Notch is no longer lead developer on Minecraft (opens in new tab)

The title of the blog post "Och med dom orden så passar jag micken" is Swedish for "With those words, I hand over the microphone". Just in case anyone is wondering.

Upvoted, but really should permalink:

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/13633493969/och-med-dom-orden-s...

I'm glad this is the case. A common trap for indie developers is to make one game, have it be at least partially successful, and then to continue to make that game - making DLC, expansions, porting it to other platforms, making a multiplayer version etc. It makes me sad as a player, because it's done instead of developing something new. It's far better to pass on these porting efforts to other developers and to get to work creating new IP, as Notch is doing.

I'm more familiar with games than with startup culture - does the same thing apply there?

Good for him. Notch has earned a well-deserved break.

Some people are better at starting new things, and some people are better at maintaining and expanding on existing things. I'm happy to hear that Notch has some new ideas that he's itching to get started on.

Here is an interview with Notch and Jeb about the change: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38917/Persson_Hands_Minec...

I'm really conflicted on Notch, Minecraft in general, and therefore this announcement.

Let's get the good out of the way first, Minecraft is an awesome game, and Notch (and his team) deserves every bit of kudos they've gotten for it. I bought the game back in alpha, and I've gotten more than my money's worth.

The bad? Lingering (big) problems that aren't being dealt with. SMP is still a mess when it comes to performance. There are a ton of bugs in what is supposed to be a final 1.0 release (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXO6tYkjYMc)

I don't have to be a full time developer or a company owner to make a judgement call on whether that is a bad thing or not. Minecraft seems to be suffering from the same kind of featuritis that plagued Second Life for so long.

Mojang. Please. Fix old, no new.

Given all that has happened in the last year I think Notch is very much deserving of a break. His work ethic is something to admire and his success well earned. I look forward to seeing what projects he creates with his time in the future.

Much respect for making it to the 1.0, that shows great dedication on his part. He earned the break, and I look forward to seeing what's next!

I expect to see the code base quality increase and number of obscene bugs that make it to production decrease significantly.

Gave this an upvote, since it's from the official Notch blog instead of what could have been possible conjecture from reddit.