All this said, Microsoft has no intention or expectation for Minecraft unit sales to be slowing down any time soon, because if it did expect that, it would fall out of line with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's recently-announced platforming strategy, which relies on huge amounts of users -- something that conveniently Minecraft already has. Microsoft didn't just buy Minecraft; it bought a whole boatload of traffic that has fresh monetization potential.
Nadella's intentions are important to note. Mark Skilton, Professor of Practice at UK's Warwick Business School commented on how the buy fits not just into the Xbox business, but into Microsoft's overall mobile and cloud-based strategy going forward.
"This move is a reflection of the 'platforming' strategy that Nadella and others recognize as critical to building a strong customer base," said Skilton.
"In the digital world the number of concurrent users directly drives many revenue charging models common in the cloud monetization strategy," he adds. "It fits Nadella's strong leaning towards the mobile+cloud+services model, which is all about the connected volume of this. ...Minecraft is a logical move as big business follows the traffic numbers in the digital world."
Another interesting perspective that zooms out is from analyst Ben Schachter at Macquarie Capital. He argues that the Minecraft buy is the latest salvo in what he calls the "Great Ecosystem War" involving Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and other major corporations. The companies are fighting for vast amounts of users who engage with large, existing ecosystems like Twitch or Minecraft. Game-related products and services, with their high user-counts and unusually-engaged customer bases, have been much sought-after in this war, Schachter notes.
"The bottom line is that this deal shows that content is still king," he says, noting that he was still surprised by the amount of money paid. "Within the context of the Great Ecosystem War, video games are one battlefield and this deal shows how seriously [Microsoft] takes the gaming battle."
What separates Minecraft from the rest of video games isn't just its size, or its success up until now. Minecraft goes beyond video games because it rethought the way games and communities interacted, on scale that is bigger than game creator Markus Persson -- who is leaving Mojang -- ever anticipated. It's Microsoft that now sees the potential of Minecraft as not just a game, but a platform that fits into the software giant's sprawling ecosystem. The challenge now is to grow Minecraft as a platform, while preserving the magic that made it a phenomenon in the first place.
