   Despite the $2.5 billion dollar agreement to buy Mojang and the Minecraft IP, Microsoft boss Phil Spencer clarified that Mincraft was an IP for all audiences, a surprisingly generous move from a company notorious for seizing complete ownership to remain competitive with its competitors. Speaking to Computer and Videogames (CVG) and unveiled on a video released today, Phil Spencer went onto to state an answer as to what would happen for other players who play Mincecraft on other platforms,
“This is a game that has found its audiences on touch devices, on phones, on iPads, on console and obviously on its true home on PC. Whether you’re playing on Xbox or PlayStation, Android or iOS, our goal is to continue to evolve and innovate with Minecraft across all those platforms.”- Phil Spencer
  Minecraft has clearly become far more than just a game. Starting a public beta release in 2009, Minecraft was refined and streamlined for full release two years later in 2011. It  has become an major cultural phenomenon that transcends the realms of games, becoming a major artistic and creative tool for all gamers and users, regardless of skill levels. Cosplayers wear their avatars at conventions, artists uniquely express their fanart, and most importantly, schools have ben teaching it in their classrooms. Minecraft has become an excellent apparatus in digital art and understanding visuals in computers. The pixel-based , block art has been perfect for schools, as as the Middletown Arts Center in Middletown, NJ. Students learn how to apply such a style into art, and the style has been used to express fanart for other properties. Googling “Minecraft fanart” reveals a whole wealth of passion for the game and the worlds of nerd culture.  Even YouTube channels like, Captain Sparklez,  perform parody music videos of major pop hits with Minecraft-infused lyrics and visuals.
Since that release, Minecraft is said to have sold 54 million units, with a PlayStation Vita version on the way. To hear Phil Spencer state this is, hopefully, a promising turn of direction for Microsoft, which is notorious for buyouts, such as this, then completely ruining a studios’ capabilities. . Microsoft has bought out other studios, only to see them falter and dissolve. When a studio is acquired by such a big company, mis-management, creative restraints, and other complications are easy to occur, ruining a project and a game’s chances of success. There are countless examples across other companies, but most notable for Microsoft was the acquisition of Rare. Rare, the team that gave the world 007: Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, was acquired my Microsoft in 2002 for around 400 million. Since then, they did release games like Kameo: Elements of Power, Perfect Dark Zero, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Viva Pinata, their sales numbers weren’t on par with their Nintendo days. In 2009, Rare was restructured as a Kinect developer to focus on the KINECT camera peripheral, which was hyped to be next big technology release on par with the iPhone. The Kinect has been proven to be a complete and utter disaster, with nothing but loss and mediocre-quality games. With the downfall and elimination of the Kinect from Xbox One, Rare is effectively catatonic, suspended in a comatose state. Even the most recent release of Killer Instinct, a franchise they developed, wasn’t developed by them. It was built by Double Helix Games.
Let us hope that Phil’s words remain true as he, and Microsoft, are now in the pilot’s seat of one of the most well-known and established gaming properties of the last half-decade. Will it wind up like Rare, ruined and dissolved, Â or flourish in a new direction that continues the great vibes it has generated since launch? Â We’ll have to wait and see.
