A Visit to Mojang, Makers of Minecraft

This summer my Minecraft-mad boys (aged 12, 10, and 10) got the thrill of their lives: a visit to Mojang and meeting Notch, its creator. If you've never heard of Minecraft, it would be hard to know where to start except to say that it's an amazing game that fosters a ton of creativity and deservedly has an astoundingly vibrant community. Hopefully, there were enough superlatives in the last sentence to make you want to check it out :-)

Visiting Mojang is no easy thing: these guys are extremely busy and well, they're in Sweden while we live in California. The geographic challenge was overcome when my wife Katrine took our sons to Norway to visit relatives. Stockholm, home of Mojang, is but a 6 hour train ride from Oslo.

Over to Katrine:

As they so wanted to visit their Minecraft Heroes, the boys sent personal letters to Notch to accompany the Minecraft newsletters they had created as homeschooling projects. I followed up with a phone call and emails to Carl, the CEO. He invited us to visit on one of their gaming Fridays. He emailed me the code that opened the door to get in the building, that was pretty cool! Carl showed us all around the Mojang office, we met the Scrolls crew in a separate area where we couldn't take pictures, and other Mojang'ers with Notch in another room decorated with the soon-for-sale wallpaper.

They made us feel really welcome and special, and even though Carl was going on vacation the next day, he had time to show us around, talk to us and introduce us to his colleagues. He invited us to play games in the orange game room, and just hang out as long as we wanted.

Thomas, Alexander, and Daniel meet Notch. Not always easy to smile when you're meeting your hero :-)

Daniel shows Notch and Carl the winged chest plate mod he & I coded together in Java (lets you fly by jumping and fall to the ground like a feather).

Alexander shows Carl some of his Minecraft constructions.

Cool artwork!

Throughout the visit, Notch, Carl, Jens, Daniel, and the rest of the team were really welcoming and kind, and Notch even smiled non-commitally when our Daniel told him he should include the winged chest plate in a future version of Minecraft! ;-)

See you at Minecon! (Look for 2deckalex, 2deckdan, 2decktom, 2deckmom, and 2deckpaul at a minecraft server near you :-)

6 responses

Wow, that's the first I heard of this!

What a wonderful thing to have arranged, and how great for the Minecraft crew to have accepted.

Let the boys know what a rare opportunity this was. And a wonderful time for people with geeky interests to grow up.

I spent so much time when I was young just explaining the things I was interested in . . .

— Stefan Jones

Do your kids still play Minecraft? I see you have the Minecraft accounts 2deckalex 2deckdan 2deckmom 2deckpaul 2decktom. If you are no longer using some of these accounts, I would consider buying them. This is perfectly legal, do not worry about it. You said your kids play Minecraft so probably you do not need the account 2deckmom and I would be interested in buying it. Maybe your kids do not play Minecraft anymore. I would consider buying some of these accounts. I really need them as they have the awesome 2011 Minecon cape on them! So please send me an e-mail telling me if you are gonna sell them or not, and if so, what is your minimal price you would go for.

— cODEpOETRY

Hi there, I think 2deckmom is the only one who might consider selling her account. The rest of us like our capes too much :-)

— Paul Clip

Can you please ask her? My contact is codepoetry123 at gmail dot com

By the way, if you leave your accounts unmigrated meaning you don't convert them into a Mojang account they might get hacked, and I checked on NameMC.com - a website which tells information about Minecraft players - that it is unmigrated. Unmigrated means you sign in with the username and a password instead of an e-mail and a password. With the e-mail and password there are also security questions, meaning it has way more security. Unmigrated accounts get hacked all the time. As they have Minecon capes, it's even more likely that someone is gonna try hacking them.

— Raphaël ZAISS