was seized by Finnish customs authorities. The packaging of the Enlighten products was similar to official Lego packaging. Their Chinese manufacturer failed to appear in court, and thus The Lego Group won a default action ordering the destruction of the shipment. The Lego Group footed the bill for the disposal of the 54,000 sets, citing a desire to avoid brand confusion and protect consumers from potentially inferior products. In 2004, Best-Lock defeated a patent challenge from The Lego Group in the Oberlandesgericht, Hamburg. The Lego Group attempted to trademark the "Lego Indicia", the studded appearance of the Lego brick, hoping to stop production of Mega Brands. On 24 May 2002, the Federal Court of Canada dismissed the case, asserting the design was functional and therefore ineligible for trademark protection. The Lego Group's appeal was dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal on 14 July 2003. In October 2005, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that "Trademark law should not be used to perpetuate monopoly rights enjoyed under now-expired patents" and held that Mega Bloks could continue to manufacture their bricks. Because of fierce competition from copycat products, the company has always responded by being proactive in its patenting and has over 600 United States–granted design patents to its name. Financial results In 2003, the Lego Group faced a budget deficit of kr. 1.4 billion (US$220 million at then-current exchange rates; equal to €175 million), causing Poul Plougmann to be replaced by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen as president. In the following year, almost one thousand employees were laid off, due to budget cuts. However, in October 2004, on reporting an even larger deficit, Kristiansen also stepped down as president, while placing kr. 800 million of his private funds into the company. In 2005, the Lego Group reported a 2004 net loss of kr. 1,931 million on a total turnover, including Legoland amusement parks, of kr. 7,934 million.[citation needed] For 2005, the company returned a profit of kr. 702 million, having increased its revenue by 12% to kr. 7,050 million in 2005 against kr. 315 million in 2004. It also cut expenditures and disposed of amusement parks and a factory in Switzerland. In 2011, sales for the company grew 11%, rising from US$2,847 million in 2010 to US$3,495 million in 2011. Profit for the 2011 fiscal year increased from US$661 million to US$776 million. The increased profit was due to the enormous popularity of the new brand Ninjago, which became the company's biggest product introduction ever. In 2012, it was reported that the Lego Group had become the world's most valuable toy company ahead of Mattel with a value of over US$14.6 billion. The Lego Group delivered a turnover of kr. 14,142 million in the first half of 2015 with an increase of 18% compared with the same period in 2014 measured in local currency (i.e. excluding the impact of foreign exchange rate changes). Net profit for the first half of 2015 was kr. 3,553 million compared with kr. 2,715 million for the first half of 2014. First half-year sales were driven by double-digit growth across all geographical regions and strong product innovation on themes such as Lego Ninjago, Lego Elves and Lego Creator. The Lego Group announced on 4 September 2017 its intention to cut 1,400 jobs following reduced revenue and profit in the first half of the year, the first reported decrease in 13 years. The revenue losses are due to a more competitive environment, where the company has to compete not only against its traditional competitors Hasbro and Mattel, but also against technology companies such as Sony or Microsoft as more children use mobile devices for entertainment. The job cuts account for 8 per cent of the company's total workforce. In May 2018, the company made it to Forbes Top 100 World's Most Valuable Brands 2018, being 97th on the list. Legoland The Lego Group has built eleven amusement parks around the world, each known as Legoland. Each park features large-scale Lego models of famous landmarks and miniature Lego models of famous cities, along with Lego-themed rides. The first Legoland park was built in the Lego Group's home town of Billund in Denmark in 1968. This was followed by Legoland Windsor Resort in Windsor, England, Legoland California in Carlsbad, United States and Legoland Deutschland Resort in Günzburg, Germany. In addition, Legoland Sierksdorf was opened in 1973 but soon closed in 1976. In July 2005, the Lego Group announced that it had reached a deal with private investment company Blackstone Inc. to sell all four parks for €375 million to the Blackstone subsidiary Merlin Entertainments. Under the terms of the deal, the Lego Group would take a 30% share in Merlin Entertainments and positions on their board. The sale of the theme parks was part of a wider strategy to restructure the company to focus on the core business of toy products. In 2010, Merlin Entertainments opened the first Legoland water park at the Legoland California site. On 15 October 2011, Merlin Entertainments opened their first new Legoland park, Legoland Florida, in Winter Haven, Florida. It is the largest Legoland opened to date at 145 acres, and only one of the Legoland parks opened in the United States. The other Legoland (opened at a later date) water park was opened near the same location on 26 May 2012 after only four months of construction. Merlin Entertainments opened their second new Legoland park in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia under the name Legoland Malaysia Resort on 22 September 2012. It is the first Legoland in Asia and was quickly followed by another Lego-themed water park in the same area. The first Lego hotel has also opened near the site. People who stay in the hotel will also get tickets to the theme park and water park. The September 2016 they opened Legoland Dubai. In addition, they opened four new Legoland Discovery Centres, which take the Legoland concept and scale it down to suit a retail park environment. Legoland Japan Resort was opened in 2017 in Nagoya, Japan. Legoland Water Park Gardaland in Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy and Legoland New York in Goshen, New York, the largest of ten Legoland parks as of 2024, was opened in 2021. In June 2019, the Lego Group purchased the remaining shares in Merlin Entertainments which they did not own and privatised the company. This returned the operation of the Legoland parks to the control of the Lego Group. Retail stores The Lego Group operates 210 Lego Brand stores in North America and Europe (12 in Canada, 121 in the United States, 2 in Austria, 2 in Belgium, 1 in Czech Republic, 4 in Denmark, 9 in France, 18 in Germany, 2 in Ireland, 4 in the Netherlands, 8 in Poland, 1 in Spain, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Switzerland, 24 in the United Kingdom). The Lego Group also franchised its store brand known as "Certified Stores," to third-party vendors such as the Majid Al Futtaim Group, which opened 6 stores in 2015 (4 in the United Arab Emirates, and 2 in Kuwait). As of 2023, there is a total of 423 stores operated by franchisees, mostly in Australia, Asia, and South America. The Lego Group offers free "Lego Passports" at its stores, which contain blank pages to fill with rubber stamped designs that are available at different Lego retail locations. Each store has its own custom stamp. In October 2002, the Lego Group introduced a significant change in its direct retail policy with the opening of the first so-called "Lego Brand Store" in Cologne, Germany. The second, in Milton Keynes, UK, followed quickly – several dozen more opened worldwide over the next few years, and most of the existing stores have been remodelled on the new "Brand Store" template. One of the distinctive features of these new stores is the inclusion of a "Pick-A-Brick" system that allows customers to buy individual bricks in bulk quantities. The opening of most of these stores, including the 2003 opening of one in the Birmingham Bull Ring shopping centre in England, have been marked by the production of a new, special, limited edition, commemorative Lego Duplo piece. Lego opened the first brand store in its home country, Denmark, in Copenhagen on 13 December 2010. In 2016, three certified stores opened in Italy: one in Milan, one in the Orio Center, a shopping mall near the Milan Bergamo Airport in Bergamo, and another in Verona. On 18 August 2022, Ireland's first Lego store was opened in Dublin on Grafton Street. On 2 December 2022, an official store was opened in Brescia, bringing the total number of Lego stores in Italy to 29. In 2025, there were a total of 77 stores in Europe, which are operated by Lego itself. In London at Leicester Square, there is the former largest Lego store in the world, with an area of 805 m2. The first Lego store is expected to open doors in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 19 December 2023 in the largest shopping centre in the city's Paradise Center. In 1992, when the Mall of America opened in Bloomington, Minnesota, one of its premier attractions was the Lego Imagination Center (LIC), a large Lego store with displays of Lego sculptures and a play area with bins of bricks to build with. The store inventory includes a large selection of Lego sets for sale, including those advertised in Lego catalogues as "Not Available in Any Store". A second imagination centre opened at the Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Between 1999 and 2005, Lego opened 24 further stores in North America in 23 states. As of 2025, 121 Lego stores are operating in North America in 42 US states and five Canadian provinces. These stores sell various Lego merchandise, including minifigures, Pick-a-Brick, and custom packaged minifigures. The first Lego store in India was opened in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in March 2014 by Funskool, under licence from the Lego Group. India's only operating Lego store in 2023 opened in Mumbai International Airport duty-free in 2021. The first Lego Group certified store in India opened in May 2025 in Gurgaon, Haryana. The first Lego store in Israel was opened on the third floor of the Dizengoff Center in July 2022 and later in Cinema City Rishon-LeZion Lego Interactive Lego Interactive (formerly Lego Media and later Lego Software) was the video game publishing division of the Lego Group. The company was founded as Lego Media in 1996 and headquartered in London, England. In February 1999, Lego Media announced their move into the girls' software industry, starting with Lego Friends. On December 10, 2001, the company entered into a worldwide three-year agreement with Electronic Arts to co-publish and distribute new and past titles. Eventually, the Lego Group opted out of the video game business and Lego Interactive was shut down in 2004.[failed verification] Former Lego Interactive staff opened Giant Interactive Entertainment to publish future Lego titles, which later became part of TT Games. Lego Media also operated a motion picture division, which produced the BBC children's series Little Robots for Cosgrove Hall Films. In 2003, this division was rebranded to Create TV and Film Limited and became independent from the Lego Group under Lego's majority owner Kirkbi A/S, which allowed Create TV and Film to branch onto other projects. The company later produced Bionicle: Mask of Light, Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui and Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows for Creative Capers Entertainment. In 2005, Kirkbi A/S sold Create TV and Film to its chief executive officer, Vanessa Chapman, and the company was renamed Create Media Ventures Limited. The sale included Little Robots but excluded the Bionicle movies, which were retained by the Lego Group. Create was later dissolved in August 2016. Production Lego products are mass-produced, packaged and shipped on a large scale. Lego Produktion AG was a major production facility for Lego. It was founded in Switzerland in 1974. At the time of its announced closing in 2001, 30% of the world's production of Lego was produced at the Swiss facility in Baar. The Baar facility eventually closed in 2004. Environmental issues In 2014, Lego announced that it would not renew its promotional contract with Shell following a Greenpeace campaign protesting Shell's plans to drill in the Arctic. Lego CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp expressed frustration at the company being used to target Shell, while Greenpeace insisted that firms like Lego should also consider their business partners' environmental impact. Lego acknowledges the impact of its operations on the environment, in particular in areas such as climate change, resource and energy use and waste. The weathering of Lego bricks in the ocean over large timeframes results in smoothing, discoloration and fouling of the plastic surface. This, along with the deformation of the structure of the brick and the chemical additives that release microplastics into water, can potentially damage marine life. Despite these issues, all manufacturing sites are certified according to the environmental standard ISO 14001. The first Borkum Riffgrund 1 wind turbines off the coast of Germany began producing electricity in February 2015, which would help the Lego Group reach its goal of being based 100% on renewable energy by 2020. The company claims to recycle 90% of its waste and that it has made its operations nearly one-third more energy efficient over the five years ending on 31 December 2013. It is seeking alternatives to crude oil as the raw material for its bricks. In June 2015, this resulted in the establishment of the Lego Sustainable Materials Centre, which is expected to recruit more than 100 employees, as a significant step towards the 2030 ambition of finding and implementing sustainable alternatives to current materials. In 2023, online magazine Wired reported that Lego has faced challenges in transitioning from traditional acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene plastic to more sustainable materials due to the difficulties in achieving the necessary durability and production efficiency. Despite previous commitments to reduce plastic waste, the company's recent efforts to create bricks from recycled plastic bottles did not result in the anticipated sustainable alternatives, as the production process resulted in a total increase of 1.6 tCO2e to 1.8 tCO2e from the previous year, a higher carbon footprint than anticipated. In 2024, investigative journalism by Danish news broadcaster DR revealed that the Kirk Kristiansen family, owners of Lego, operate three private jets that have flown over 1,000 times between 2020 and 2023, often to destinations linked to vacations and events related to the family's hobby of horse riding. As private aviation is emitting considerable amounts of greenhouse gasses, reports raise concerns about the contrast between the family's private activities and Lego's public commitment to sustainability. In 2025, Lego opened up a $1 billion factory in Vietnam that plans to run entirely on clean energy. Along with the opening, the company planted 50,000 trees, twice the number it cut to clear land for the factory. News cooperative Associated Press reported that the five buildings which make up the factory meet high energy efficiency standards. It is the first Lego factory to replace single-use plastic bags with paper alternatives for packaging, with the company reaching a worldwide total of 56% of plastic bags replaced. The company stays committed with its plans to reduce their overall carbon emissions by 37% by 2032, and pledge to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. Gender equality and human rights In January 2014, a handwritten letter to Lego from a seven-year-old American girl, Charlotte Benjamin, received widespread attention in the media. In it, the young author complained that there were "more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls" and observed that "all the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs, but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people … even swam with sharks". In June 2014, it was announced that Lego would be launching a new "Research Institute" collection featuring female scientists including a female chemist, palaeontologist, and astronomer. The science-themed project was selected as the latest Lego Ideas winner and was submitted by Ellen Kooijman, a geochemist in Stockholm. Lego denied claims that the set was introduced to placate criticism of the company by activists, pointing to its Lego Ideas origins. The Research Institute range sold out within a week of its online release in August 2014. The BBC's Tom de Castella reported that Kooijman was pleased with the set's final design, despite the addition of face makeup to her original proposal, and that Becky Francis, professor of education and social justice at King's College London, who had been "very, very disappointed" by Lego Friends, is a fan. In June 2021, Lego released a set entitled "Everyone Is Awesome" to celebrate and recognize the LGBTQ+ community. The set includes over 300 pieces and has 11 monochrome minifigures in the colours of the Rainbow flag. In October 2021, Lego Group launched a campaign named "Ready for Girls" as part of its celebration of the UN's International Day of the Girl. The company also announced its plan to remove gender stereotypes from the toy(s) following a review of a study commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. On 3 March 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Lego Foundation stated it would donate approximately US$16.5 million to organizations including UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Danish Red Cross for emergency relief efforts. In April 2022, The Lego Foundation announced the launch of the company's $20 million play-based learning initiative. The grant programme launched as part of Autism Acceptance Month, is in support of innovative play-based learning for developmentally challenged children and turn, will award funding to 25 enterprises in support of innovative learning for autistic children and children with ADHD. In June 2025, The Lego Group launched the "She Built That" campaign. A song named after the campaign based on "It's Like That" by RUN DMC was released. In November 2025, The Lego Group signed a multi-year partnership with F1 Academy, a female-only Formula 4–level single-seater racing championship founded by the Formula One Group. As part of the partnership, The Lego Group will support Dutch driver Esmee Kosterman from 2026 with a Lego-liveried car. Logos Below are historical images of the Lego logo throughout the company's existence. See also References External links 55°44′00″N 09°07′15″E / 55.73333°N 9.12083°E / 55.73333; 9.12083 |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_block] | [TOKENS: 3859] |
Contents Writer's block Writer's block is a non-medical condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Writer's block has various degrees of severity, from difficulty in coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce work for years. This condition is not solely measured by time passing without writing; it is measured by time passing without productivity in the task at hand. Writer's block has been an acknowledged problem throughout recorded history and many experience it. However, not until 1947 was the term writer's block coined by the Austrian psychiatrist Edmund Bergler. All types of writers, including full-time professionals, academics, workers on creative projects, and those trying to finish written assignments, can experience writer's block. The condition has many causes, some that are even unrelated to writing. The majority of writer's block researchers agree that most causes of writer's block have an affective/physiological, motivational, and cognitive component. Studies have found effective coping strategies to deal with writer's block. These strategies aim to remove the anxiety about writing and range from ideas such as free writing and brainstorming to talking to a professional. History "My novel is going very badly for the moment. That fact added to the deaths of which I have heard; of Cormenin (a friend of twenty-five years' standing), of Gavarni, and then all the rest, but that will pass. You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word. Ideas come very easily to you, incessantly, like a stream. With me it is a tiny thread of water. Hard labor at art is necessary for me before obtaining a waterfall. Ah! I certainly know the agonies of style." The affliction now known as writer's block has been recognized throughout history. Writers who are known to have struggled with it include authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Joseph Mitchell, Joseph Conrad, composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, and songwriter Adele. Another possible example is Herman Melville, who stopped writing novels a few years after writing Moby-Dick. Early Romantic writers tended to attribute writer's block (whether seriously or merely poetically) to a power that no longer wanted them to write. Its interpretation became less mystical during the time of the French Symbolism. During this age, renowned poets would give up writing early in their careers on the grounds that they were unable to find the language to convey their messages. Such was the case for Arthur Rimbaud, who, after producing the bulk of his literary output during his late teenage years, completely stopped writing at the age of twenty. Though still, during the Great American Novel period (mid-18th to mid-19th century), the affliction was construed as something that stopped writers and caused them emotional instability. The condition was first clinically described in 1947 by Austrian psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler, who identified it as being caused by oral masochism, mothers that bottle fed, and an unstable private love life. The growing reputation of psychiatry in the United States made the term gain more recognition. Research concerning this topic was done in the late 1970s and 1980s. During this time, researchers were influenced by the Process and Post-Process movements and therefore focused specifically on the writer's processes.[citation needed] Causes Writer's block may have several causes. Some are creative problems that originate within an author's work itself. A writer may run out of inspiration or be distracted by other events. The writer Elizabeth Gilbert, reflecting on her post-bestseller prospects, proposed that such pressure might be released by interpreting creative writers as "having" genius rather than "being" a genius. A fictional example can be found in George Orwell's novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, in which the protagonist Gordon Comstock struggles in vain to complete an epic poem describing a day in London: "It was too big for him, that was the truth. It had never really progressed, it had simply fallen apart into a series of fragments." Physiological and neurological bases of writer's block have been suggested. Under stress, a human brain will "shift control from the cerebral cortex to the limbic system". The limbic system is associated with the instinctual processes, such as "fight or flight" response; and behavior that is based on "deeply engrained training". The limited input from the cerebral cortex hinders a person's creative processes, which is replaced by the behaviors associated with the limbic system. The person is often unaware of the change, which may lead them to believe they are creatively "blocked". [unreliable source?] In her 2004 book The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain, the writer and neurologist Alice W. Flaherty has argued that literary creativity is a function of specific areas of the brain, and that block may be the result of brain activity being disrupted in those areas. Flaherty suggested in her writing that there are many diseases that may impact one's ability to write. One of which she refers to is hypergraphia, or the intensive desire to write. She points out that in this condition, the patient's temporal lobe is afflicted, usually by damage, and it may be the same changes in this area of the brain that can contribute to writer's-blocking behaviors. Not to be confused with writer's block, agraphia is a neurological disorder caused by trauma or stroke causing difficulty in communicating through writing. Agraphia cannot be treated directly, but it is possible to relearn certain writing abilities. Other research identifies neurological malfunctions as a cause. Malcolm T. Cunningham showed how these malfunctions can be linked to trauma both mental and physical. Physical damage can produce writer's block. If a person experiences tissue damage in the brain, i.e. a stroke, it is likely to lead to other complications apart from the lesion itself. This damage causes an extreme form of writer's block known as agraphia. With agraphia, the inability to write is due to issues with the cerebral cortex; this disables the brain's process of translating thoughts into writing. Brain injuries are an example of a physical illness that can cause a writer to be blocked. Other brain-related disorders and neurological disorders such as epilepsy have been known to cause the problem of writer's block and hypergraphia, the strong urge to write. Another cause of writer's block has been due to writer's anxiety. Writer's anxiety is defined as being worried about one's words or thoughts, thus experiencing writer's block. From a composition perspective, Lawrence Oliver said in his article "Helping Students Overcome Writer's Block": "Students receive little or no advice on how to generate ideas or explore their thoughts, and they usually must proceed through the writing process without guidance or corrective feedback from the teacher, who withholds comments and criticism until grading the final product." He said that students "learn to write by writing", and often they are insecure or paralyzed by rules. Phyllis Koestenbaum wrote in her article "The Secret Climate the Year I Stopped Writing" about her trepidation toward writing, claiming it was tied directly to her instructor's response. She said, "I needed to write to feel, but without feeling I couldn't write." In contrast to Koestenbaum's experience, Nancy Sommers stated that papers do not end when students finish writing and that neither should instructors' comments. She urges a "partnership" between writers and instructors so that responses become a conversation. Herman A. Estrin in his article "Motivation in Composition Writing" writes: "When freshmen are assigned such topics for a research paper as ... they have no real background of the subject for an in-depth paper ... they prepare a mechanical, lifeless paper with no creativity, imagination, or originality". According to him, freshman students write well about topics they are passionate about. Marshall Moore, in his article "Articulate Walls: Writer's Block and the Academic Creative," thinks similarly by writing: "...his or her practice is paralysingly out of sync with the syllabus; and teaching from a state of creative depletion may engender a cascade of self-doubt. This paper will look at the process by which these practitioners attempt to navigate this zone of creative disconnect.". Saying having assigned, planned out, and required papers is contributing to loss of motivation. Aline Alves-Wold, in her article "Assessing Writing Motivation: a Systematic Review of K-5 Students' Self-Reports" states that there is a general lack of research on the motivation of students to write in the first few years of education, which is problematic when one considers how important initial experiences are in motivating students to write. Success generally enhances one's belief in their efficacy, whereas failure weakens them. "These mechanisms are particularly evident in early phases of skill development where failure typically occurs before a sense of efficacy has been firmly established. This implies that children in their first years in school have writer self-beliefs that are particularly malleable and dynamic". Writing development is therefore both enhanced and endangered during the first years in school. Mike Rose stated that writer's block can be caused by a writer's history in writing, rules, and restrictions from the past. Writers can be hesitant about what they write based on how it will be perceived by the audience. Guangming Ling states that there is a negative correlation between self-efficacy and avoidance goals in studies on writing apprehension and writer's block, which suggests that having hesitations about writing may lead to less effort and thus less success. Similarly to Ling, Dana Driscoll and Jennifer Wells explain writing dispositions in their essay "Beyond Knowledge and Skills". Driscoll and Wells argue that dispositions toward writing play crucial roles in determining whether writers are able to transfer their knowledge of writing into other contexts of life. Related to self-efficacy, Driscoll and Wells suggest that writers who have a positive self-belief are more likely to produce work than some with a negative self-belief. Self-efficacy is especially important for a writer when it comes to an unfamiliar learning or writing setting because it may seem overwhelming. James Adams noted in his book Conceptual Blockbusting that various reasons blocks occur include fear of taking a risk, "chaos" in the pre-writing stage, judging versus generating ideas, an inability to incubate ideas, or a lack of motivation. In "Motivation in the Writing Centre: A Peer Tutor's Experience", Leonie Kirchoff states that "The concept of 'amotivation' describes a lack of motivation due to an individual's feeling of incompetence and helplessness." Demotivation is the process of reducing or diminishing motivational basis for behavior or ongoing actions through external influences. An external factor such as feedback may affect demotivation, whereas an internal factor, such as pessimistic expectations, may cause amotivation. Even so, both concepts have similar effects on writers. For tutors to provide students with the most appropriate feedback, scholars like Jared Featherstone from James Madison University suggest that tutors should be well educated in mindfulness strategies to combat a student's fixed mindset. He argues that tutors or instructors should be mindful enough to be grounded and focused solely on their student so they can pick up on the feelings, stress, or fixed mindsets their student might have. An unmindful tutor might accidentally reinforce a student's negative thinking patterns. Coping strategies Irene Clark describes the following strategies for coping with writer's block: class and group discussion, journaling, free writing and brainstorming, clustering, list making, and engaging with the text. To overcome writing blocks, Oliver suggests asking writers questions to uncover their writing process. He then recommends solutions such as systematic questioning, free writing, and encouragement. A recent study of 2,500 writers aimed to find techniques that writers themselves use to overcome writer's block.[citation needed] The research discovered a range of solutions from altering the time of day to write and setting deadlines to lowering expectations and using mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation has proved to increase awareness and improve writing skills. Kate Chaterdon, an English professor at Marist College, suggests that mindfulness not only improves writing skills but also allows writers to transfer their knowledge of writing into other contexts of life. Chaterdon recommends meditation as a grounding exercise to help people become more metacognitively aware. Chaterdon had conducted a study in her two writing classes at Marist College and concluded that practicing mindfulness at least once a week is essential in developing higher levels of metacognition. Garbriele Lusser Rico's concern with the mind links to brain lateralisation, also explored by Rose and Linda Flowers and John R. Hayes, among others. Rico's book Writing the Natural Way looks into invention strategies, such as clustering, which has been noted to be an invention strategy used to help writers overcome their blocks, and further emphasizes the solutions presented in works by Rose, Oliver, and Clark. Similar to Rico, James Adams discusses "right-brain" involvement in writing. While Bill Downey proposes that he is basing his approach in practical concerns, his concentration on "right-brain" techniques speaks to cognitive theory approach similar to Rico's and a more practical advice for writers to approach their writer's block. Mike Rose mentions that peer tutors provide supportive feedback so that blocked writers can feel secure in sharing their problems and experimenting with new ideas about writing. Research has also shown that it is highly effective if one breaks their work into pieces rather than doing all of their writing in one sitting, in order to produce good quality work. While it can be helpful to split up the writing process into pieces, Patricia Huston suggests that starting with different sections of a paper, rather than trying to start with an introduction, can be a useful strategy to cope with writer's block. She points out that if a person is stuck on the introduction, they can try moving on to a different section, like a body paragraph. Huston states: "There is no need to begin at the beginning and write an article in sequence". Free writing is a widely accepted technique for overcoming writer's block. Taught by Peter Elbow, free writing is similar to brainstorming but is written in prose form without stopping. To free-write, one writes without pausing to think or edit, and one pours raw ideas onto paper. Author Benjamin Solomon described the rationale for the technique: "Writer's block is a rut, a ditch, a trap, a swampy mire, and in order to lift yourself out, you need to do something—anything!—to jog yourself into motion." Cherryl Armstrong, who worked with the South Coast Writing Project, stated that one can free-write about anything, even a completely different subject than one was going to write about: "any writing will do". Lawrence J. Oliver claims that after free writing the writer is able to analyze many ideas that might not have been generated before and develop a clearer sense of what theme is trying to be communicated throughout the writing. Oliver suggests that freewriting is an effective method that has helped people deal with writer's block. Freewriting does not focus on grammar or style. There is only one rule for this method, and that is to keep on writing. Educators should also never read students' freewriting unless asked to do so. Mind mapping is suggested as another potential solution to writer's block. The technique involves writing a stream of consciousness on a horizontal piece of paper and connecting any similar or linked thoughts. This exercise is intended to help a writer suffering from writer's block to bypass the analytical or critical functioning of their brain and access the creative functioning more directly, stimulating the flow of ideas. Other techniques similar to clustering and mind mapping are the writing of notes on cards in a card file, and nonlinear electronic writing using hypertext. Camacho, Alves, and Boscolo wrote about enhancing students' writing motivation in the classroom. They say that to foster students' positive self-beliefs and beliefs about writing, teachers must nurture their self-beliefs, as well as their beliefs about the writing task. Other ways to cope come from ideas such as The Brand Emotions Scale for Writers (BESW). Using the framework of the Differential Emotions Scale, the BESW works with grouping emotions into either states or traits and then classifying them as positive, negative passive, or negative active. Researchers can assess subjects, giving writers a chance to get more work done if left in the right emotional state, since data suggests that writers with positive emotions tend to express more than writers with negative passive or negative active. Scholars and researchers such as Mandy Bamber suggest practicing meditation to reduce negative moods like stress and anxiety. Bamber's team conducted a study on 40 university students who showed signs of anxiety. After practicing mindfulness and meditation exercises, 33 out of the 40 showed significant decreases in stress and anxiety levels. Anne Johnstone suggests a couple of strategies to help with writer's block. When one finds oneself unable to generate content, Johnstone suggests "recopying a well-liked piece" of one's own to help generate ideas. Johnstone states that individuals who are articulate orally but struggle with writing and forming their ideas into sentences on paper should try tape-recording themselves and later transcribing it onto paper. Relation to procrastination Writer's block and procrastination are two similar issues that people struggle with when it comes to writing. Writer's block is an issue that can cause people to delay their goals and may prevent them from finishing writing projects. Although writer's block and procrastination are not the exact same issue, they can end up leading to one another. Writer's block is not continuing to do a task, and procrastination is delaying starting the task. In her 1987 Ph.D. thesis (published in 2012), Karen E. Peterson posited two different scenarios on how procrastination and writer's block can lead to each other. One scenario is that a person will procrastinate due to having the fear of past experiences of getting writer's block when doing a task. The other scenario is that a person will have writer's block because of the feeling of being overwhelmed about needing to do a task at the last minute after procrastinating for a long period of time. According to some scholars like Claire Kervin, procrastination is usually a result of a negative mood and is a "short-term mood regulator". Unlike previous beliefs that procrastination is poor time management, Kervin suggests procrastination is a way individuals cope with negative emotions. Kervin's suggestion makes a connection to one of Peterson's scenarios, specifically when someone procrastinates due to fear of past experiences and begins to feel judgmental toward themselves. Kervin recommends taking a mindful approach to combating procrastination in order to become more grounded and improve self-regulation. See also References Further reading |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Shacknews:_space_trading_sim-75] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Shacknews:_next_game-76] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-The_Verge:_Earth-79] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda_Softworks] | [TOKENS: 4842] |
Contents Bethesda Softworks Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited. In 1999, it became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its first 15 years, it was a video game developer and self-published its titles. In 2001, Bethesda spun off its in-house development team into Bethesda Game Studios, leaving Bethesda Softworks to focus on publishing operations. In March 2021, Microsoft acquired Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business. Part of the Microsoft Gaming division, Bethesda Softworks retains its function as the publisher of games developed by the different studios under ZeniMax Media. History Before founding Bethesda Softworks, Christopher Weaver was a technology forecaster and a communications engineer in the television and cable industries. After finishing graduate school, he was hired by the American Broadcasting Company, where he wrote several memos about "the importance of alternative distribution systems and how satellites and broadband networks would impact network television", which landed him the position of manager of technology forecasting. After several national magazines quoted his articles on "the exciting prospects for cabled distribution systems", he was recruited by the National Cable Television Association and created its Office of Science and Technology, where he helped design high-speed data communication systems for several member companies of the association. Eventually, Weaver became the chief engineer for the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, where he influenced legislation that affected the telephone, television, and cable industries. In the meantime, Weaver also founded VideoMagic Laboratories with a friend from the Architecture Machine Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). They authored and assembled a 400-page business plan to commercialize their prior lab work and, through the Industrial Liaison Office at MIT, came in contact with a wealthy family in the electronics industry that provided VideoMagic with venture capital. The company developed several technologies, including location-based entertainment systems, that Weaver deemed "radical and cutting-edge" but put out prematurely, causing little commercial return. The funding family, having financial issues of its own, dropped out of the venture and sold off some of VideoMagic's properties. After leaving the House Subcommittee some years later, Weaver established Media Technology Associates, Limited (renamed Media Technology Limited in March 1988) in June 1981. The company provided engineering and media consulting for private companies and government organizations. Media Technology had offices in Maryland and New York. At Media Technology, Weaver worked with Ed Fletcher, an electrical engineer with whom he had collaborated at VideoMagic, on video games for LaserDisc-based systems until that industry crashed in 1984. While waiting for potential new contracts, the company acquired an Amiga personal computer with which the two began to experiment. Fletcher was a fan of American football and suggested that they develop a football video game for the system, which Weaver supported despite no interest in the sport. Fletcher developed the game, later named Gridiron!, out of Weaver's house in Bethesda, Maryland, in roughly nine months. His initial approach was to use lookup tables to map player inputs to predetermined outcomes. Weaver disliked this concept and, at his behest, he and Fletcher devised a more realistic, physics-based system. No artists or animators were involved in the project, which gave the game a sub-par graphical presentation for the time. Weaver formed Bethesda Softworks "on the proverbial kitchen table" of his Bethesda home as a division of Media Technology on June 28, 1986. The formation was described as an experiment "to see if the PC market was a viable place to develop games". Weaver originally named the company "Softwerke" but found that the name was taken by a company based in Virginia. Weaver and the owner of that company agreed to co-exist rather than fight over the title, and Weaver changed the name of his company to Bethesda Softworks. He had considered creating a unique name, such as one using the word "magic" after a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, but "Bethesda Softworks" ultimately stuck. Unlike VideoMagic, Bethesda Softworks was entirely self-funded, starting with roughly US$100,000, and was not attached to any business plan. Gridiron! was released as the company's first game later in 1986 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and Commodore 64 systems. The initial release of a few hundred copies distributed in plastic bags was sold out within one week, to the surprise of the team. Gridiron! scored respectably in the gaming press. Electronic Arts was working on the first John Madden Football, and hired Bethesda to help finish developing it, and acquired distribution rights for future versions of Gridiron!. In June 1988, after no new cross-console version of Gridiron! had been released, Bethesda stopped work on the project and sued Electronic Arts for US$7.3 million, claiming EA halted the release while incorporating many of its elements into Madden. The case was resolved out of court. Courteney Cox, later known for her role in the sitcom Friends, worked at the publisher briefly in the 1980s. Former hockey player Bobby Orr reportedly had a hand in a Bethesda game called Slapshot!. In 1990, the company moved from Bethesda to Rockville, Maryland. That same year, the company released By Design, a graphic enhancing software. By February 1993, the company employed 40 people. The first game Bethesda published and developed, based on a popular film franchise, was The Terminator for MS-DOS. The title was released in July 1991, coinciding with the theatrical release of the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In 1994, the company released its best-known project at the time, The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The first game in The Elder Scrolls role-playing video game series was the work of Programmer Julian LeFay, Director and Producer Vijay Lakshman as well as others. Several sequels have been released since including The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, which was released in September 1996. Between 1994 and 1997, Bethesda was developing a space combat game titled The 10th Planet. It was a collaboration between Bethesda and Roland Emmerich's Centropolis Entertainment. During development, Centropolis chose to stop working on the game due to the company's commitments to its films. The project was never released. In 1995, Bethesda Softworks acquired Noctropolis developer Flashpoint Productions, which Brent Erickson had founded in 1992. In July 1995, Bruce Nesmith joined Bethesda as Senior Producer. In August 1995, Bethesda Softworks launched its website on the World Wide Web. In 1997, Bethesda acquired XL Translab, a Washington, D.C., graphics company that stemmed from the Catholic University School of Architecture and Planning. It was moved to Bethesda Softworks' Rockville headquarters. XL Translab had previously done work for PBS and Fortune 500 companies. By 1996, Bethesda Softworks had become the third-biggest player in the privately held PC publishing industry after LucasArts and Interplay Entertainment with 75 employees by that year and revenues of $25 million by 1997. In June and July 1997, Bethesda announced a partnership with CBS Enterprises to produce the first-ever true companion PC series of games for the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. By December 1997, the first CD-ROM game was still in production. In 1997 and 1998, Bethesda released two The Elder Scrolls spin-offs based on Daggerfall's code,Battlespire and Redguard, neither of which were as successful as Daggerfall and Arena. The downturn in sales affected many of their games, and the company considered filing for bankruptcy as a result. In October 1999, Pete Hines joined Bethesda to head up its marketing department, running it as what he described as a one-man band. At the start of his tenure, the company had reduced to around 15 people in its Rockville headquarters. In 1999, Weaver and Robert A. Altman formed the holding company ZeniMax Media. In an interview with Edge, he described the company as being a top-level administrative structure rather than a "parent company" for its holdings, explaining that "ZeniMax and Bethesda for all intents and purposes are one thing. Bethesda has no accounting department, we have no finance, we have no legal, our legal department [and] our financial department is ZeniMax, we all operate as one unit." According to the designer Bruce Nesmith, Altman was principally interested in Bethesda's web development business at Vir2L Studios, not the game development aspect. ZeniMax acquired Media Technology in July 1999 and Bethesda Softworks was reorganized as a division of ZeniMax. By then Bethesda employed nearly 100 people. In 2001, Bethesda Game Studios was established as the development team, leaving Bethesda Softworks to focus on all publishing operations of ZeniMax Media. In 2002, Weaver stopped being employed by ZeniMax. He later filed a lawsuit against ZeniMax, claiming he was ousted by his new business partners after giving them access to his brand and was owed US$1.2 million in severance pay. ZeniMax filed counterclaims and moved to dismiss the case, claiming Weaver had gone through emails of other employees to find evidence. This dismissal was later vacated on appeal, and the parties settled out of court. Weaver remained a major shareholder in the company; as of 2007, he said that he still owned 33% of ZeniMax's stock. Providence Equity bought 25% of ZeniMax's stock in late 2007, and an additional stake in 2010. In 2004, the Fallout franchise was acquired by Bethesda Softworks from Interplay Entertainment and the development of Fallout 3 was handed over to Bethesda Game Studios. Fallout 3 was released on October 28, 2008. Five downloadable content packs for Fallout 3 were released in the year following its release — Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta. Obsidian Entertainment's new Fallout title, Fallout: New Vegas was published in 2010. Fallout 4 was released on November 10, 2015. Between 2004 and 2008, ZeniMax's subsidiaries Mud Duck Productions and Vir2L Studios released four bowling games for various platforms — AMF Bowling 2004, AMF Xtreme Bowling 2006, AMF Bowling World Lanes, and AMF Bowling Pinbusters!. In January 2006, Bethesda acquired the rights to the Star Trek series of video games. The first game published by the company was Star Trek: Encounters, released in 2006. In September 2009, Bethesda filed a lawsuit against Interplay Entertainment, after being unsatisfied with Interplay's development of the Fallout massively multiplayer online game project. Bethesda stopped funding the project, and Interplay was forced to abandon work on it. Between 2007 and 2010, Bethesda raised US$450 million in new capital from Providence Equity Partners to fund expansion efforts. In February 2008, the company opened a European publishing arm in London, named ZeniMax Europe, to distribute titles throughout UK/EMEA territories under the Bethesda Softworks brand. This was followed in by opening publishing offices in Tokyo, Frankfurt, Paris, Eindhoven, Hong Kong, Sydney and Moscow in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2018 respectively. On June 24, 2009, ZeniMax Media acquired id Software, whose titles, including Rage, would be published by Bethesda Softworks. Between 2009 and 2012, the company expanded publishing operations, with games from independent third-party developers such as Rebellion Developments's Rogue Warrior, Artificial Mind and Movement's Wet, Splash Damage's Brink, and inXile's Hunted: The Demon's Forge. In 2011, Bethesda filed a lawsuit against Mojang (developers of Minecraft) for using Scrolls as the name of a new digital card game, which sounded too close to The Elder Scrolls trademarked by Bethesda. In the early 2010s, Bethesda Softworks published games such as Dishonored, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and The Evil Within. In the mid-2010s, Bethesda began to experiment with new kinds of games, releasing Fallout Shelter, its first mobile, free-to-play game in the summer of 2015. A year later, it released a reboot of id Software's Doom, after several years of development as a failed attempt to produce a sequel to Doom 3. Later that year, Zen Studios released virtual pinball adaptations of three games that Bethesda released during the decade thus far (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 4 and the 2016 reboot of Doom) as the Bethesda Pinball collection for its pinball games. Bethesda went on to release two more free-to-play mobile games based on The Elder Scrolls series, a card battle game titled The Elder Scrolls: Legends in 2017 and a first-person role-playing game titled The Elder Scrolls: Blades in 2019. When Nintendo unveiled its new hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch, Bethesda expressed support for it and released ports of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Doom for that system in November 2017. A year later, it also ported Fallout Shelter, and has future plans to do the same for its two Elder Scrolls mobile games. Games such as Prey, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, The Evil Within 2, and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus have not sold as well as compared to Fallout and The Elder Scrolls according to Bethesda's Pete Hines. In late 2018, Bethesda announced and released its first massively multiplayer online game, Fallout 76, a prequel to the Fallout series. Upon its initial release, it was given mixed reviews for its poor quality and was embroiled in several other controversies, including problems with tie-in products and a data breach. The following year saw Bethesda announce sequels to Rage and Doom, Rage 2 and Doom Eternal. The former was released on May 14, while the latter released in early 2020 shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States, following a series of delays for polish after the negative reception of Fallout 76's initial launch. In November 2019, Human Head Studios shut down while Bethesda established a new studio, Roundhouse Studios, offering all Human Head employees a position within it. In 2016, Bethesda had released its own application launcher for PC. Fallout 76 and Fallout Shelter were exclusives to the launcher before eventually released on Steam. In 2022, Bethesda shut down the launcher. The launcher was mostly met with negative reception. PC Gamer said that "Bethesda's launcher seems to be designed more as a pretty interface to purchase Bethesda's games than a way of managing them. [...] the client feels more like a store than anything." In March 2020, Bethesda Softworks published Doom Eternal, a sequel to the 2016 reboot for PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One and the Stadia games streaming service from Google. The game's release was one of many that was affected by the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the games industry, prompting retailers such as GameStop to begin selling physical copies a day in advance of its general release to minimize crowding of customers. To coincide with Eternal's original release, a remaster of Doom 64 was also launched as both a standalone release, and as a pre-order bonus for the former game on the aforementioned platforms. The re-release was co-developed by id Software and Nightdive Studios, and includes a new post-campaign expansion. In September 2020, Microsoft entered an agreement to acquire Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion, gaining ownership over all of Bethesda's associated development teams, now as part of Microsoft Gaming. The agreement stipulated that Bethesda continued to finance and self-publish their games and that titles on other platforms would be decided on a "case-by-case" basis, but that the merger would also allow Bethesda's existing back-catalog of titles to become available on Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass service for console, PC and cloud, and that select future games from the publisher would become exclusives for Windows and the Xbox Series X/S consoles, which simultaneously launched that November. The acquisition of ZeniMax Media was formally completed on March 9, 2021. Following the merger's completion, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer clarified that future titles from Bethesda would primarily ship on any platforms hosting Xbox Game Pass. In September 2021, Bethesda published Deathloop, a first-person shooter with time-warping mechanics from Arkane Lyon. The following March, Bethesda released Ghostwire: Tokyo, a first-person horror-themed action-adventure game developed by Tango Gameworks. Both games were announced as being timed console exclusives for PlayStation 5 before Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Media, an existing contractual obligation that would be honored by Microsoft despite the amended terms. Both titles were eventually released on Xbox Series X/S a year following their respective PlayStation 5 versions. In January 2023, Bethesda announced and released Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks. The publisher purposely kept the game's development secret by due to possible skepticism and uncertainty regarding audience feedback. In May 2023, Bethesda launched Redfall for Windows and Xbox Series X/S from Arkane Austin, though it received a largely mixed to negative reception, with scrutiny directed towards the uninspired narrative, the overall repetitiveness in objectives during the campaign, and consistent technical problems. In September 2023, Bethesda published Starfield for Windows and Xbox Series X/S. Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, the game marked the studio's first wholly original intellectual property in over 25 years. Upon the early access launch, the game reached a peak of 230,000 concurrent players on Steam within two hours. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer announced on launch day that the game subsequently became the most played Xbox Series X/S-exclusive game since the console's launch, as well as the most wish-listed game on Steam for either Xbox or Bethesda in their respective histories. Starfield reached ten million players across Xbox and PC by September 19, making it the biggest launch period in Bethesda's history as a publisher. In October 2023, Bethesda's head of publishing Pete Hines announced he would be retiring. Later that month, a corporate restructuring of the newly formed Microsoft Gaming subsidiary took place following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, that saw the promotion of executive Matt Booty from president of Xbox to overseeing their entire Game Content and Studios business, with Jamie Leder still retaining supervision over ZeniMax Media as a "limited integration entity" that would now report to Matt. In December 2023, Jill Braff was appointed to the role as head of Bethesda and ZeniMax Media's development teams, while simultaneously retaining her existing duties as the General Manager of Integrations and Casual Games for Xbox Game Studios. In May 2024, Microsoft announced that they were closing Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks and Alpha Dog Games as part of a significant organization restructure of Bethesda's operations. Xbox Game Content and Studios head Matt Booty explained that the shuttering of the studios reflected a desire to prioritize the development of "high-impact titles" and investing more in Bethesda's catalogue of blockbuster franchises. Mobile developer Roundhouse Studios also ceased activity, with its team being consolidated into ZeniMax Online Studios. Development of all DLC content for Redfall also ceased. Xbox president Sarah Bond cited a necessity to keep their gaming business growing through periods of transition and industry stagnation, as a reason for the studio closures. Addressing Tango Gameworks directly, she proposed that the varying metrics for success on a game-by-game basis was examined when deciding to shut the studio down. Despite Tango's closure, Matt Booty reiterated the necessity for Xbox to house smaller budget titles for "prestige and awards" much like Hi-Fi Rush. On August 12, 2024, South Korean publisher Krafton announced they had entered an agreement with Microsoft Gaming and Bethesda to revive and acquire Tango Gameworks in its entirety, which also included the transferral of the Hi-Fi Rush license. Microsoft retained the publishing rights to Tango Gameworks existing games with the exception of Hi-Fi Rush which was transferred to Krafton on November 14, 2025. Games published Canceled games Technology Conflicts with other developers In 2001, Bethesda Softworks published Echelon in the United States, a video game developed by the Russian development studio Madia. Madia stated that Bethesda did not pay for boxed sales of the game, as was allegedly specified in the contract. The developers at Madia wrote an open letter to Bethesda in which they have detailed the affair, but Bethesda refused to pay. In the end Madia decided not to take it to court. Pete Hines, VP of PR at Bethesda, stated that Madia presented misleading allegations about Bethesda's role as publisher of Echelon in North America and that Bethesda had no contractual obligations to Madia. Bethesda Softworks and ZeniMax Media have been accused of attempting a hostile acquisition of Human Head Studios, as well as a successful hostile acquisition of Arkane Studios before that. According to a report from IGN, ZeniMax started purposefully failing Human Head's project milestones so that they would not get paid, allowing ZeniMax to buy the company at a reduced rate. They were accused of doing the same thing with Arkane Studios, although in Arkane's case, the studio gave in and allowed themselves to be bought. The failed hostile acquisition of Human Head Studios led to cancellation of Human Head's Prey 2, according to the report. Bethesda also pressured developer No Matter Games to change the name of their game Prey for the Gods to Praey for the Gods, as Bethesda felt the initial title infringed upon the trademark of their own game, Prey. Pete Hines, who serves as Bethesda's VP of marketing, said Bethesda would have risked losing their Prey trademark if they had not requested the title change. In September 2009, Bethesda Softworks sued Interplay Entertainment over Fallout trademark infringement. After a lengthy legal battle the lawsuit was settled in January 2012, with Interplay receiving US$2 million while Bethesda Softworks gained the right to develop a Fallout massively multiplayer online game, as well as the rights to Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel after December 31, 2013. In September 2011, Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax Media, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, claiming that Mojang's planned trademark of the title Scrolls infringed upon Bethesda's trademark of The Elder Scrolls series. On October 18, Markus Persson announced that Mojang had won the interim injunction, but that Bethesda still had the option to file an appeal. In March 2012, Mojang and Bethesda reached a settlement, in which Mojang would not trademark Scrolls, but Bethesda would not contest Mojang's naming of Scrolls, so long as it would not be a direct competitor against The Elder Scrolls. In 2018, Bethesda Softworks sued Behaviour Interactive, the company responsible for developing Fallout Shelter, for appearing to copy the game's design onto a tie-in mobile game for the Westworld franchise. The issue was settled with undisclosed terms, allowing Bethesda to drop the lawsuit. Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cease_and_desist] | [TOKENS: 1469] |
Contents Cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the other party continues the alleged unlawful activity. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not discontinue specified conduct, or take certain actions, by deadlines set in the letter, the letter's recipient may be sued. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. A cease and desist letter issued by a government entity, called a cease and desist order, is "a warning of impending judicial enforcement". Usage for intellectual property Although cease and desist letters are not exclusively used in the area of intellectual property, particularly in regards to copyright infringement, such letters "are frequently utilized in disputes concerning intellectual property and represent an important feature of the intellectual property law landscape". The holder of an intellectual property right such as a copyrighted work, a trademark, or a patent, may send the cease and desist letter to inform a third party "of the right holder's rights, identity, and intentions to enforce the rights". The letter may merely contain a licensing offer or may be an explicit threat of a lawsuit. A cease and desist letter often triggers licensing negotiations, and is a frequent first step towards litigation. Effects on recipients Receiving numerous cease and desist letters may be very costly for the recipient. Each claim in the letters must be evaluated, and it should be decided whether to respond to the letters, "whether or not to obtain an attorney's opinion letter, prepare for a lawsuit, and perhaps initiate [in case of letters regarding a potential patent infringement] a search for alternatives and the development of design-around technologies." Cease and desist letters are sometimes used to intimidate recipients and can be "an effective tool used by corporations to chill the critical speech of gripe sites operators". A company owning a trademark may send such letter to a gripe site operator alleging a trademark infringement, although the actual use of the trademark by the gripe site operator may fall under a fair use exception (in compliance with, in the U.S., the protection of free speech under the First Amendment). Notable cease and desist letters To prevent genericizing and potential loss of its trademark, Google has discouraged use of the word google as a verb, particularly when used as a synonym for general web searching. On February 23, 2003, Google sent a cease and desist letter to Paul McFedries, creator of Word Spy, a website that tracks neologisms. In an article in The Washington Post, Frank Ahrens discussed the letter he received from a Google lawyer that demonstrated "appropriate" and "inappropriate" ways to use the verb google. Author Patrick Wensink used Jack Daniel's famous branding without licensing as a cover for his 2012 book Broken Piano for President. Jack Daniel's requested only future printings of the book to have the cover changed and offered compensation. In September 2012, AwardWallet, TripIt and MileWise received a number of cease and desist letters from American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, demanding that companies discontinue accessing their websites for tracking clients' miles rewards programs. In 2017, a cease and desist letter sent by Netflix for an unauthorized Stranger Things–related bar event was noted by news outlets such as Fortune and Quartz for its humorous wording. Donald Trump sent a cease and desist letter to CNN asking them to retract a poll that showed him being 14 percentage points behind his opponent Joe Biden during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, prompting The Atlantic to warn about attacks on the media. In 2021, Google's platform YouTube issued a significant number of cease and desist notices to the creators of various music bots on Discord, such as Rythm and Groovy. These music bots allowed users to request songs and have the bot create a queue. This was done by pulling the audio stream from various streaming and video platforms, including YouTube, and then played that audio on the Discord voice channel. Because such music bots did not play any of the advertisements included on the video-hosting site, the company alleged missing revenue for itself and the content uploaders. A spokesperson for Google told The Verge that Groovy violated YouTube's terms of service for "modifying the service and using it for commercial purposes". The makers of Groovy had decided to comply with Google's request by shutting down the bot on August 30, 2021. According to estimations, the bot had more than 250 million users. In 2022, Disney issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of Club Penguin Rewritten, a game that was created as a remake of Club Penguin after its shutdown on March 31, 2017. Google issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of YouTube Vanced, an Android app developed as a third-party modification of YouTube. The app, which utilizes the apk file format, allowed its users to skip advertisements, among other functions. Since March 13, 2022, the app has been discontinued, with all links being removed. Nintendo issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of Yuzu, a video game console emulator for the Nintendo Switch. The program allowed its users to not pay or participate in grinding for downloadable content, such as all of its Booster Course Passes and a Gold Mario for Mario Kart 8. In August 2025, the Roblox Corporation sent a YouTuber known as "Schlep" a cease-and-desist letter for catching child predators. Roblox also terminated all of his accounts. The Philippine National Telecommunications Commission administered a cease and desist order against ABS-CBN to stop broadcasting on May 5, 2020, after its franchise expired the day before (May 4, 2020). At 7:52 pm (PHT), ABS-CBN stopped its broadcast in compliance with the NTC's letter, signing off all of its free TV and radio stations across the country (ABS-CBN Channel 2, S+A Channel 23, DZMM 630, and MOR 101.9). The said agency also gave ABS-CBN ten days to explain why its assigned frequencies should not be recalled. On June 30, 2020, considering that Channel 43 was also included in the May 5, 2020 shutdown order issued by the NTC against ABS-CBN (although ABS-CBN CEO Carlo L. Katigbak insisted that it is part of their blocktime agreement with AMCARA Broadcasting Network), the NTC and Solicitor General Jose Calida released two alias cease-and-desist orders against Channel 43 on digital TV receiver ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Cable's nationwide satellite service Sky Direct to cease further operations. On January 22, 2024, the National Telecommunications Commission issued a cease-and-desist order to Sonshine Media Network International, citing its failure to comply with the original 30-day suspension order issued by the said agency. See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement] | [TOKENS: 3600] |
Contents Trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may occur when one party, the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, especially in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers. An owner of a trademark may commence civil legal proceedings against a party which infringes its registered trademark. In the United States, the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 criminalized the intentional trade in counterfeit goods and services.: 485–486 If the respective marks and products or services are entirely dissimilar, trademark infringement may still be established if the registered mark is well known pursuant to the Paris Convention. In the United States, a cause of action for use of a mark for such dissimilar services is called trademark dilution. In some jurisdictions a party other than the owner (e.g., a licensee) may be able to pursue trademark infringement proceedings against an infringer if the owner fails to do so. Likelihood of confusion Section 32 of the Lanham Act states that those who use similar or identical trademarks, products, or services, to those already registered with the USPTO in such a way as "likely to cause confusion, . . . cause mistake, or to deceive. . . shall be liable in a civil action by the registrant . . . ." Where the respective marks, products, or services are not identical, similarity will generally be assessed by reference to whether there is a likelihood of confusion that consumers will believe the products or services originated from the trademark owner. A typical likelihood of confusion test balances a variety of factors, none of which is dispositive on its own. While each jurisdiction uses a slightly different test, every test considers (1) whether and to what extent the alleged infringer intended to infringe on the senior user's valid trademark rights, (2) evidence of any consumer confusion, and (3) factors that speak to the economic relationship between the consuming public and the two marks, products, or services. Keds Corp. v. Renee Int’l Trading Corp., 888 F.2d 215 (1st Cir. 1989) Playtex Products, Inc. v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 390 F.3d 158 (2d Cir. 2004) KOS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Andrx Corp., 369 F.3d 700 (3d Cir. 2004). CareFirst of Maryland, Inc. v. First Care, P.C., 434 F.3d 263 (4th Cir. 2006). Scott Fetzer Co. v. House of Vacuums Inc., 381 F.3d 477 (5th Cir. 2004) AutoZone, Inc. v. Tandy Corp., 373 F.3d 786 (6th Cir. 2004) Sullivan v. CBS Corp., 385 F.3d 772 (7th Cir. 2004) Frosty Treats Inc. v. Sony Computer Entm't Am., Inc., 426 F.3d 1001 (8th Cir. 2005) Australian Gold, Inc. v. Hatfield, 436 F.3d 1228 (10th Cir. 2006) Dippin’ Dots, Inc. v. Frosty Bites Distribution, LLC, 369 F.3d 1197 (11th Cir. 2004) Palm Bay Imports, Inc. v. Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Maison Fondee En 1772, 396 F.3d 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2005) The most famous of the foregoing tests is the one employed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the "DuPont" Factors). However, this is because it is the test used by USPTO when assessing the registrability of a mark upon application. In any legal action for trademark infringement in the United States, the court will apply the test of the circuit in which it is located. Courts assess likelihood of confusion in various contexts, including prior to the sale (also known as initial interest confusion), at the point of sale, and post-sale. Confusion may also be direct or reverse, depending on who the senior and junior user of the marks are. The most typical form of trademark infringement is point-of-sale confusion, which occurs when a consumer mistakenly believes that their product or service is from a company or brand in which it is not. This type of infringement involves a defendant "passing off" a good or service utilizing a trademark that belongs to the plaintiff, usually with the intent of deceiving consumers into thinking that the good or service originated with the plaintiff. For example, in McDonald's Corp. v. Druck and Gerner, D.D.S., P.C., McDonald's sued McDental, a dental services provider operated by two dentists, for trademark infringement. McDonald's presented evidence that it owned trademark rights in a family of marks beginning with the prefix “Mc,” that there was widespread public familiarity with that family of marks, and that survey evidence established that confusion was likely to occur from the use of the McDental name. McDental's owners denied any intention to evoke McDonald's marks in their adoption of the McDental name, alleging that they had never perceived or heard anyone else perceive an association between the two marks. The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York found that the similarity between the McDental name and McDonald's family of brands beginning with “Mc” was obvious. The court held that McDonald's had shown that a likelihood of confusion existed, warranting the issuance of an injunction. Initial interest confusion occurs when an allegedly improper use of a trademark attracts potential purchasers to consider products or services provided by the infringer (bait-and-switch). Under the Lanham Act, a plaintiff may bring a trademark infringement claim against a defendant for creating consumer confusion prior to the point of sale, even if the consumer confusion is resolved before the sale goes through. For example, in Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Netscape Communications Corp., Playboy sued Netscape for selling banner ads using trademarked terms "playboy" and "playmate." The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Playboy was likely to show that consumers may be attracted to competitors' products by free riding Playboy's reputation when using the trademarks "playboy" and "playmate", even if the consumers are well aware that they are not buying services from Playboy. Post-sale confusion occurs when the use of a trademark leads individuals of the general public (other than the purchaser) to mistakenly believe that a product was manufactured by the trademark holder. Thus, for the purposes of a likelihood of confusion analysis, the relevant audience may not be the targeted purchasers at all, but rather the general public, otherwise known as the "person on the street." As articulated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, trademark law protects the public from incurring harms caused by post-sale confusion: "Trademark laws exists to protect the public from confusion. The creation of confusion in the post-sale context can be harmful in that if there are too many knockoffs in the market, sales of the original may decline because the public is fearful that what they are purchasing may not be an original. Furthermore, the public may be deceived in the resale market if it requires expertise to distinguish between an original and a knockoff." For example, in Ferrari S.P.A. Esercizio v. Roberts, Ferrari S.P.A. Esercizio, a luxury-automobile manufacturer with a reputation for producing exclusive vehicles with distinctive designs, brought a trademark infringement suit against Carl Roberts after Roberts began manufacturing and selling kits that would allow budget-conscious car enthusiasts to copy the exterior designs of Ferrari (e.g., the Daytona Spyder, the Testarossa) onto the undercarriage of less expensive vehicles. Although Roberts has shown that confusion did not exist at the point of sale, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concluded that allowing the kits to enter into commerce would dilute the Ferrari brand by diminishing the perceived exclusivity and quality that make the Daytona Spyder and Testarossa attractive to consumers. The court further held that the kits were designed to perfectly replicate the exterior of Ferrari's vehicles, and there was a strong likelihood of post-sale customer confusion. The Sixth Circuit held that Roberts's kits infringed upon the distinctive trade dress of Ferrari's vehicles, and a permanent injunction against Roberts was affirmed. Direct confusion occurs when consumers believe that the goods or services of a later (junior) trademark user come from, or are sponsored by, the prior (senior) trademark holder. In cases of direct confusion, the junior user is said to free ride on the reputation and goodwill of the senior user. Direct confusion typically occurs if the senior user is a much larger or better-known producer than the junior user. Reverse confusion occurs if consumers incorrectly think that a later (junior) trademark user is the source of the prior (senior) trademark user's products or services. Reverse confusion typically occurs if the junior user is a much larger or better-known producer than the senior user. Reverse-confusion claims exist to prevent big companies from stealing marks or brands from existing, smaller companies. Factors contributing to a likelihood of reverse confusion include: (1) similarity between the senior and junior user's marks, (2) the conceptual strength or uniqueness of the senior user's mark and the commercial strength or public awareness of the junior user's mark, (3) consumer attentiveness to the product, (4) the length of time junior user has used the mark without causing confusion, (5) whether the junior user intended to cause confusion, (6) evidence of actual confusion, (7) trade and advertising channels for the competing products, (8) the similarity of the manufacturers’ sales efforts, (9) the competing products’ similarity in the minds of consumers, and (10) facts suggesting that consumers would expect the junior user to manufacture both products or expand into the senior user's market. Contributory infringement The Supreme Court first held that liability for trademark infringement could extend beyond direct infringers in Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc. The Supreme Court articulated the following standard for contributory infringement: "If a manufacturer or distributor intentionally induces another to infringe a trademark, or if it continues to supply its product to one whom it knows or has reason to know is engaging in trademark infringement, the manufacturer or distributor is contributorily liable for any harm as a result of the deceit." For example, in Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit imposed secondary liability on a flea market landlord who provided the “necessary marketplace” for the sale of infringing goods. The court held that contributory trademark infringement existed because the landlord was willfully blind to its tenant's ongoing infringement. Defenses The party accused of infringement may be able to defeat infringement proceedings if it can establish a valid exception (e.g., comparative advertising) or defense (e.g., laches) to infringement, or attack and cancel the underlying registration (e.g., for non-use) upon which the proceedings are based. Other defenses include fraud, genericness, functionality, abandonment, or fair use. Comparative advertising occurs when one party uses another party's trademark to refer to the trademark owner or its goods or services. The Federal Trade Commission allows comparative advertising where the bases of the comparison are truthful, non-deceptive, and clearly specified. The user of the trademark cannot imply or suggest sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation by the mark owner. If the user uses the trademark in a way that does not confuse or mislead consumers and only uses as much of the mark as necessary for identification (e.g., use of the words but not use of the same font or graphics), then this may be considered fair use. Laches is an equitable defense. The doctrine applies when a defendant affirmatively establishes: (1) knowledge by the plaintiff of facts constituting a cause of action or a reasonable opportunity to discover such facts; (2) an undue delay by the plaintiff in commencing an action; and (3) damage to the defendant resulting from the delay in bringing the action. A viable defense to trademark infringement may assert "[t]hat the registration or the incontestable right to use the mark was obtained fraudulently." A defense of fraud by the trademark owner can be raised at any time, and includes proving that: (1) the applicant made a false representation to USPTO; (2) the false representation is material to the registrability of a mark; (3) the applicant had knowledge of the falsity; and (4) the applicant made representation with the intent to deceive the USPTO. Trademarks that evolve over time into a generic term for a class of items, rather than remaining a source-identifying distinctive term, may lose trademark status. Genericide is a doctrine in which a formerly-protectable mark is held to be unprotectable because it no longer signifies the source or producer of the product (e.g., Aspirin as a product made by Bayer) but instead a category or genus of product (aspirin as pain reliever that a generic manufacturer can call their product). A genericness argument alleges that a formerly-protectable mark has become generic in a specific market or industry as signifying not the producer but a category or genus of product. The functionality doctrine states that functional product features cannot be trademarked. Functionality is a recognized defense to trademark infringement in U.S. law. This defense prevents trademark protection from overriding patent protection by ensuring that no mark can be registered if it is functional as a whole. For example, in Valu Engineering, Inc. v. Rexnord Corp., the court decided that certain conveyor belt shapes were functional due to their increased performance over alternative designs and were therefore not eligible to be considered a trademark. The Supreme Court has held that a product is functional if: (1) it is essential to the use or purpose of the article, or if it affects the cost or quality of the article; OR (2) the exclusive use of the functional feature would put competitors at a significant disadvantage. Abandonment of a trademark occurs when the owner of the trademark deliberately ceases to use the trademark for three or more years, with no intention of using the trademark again in the future. When a trademark is abandoned, the trademark owner may no longer claim rights to the trademark. In effect, this frees the trademark so that anyone else can use it without recourse from the original trademark owner. The Lanham Act's fair-use exception is an affirmative defense requiring the defendant to prove that the term was used in good faith and in a descriptive manner for a purpose other than as a mark. The Lanham Act includes a fair-use exception, under § 1115(b)(4), for trademarks that consist of descriptive words, to prevent trademark monopolies over the use of descriptive terms. There are two types of fair use, descriptive fair use and nominative fair use. Descriptive fair use allows a third party to use another party's descriptive trademark to describe its own product or service. In order to successfully assert a fair-use defense to a trademark infringement claim, the defendant must prove the three elements of the fair-use doctrine: (1) that the term was used in a way other than as a mark; (2) that the term was used to describe the goods or services offered or their geographic origin; and (3) that the use had been undertaken in good faith. Nominative fair use allows third parties to use another party's trademark to refer to that party's actual product or service. The use must not create a likelihood of confusion and cannot imply sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner where none exists. Remedies Injunctions are court orders commanding that the infringer immediately cease its unlawful activities. A plaintiff will be entitled to injunctive relief for trademark infringement if they show probable success on the merits and the possibility of irreparable injury. Pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), a plaintiff can recover the infringer's profits, any damages sustained, and the costs of the action. In assessing profits, the brand owner must prove only the gross amount of the defendant's sales. Thereafter, the defendant has the burden of providing evidence of any amount that should be deducted. An accounting of profits is proper in a trademark infringement case only where the defendant engages in willful infringement, meaning that the defendant attempted to exploit the value of an established name of another. Alternatively, a plaintiff may recover damages incurred if they show a reasonable forecast of lost profits. Globally The ACTA trade agreement, signed in May 2011 by the United States, Japan, Switzerland, and the EU, requires that its parties add criminal penalties, including incarceration and fines, for copyright and trademark infringement, and obligated the parties to actively police for infringement. In many countries with common law, a trademark which is not registered cannot be "infringed" as such, and the trademark owner cannot bring infringement proceedings under statute. Instead, the owner may be able to commence proceedings under the common law for passing off or misrepresentation, or under more general legislation which prohibits unfair business practices. In some jurisdictions, infringement of trade dress may also be actionable. Notable cases See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Gamasutra:_Bethesda-83] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Shacknews:_interim_injunction-86] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Kotaku:_Bethesda_Part_2-84] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Eurogamer:_legal_victory-87] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
======================================== |
[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang_Studios#cite_note-Eurogamer:_Bethesda-88] | [TOKENS: 3550] |
Contents Mojang Studios Mojang AB, trading as Mojang Studios, is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. A first-party developer for Xbox Game Studios, the studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft's development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people and has additional locations in London, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Kayleen Walters is the studio head. Apart from Minecraft, Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane, Crown and Council, and further games in the Minecraft franchise: Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, and the cancelled Minecraft Earth. It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD. History Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson, a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer, in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer, Persson created Wurm Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, with his colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated the company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag) in 2007. The name is derived from the Swedish word mojäng (Swedish pronunciation: [mʊˈjɛŋː]; lit. 'gadget'). Persson left the project in the same year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas, later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on a clone of Infiniminer, a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft, on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release, registering a sole proprietorship with this name on 18 June. In less than a month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington, to the offices of video game company Valve, where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell, before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. Porsér quickly quit his job, and the pair incorporated Mojang AB on 17 September. While Persson continued working on Minecraft, Porsér would develop Scrolls, a digital collectable card game. Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, a manager at jAlbum, Persson's former employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer, Markus Toivonen as art director, and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start the development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java-based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360, was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios, which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in a dispute with ZeniMax Media, which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with the full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows. A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD, was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access. For the full release of Minecraft, Mojang held Minecon, a dedicated convention, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during a presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft's full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc., offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft's success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after the exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $330 million, of which $129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from the pressure of being the owner of Minecraft, published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore, the company had $2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes. Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens, Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase. Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $2.5 billion was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $1.8 billion, while Porsér and Manneh got $300 million and $100 million, respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten, the change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. This approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic, narrative-driven game set in the Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council, a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand the Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs: Minecraft Dungeons, a dungeon crawler, and Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go. They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic, the original browser-based version of Minecraft, was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced a new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends. Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. When Bredin stepped down in February 2025 to focus on personal goals outside the company, Kayleen Walters was appointed in her place, in addition to Amy Stillion as chief of staff. Games developed Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch. The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $458,248.99. The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned a hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft, codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter. Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing the cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on the project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite. Titled 0x10c, it was to be set in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe. The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block. Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS. In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. Games published Legal disputes In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks, issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use the name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October, the ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc, a company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft's Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In response to hate mail, Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed the patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft's Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using the name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word." References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Mattrick] | [TOKENS: 1346] |
Contents Don Mattrick Donald Allan Mattrick OBC (born February 13, 1964) is a Canadian businessman who co-founded Distinctive Software (DSI) in 1982 in Vancouver at age 17, while graduating from high school and attending Simon Fraser University where he studied business and managerial economics. DSI became the largest independent game developer in North America and was then acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991 who renamed it to EA Vancouver and later EA Canada. Mattrick worked at EA Canada for 15 years as the president of Worldwide Studios. In 2007, he joined Microsoft as the president of the Interactive Entertainment Business, famous for developing Kinect for Xbox 360. From 2013 to 2015, he then became the CEO of publicly trading social gaming company Zynga. Career In 1982, Mattrick and Jeff Sember co-founded Distinctive Software (DSI), creating the video game Evolution on the Apple II. Sember sold his equity stake in DSI to Mattrick in 1986. Paul Lee joined the board in the same year. In 1989, Paul Lee invested in DSI, becoming the only other shareholder, also taking on a full-time operating role as both the CFO and COO. In 1991, Mattrick was the chairman and the majority owner of DSI while Canadian businessman Tarrnie Williams was CEO. In the prior year, DSI had received two unsolicited acquisition offers. Instead of accepting, Mattrick chose to reach out to Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, to discuss synergies between the two companies, leading to the subsequent acquisition of DSI by Electronic Arts (EA) which was accomplished through a pooling of interest transaction in July 1991. Prior to the acquisition, DSI was the largest independent game developer in North America and had 75 full-time employees working on various projects with companies like Konami, Broderbund, IBM, Disney, Mindscape and Accolade. DSI was best known for developing racing and sports games for the Amiga, Apple II, Commodore 64, and PC DOS platforms. Mattrick worked in a variety of leadership positions at Electronic Arts and, prior to leaving the company in 2005, was the president of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts where he oversaw EA's global studios and research and development in several major sites, including Redwood Shores, California (Silicon Valley), EALA in Los Angeles, EA Tiburon in Florida, EA Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Montreal, and EA UK in Chertsey, England. Following his retirement from Electronic Arts in February 2007, Mattrick was asked by Robert J. Bach to be an external advisor to the Entertainment and Devices Division. In July 2007, Mattrick officially joined Microsoft as a senior vice president overseeing the Xbox 360 and PC gaming businesses, with his oversight apparently leading to an increase in video game installations and Xbox LIVE subscriptions. Mattrick is also largely credited for his work in developing Kinect for Xbox 360. Mattrick unveiled Kinect under the code-name of "Project Natal" at E3 2009 on stage with Steven Spielberg. In October 2010, Mattrick was promoted to president of the Interactive Entertainment Business, overseeing a range of consumer businesses including Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, Kinect, Music, and Video, as well as PC and mobile interactive entertainment. In August 2011, Fortune magazine named Mattrick one of the "Smartest People in Tech 2011", and cited his role in developing and releasing Kinect. In May 2012, Mattrick was named one of CNN Money's top 10 brilliant technology visionaries. On May 21, 2013, Mattrick unveiled the new Xbox One, the successor to the Xbox 360, an all-in-one entertainment system. He later dismissed criticisms of the system's "always on" internet connection by saying "We have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity; it's called Xbox 360." Mattrick left Microsoft on July 1, 2013, to join Zynga as CEO and would eventually be replaced by Phil Spencer as Head of Xbox in 2014. In Power On: The Story of Xbox, a web series documentary on Xbox released in December 2021, Mattrick commented on the Xbox One's controversial and unpopular launch strategy, admitting that the Xbox One reveal event was too focused on TV features and that he and his team "could have done a better job of reassuring people that we were committed to excellence in gaming." On July 1, 2013, it was confirmed that Mattrick was leaving Microsoft to join social game company Zynga as CEO. Wall Street investors thought positively of Mattrick's appointment and Zynga's shares greatly rose the day the news was made public. On his first quarterly financial earnings call with Zynga, on July 25, 2013, Mattrick predicted volatility for the company over the coming 6 months to one year, stating a need to "get back to basics" and "take a longer term view on our products and business." By 2015, Zynga was struggling to achieve the success in the mobile market they intended, largely seen in their falling and stagnating stock price. On April 8, 2015, it was announced that Mattrick would immediately resign as Zynga's CEO, and was replaced by founder Mark Pincus. Regarding Mattrick, Pincus said, "He got us in the game in mobile in a big way, and I'm appreciative of that." Mattrick is the co-founder and co-president of MdGB Capital, a private company that manages a group assets and operating companies throughout North America and serves as an adviser to many high tech ventures such as Photonic, Nordeus, Dapper Labs and Hivestack. Honours and awards Mattrick was made a member of the Order of British Columbia in 2024. He is the 2017 Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria, the 2005 Honorary Fellow University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business and a 1999 honorary Doctor of Laws at Simon Fraser University. Mattrick was the Co-Chair of the British Columbia's Premier's Technology Council from 2016 to 2018 and serves since 2019 on the board of directors of the Vancouver Prostate Centre. References External links |
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