

Minecraft received praise from critics, and won numerous awards and accolades. In September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property for US$2.5 billion, with the acquisition being completed two months later. As of February 2017, over 121 million copies have been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time, only behind the various releases of Tetris. The PC version of the game is noted for its modding scene, where a dedicated community creates new gameplay mechanics, items, and assets for the game. Multiple gameplay modes are available, including a survival mode where the player must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, a creative mode where players have unlimited resources to build with and the ability to fly, an adventure mode where players can play custom maps created by other players, and a spectator mode where players can fly around and clip through blocks, but cannot place or destroy any. Other activities in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, and combat. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft enable players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Minecraft is a sandbox video game created and designed by Swedish game designer Markus "Notch" Persson, and later fully developed and published by Mojang.
