A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as programmers , designers , artists , etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games .
128-526: Mojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm . The studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game Minecraft , the best-selling video game of all time . Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for Minecraft ' s development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following
256-700: A Chicago -based payment gateway , to further product development and mobile services. In June 2014 David Marcus announced he was leaving his role as PayPal President; Marcus joined PayPal in August 2011 after its acquisition of Zong , of which he was the founder and CEO. David Marcus succeeded Scott Thompson as president, who left the role to join Yahoo . PayPal announced that Marcus would be succeeded by Dan Schulman , who previously served as CEO of Virgin Mobile and Executive vice president of American Express . It
384-407: A clone of Infiniminer , a game developed by Zachtronics and released earlier that year. Persson reused assets and parts of the engine code from an earlier personal project and released the first alpha version of the game, now titled Minecraft , on 17 May 2009, followed by the first commercial version on 13 June 2009. He reused the name "Mojang Specifications" for this release. In less than
512-593: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With
640-495: A digital collectable card game . Wishing to focus on game development, they hired Carl Manneh, the manager of jAlbum , Persson's previous employer, as chief executive officer. Other significant early hires included Daniel Kaplan as business developer , Markus Toivonen as art director , and Jens Bergensten as lead programmer. In January 2011, Minecraft reached one million registered accounts and ten million six months thereafter. The continued success led Mojang to start
768-628: A 538% increase in global mobile payment volume when compared with Black Friday 2010. In 2012, the company launched "PayPal Here", a small business mobile payment system that includes a combination of a free mobile app and a small card-reader that plugs into a smart phone . PayPal launched an updated app for iOS and Android in 2013 that expanded its mobile app capabilities by allowing users to search for local shops and restaurants that accept PayPal payments, order ahead at participating venues, and access their PayPal Credit accounts (formerly known as Bill Me Later). On October 21, 2020, PayPal announced
896-680: A company specialising in digital rights management technologies, filed a lawsuit against Mojang, stating that the licence verification system in Minecraft ' s Android version infringed on one of Uniloc's patents. The case was Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. Mojang AB and was filed with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas . In response to hate mail , Uniloc founder Ric Richardson denied his involvement, claiming to have only filed
1024-420: A credit card Merchant account because they lacked a commercial credit history. The service also appealed to auction buyers because they could fund PayPal accounts using credit cards or bank account balances, without divulging credit card numbers to unknown sellers. PayPal employed an aggressive marketing campaign to accelerate its growth, depositing $ 10 in new users' PayPal accounts. Until 2000, PayPal's strategy
1152-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as
1280-629: A dispute with ZeniMax Media , which cited similarities between the game's name and that of the ZeniMax-owned The Elder Scrolls series. Kaplan stated in May 2011 that, due to many such requests in the past, Mojang was planning to publish or co-publish games from other indie game studios. Its first, Cobalt from Oxeye Game Studio, was announced in August. An early version of the game was made available in December 2011, with
1408-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like
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#17327934320681536-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it
1664-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within
1792-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for
1920-474: A hybrid of Minecraft and Lego bricks and agreed with the Lego Group to develop the game as Brickcraft , codenamed Rex Kwon Do (in reference to the film Napoleon Dynamite ). The game has also been described as a first-person shooter . Mojang hired two new programmers to work on the game, while a prototype was created by Persson. However, Mojang cancelled the project after six months. Upon announcing
2048-468: A jersey patch sponsor of the Phoenix Suns . On March 19, 2019, PayPal announced its partnership with Instagram as part of the company's new checkout feature, "Checkout on Instagram". In June 2019, PayPal reported that Chief Operating Officer Bill Ready would be leaving the company at the end of the year, transitioning into the role of commerce chief for Google . In October 2019, PayPal reported
2176-561: A loss of $ 228 million on investments, largely due to a failed return from a $ 500 million investment in Uber . On January 6, 2020, PayPal acquired Honey for over $ 4 billion. This is PayPal's largest acquisition to date. It more recently signed a deal with NBCUniversal. In June 2020, PayPal announced a $ 530 million commitment to support Black-owned businesses and minority communities in the United States. In January 2021, PayPal became
2304-413: A month, Minecraft had generated enough revenue for Persson to take time off his day job, which he was able to quit entirely by May 2010. As all sales were processed through the game's website, he did not have to split income with third parties. The payment services provider PayPal temporarily disabled his account when it suspected fraud. In September 2010, Persson travelled to Bellevue, Washington , to
2432-411: A new logo. The design was created at the agency Bold under the creative direction of Oliver Helfrich. Minecraft Dungeons was released later that month for Windows, Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In June 2022, the studio announced the action-strategy game Minecraft Legends . Helen Chiang, the six-year head of studio for Mojang Studios, acceded to Xbox Game Studios in December 2023 and
2560-447: A new service allowing customers to use cryptocurrencies to shop at 26 million merchants on the network starting in 2021. Paypal has been using Paxos Trust to provide the back end infrastructure allowing users to manage and trade cryptocurrencies in accordance to data privacy rules and financial regulations. Paxos has been in charge of acquiring the necessary regulatory approvals for Paypal to facilitate cryptocurrency assets. As part of
2688-616: A one-touch option on participating merchants websites or apps. In 2007, PayPal acquired the online credit product Bill Me Later , Inc., which has since been rebranded as PayPal Credit and provided services for Comenity Capital Bank , the lender of PayPal Credit accounts. Founded in 2000, Bill Me Later is headquartered in Timonium, Maryland . PayPal Credit offers shoppers access to an instant online revolving line of credit at thousands of vendors that accept PayPal, subject to credit approval. PayPal Credit allows consumers to shop online in much
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#17327934320682816-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of
2944-441: A presentation on the first day. Thereafter, Minecon was turned into an annual event. Following Minecraft ' s full release, Persson transferred his role as lead designer for the game to Bergensten in December 2011. Around this time, Manneh had discussion with a plethora of venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners , but turned all of them down as the company did not require any funds. Sean Parker ,
3072-492: A result are now subject to PayPal's business fees on all transactions. In Pakistan, users can use Xoom , a money transfer service owned by PayPal. In October 2018, Pakistan's government used Xoom to help crowdsource funds for the purpose of building two dams. Eight years after the company first started operating in the country, Paypal ceased operations in Turkey on 6 June 2016 when Turkish financial regulator BDDK denied it
3200-649: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,
3328-633: A second customer support center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia , and began the hiring process. In 2014, PayPal opened a new global center of operations in Kuala Lumpur. PayPal's services allow people to make financial transactions online by granting the ability to transfer funds electronically between individuals and businesses. Through PayPal, users can send or receive payments for online auctions on websites like eBay , purchase or sell goods and services, or donate money or receive donations. It
3456-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since
3584-553: A software that allows customers to make payments on websites that do not accept PayPal directly. By the end of 2007, the company generated $ 1.8 billion in revenue. In January 2008, PayPal acquired Fraud Sciences , a privately held Israeli start-up that developed online risk tools, for $ 169 million. In November 2008, the company acquired Bill Me Later , an online transactional credit company. By 2010, PayPal had over 100 million active user accounts in 190 markets through 25 different currencies. In July 2011, fourteen alleged members of
3712-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There
3840-530: A student account, transfer money into it, and obtain a debit card for student use. The program provided tools to teach how to spend money wisely and take responsibility for actions. PayPal discontinued Student Accounts in August 2016. In November 2009, PayPal partially opened its platform, allowing other services to get access to more APIs and to use its infrastructure in order to enable peer-to-peer online transactions. On November 28, 2011, PayPal reported Black Friday brought record mobile engagement, including
3968-706: A technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2006, and a software development center in Chennai , India in 2007. In October 2007, PayPal opened a data service office on the north side of Austin, Texas , and also opened a second operations center in La Vista, Nebraska that same year. In 2011, joining similar customer support operations located in Berlin, Germany ; Chandler, Arizona ; Dublin and Dundalk , Ireland; Omaha, Nebraska ; and Shanghai , China; PayPal opened
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4096-440: A traceable proof of shipping to a confirmed address or to provide a signed receipt for items valued over $ 750. After fine-tuning PayPal's business model and increasing its domestic and international penetration on eBay, PayPal started its off-eBay strategy. This was based on developing stronger growth in active users by adding users across multiple platforms, despite the slowdown in on-eBay growth and low-single-digit user growth on
4224-455: A transaction fee. PayPal plans to make India an incubation center for the company's employee engagement policies. In 2012, PayPal hired 120 people for its offices in Chennai and Bengaluru . On 8 November 2017, PayPal launched domestic operations under PayPal Payments Private Limited and now provides digital payment solutions for merchants and customers in India. As of 2020, Paypal supports
4352-697: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but
4480-539: A wholly owned subsidiary of eBay later that year, valued at $ 1.5 billion. In 2015 eBay spun off PayPal to its shareholders, and PayPal became an independent company again. The company was ranked 143rd on the 2022 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. Since 2023 PayPal is a member of the MACH Alliance . The company was originally established by Max Levchin , Peter Thiel , and Luke Nosek in December 1998 as Fieldlink. Later it
4608-482: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,
4736-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of
4864-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for
4992-413: Is not necessary or required to have a PayPal account to use the company's services. Certain packaging may come with tracking numbers . PayPal account users can set currency conversion option in account settings. The PayPal app is available online or at the iTunes App Store and Google Play . One year after acquiring Braintree , PayPal introduced its "One Touch" service, which allows users to pay with
5120-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by
5248-550: Is today. PayPal will cease to process card payments for eBay at that time." The company will "instead begin working with Amsterdam -based Adyen ". On July 1, 2015, PayPal announced that it was acquiring digital money transfer company Xoom Corporation . PayPal spent $ 25 a share in cash to acquire the publicly traded Xoom, or about $ 1.09 billion. The deal was closed in the fourth quarter of 2015. The move strengthened PayPal’s international business, giving it access to Xoom’s 1.3 million active U.S. customers that sent about $ 7 billion in
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5376-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining
5504-659: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for
5632-698: The Anonymous hacktivist group were charged with attempting to disrupt PayPal's operations. The denial of service attacks occurred in December 2010, after PayPal stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks . On 5 December 2013, 13 of the PayPal 14 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges related to the attacks. The company continued to build its Merchant Services division, providing e-payments for retailers on eBay. In 2011, PayPal announced that it would begin moving its business offline so that customers can make payments via PayPal in stores. In August 2012,
5760-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch
5888-516: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,
6016-465: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had
6144-486: The Minecraft franchise with further games, Mojang developed two spin-offs : Minecraft Dungeons , a dungeon crawler , and Minecraft Earth , an augmented reality game in the vein of Pokémon Go . They were announced in September 2018 and May 2019, respectively. Minecraft Classic , the original browser -based version of Minecraft , was re-released for free on its ten-year anniversary in May 2019. By this time, Minecraft had sold 147 million copies, making it
6272-500: The Minecraft universe. In April 2016, Mojang released Crown and Council , a game entirely developed by artist Henrik Pettersson (who had been hired in August 2011), for free for Windows. An update in January 2017 introduced Linux and macOS versions. Mojang discontinued the online services for Scrolls in February 2018 and re-released the game under a free-to-play model and with the name Caller's Bane in June. Aiming to expand
6400-685: The North San Jose Innovation District of San Jose, California , at North First Street campus. The company's operations center is located in La Vista, Nebraska , which was opened in 1999. Since July 2007, PayPal has operated across the European Union as a Luxembourg-based bank. The PayPal European headquarters are located in Luxembourg and the international headquarters are in Singapore . PayPal opened
6528-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and
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#17327934320686656-567: The West Bank or Gaza access it but Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank can use PayPal. This decision has prompted Palestinian tech companies to seek a policy change from PayPal. In late March 2010, new Japanese banking regulations forced PayPal Japan to suspend the ability of personal account holders registered in Japan from sending or receiving money between individuals and as
6784-516: The best-selling video game of all time . Persson was explicitly excluded from the anniversary's festivities due to several controversial statements of his involving transphobia and other issues; an update for Minecraft released the March before also removed several references to Persson. On 17 May 2020, Minecraft ' s eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced its rebranding to Mojang Studios, aiming to reflect its multi-studio structure, and introduced
6912-538: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." PayPal This is an accepted version of this page PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in
7040-633: The 12 months ending on March 31, to people in 37 countries. On September 1, 2015, PayPal launched its peer-to-peer payment platform "PayPal.Me", a service that allows users to send a custom link to request funds via text, email, or other messaging platforms. Custom links are set to be structured as PayPal.me/username/amount requested. PayPal.Me was launched in 18 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Canada, Russia, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. PayPal had 170 million users, as of September 2015, and
7168-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to
7296-545: The User Agreement for Indian users to comply with Reserve Bank of India regulations. The per transaction limit had been set to USD $ 3,000, since October 14, 2011. However, on July 29, 2013, PayPal increased the per transaction limit to USD $ 10,000. This brings the per transaction limit for India in line with the restrictions imposed by PayPal in most other countries. PayPal has disabled sending and receiving personal payments in India, thus forcing all recipients to pay
7424-535: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents
7552-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development
7680-842: The announcement, PayPal secured the first conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services , which will allow customers to purchase cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin , Litecoin , Ethereum , and Bitcoin Cash . In March 2022, PayPal introduced a flat-fee structure for cryptocurrency transactions under $ 200; transactions over $ 200 incur a 1.8% fee for purchases or sales up to $ 1,000, and 1.5% for any transaction amount greater than $ 1,000. As of 2022 , PayPal operates in 202 markets and has 426 million active, registered accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 25 currencies worldwide. PayPal's success in users and volumes
7808-402: The cancellation in July 2012, Persson stated that the move was performed so that Mojang could focus on the games it wholly owned. Daniel Mathiasen, a Lego Group employee at the time, later blamed the cancellation on a series of legal hurdles that the Lego Group had put in place to protect the product's family-friendly image. Kaplan lamented that the staff at Mojang had felt more like consultants on
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#17327934320687936-543: The cancelled Minecraft Earth . It also released smaller games as part of game jams organised by Humble Bundle and published the externally developed Cobalt and Cobalt WASD . Mojang Studios was founded by Markus Persson , a Swedish independent video game designer and programmer , in 2009. He had gained interest in video games at an early age, playing The Bard's Tale and several pirated games on his father's Commodore 128 home computer, and learned to programme at age eight with help from his sister. Because he
8064-428: The change in ownership went against the studio's independence-focused culture. Many employees were wary about the uncertainties they could face after the acquisition, and some staffers cried at the offices. Everyone who remained with the company for six months thereafter was awarded a bonus of roughly $ 300,000 (after taxes), deducted from Persson's share. Under the oversight of Microsoft's Matt Booty, Mojang's integration
8192-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide
8320-678: The co-founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Inc. , offered to privately invest in Mojang in 2011 but was turned down as well. At the time, the studio ruled out being sold or becoming a public company to maintain its independence, which was said to have heavily contributed to Minecraft ' s success. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold five million copies, amounting to US$ 80 million in revenue. In November, Mojang had 25 employees, and total revenues of $ 237.7 million in 2012. In 2013, it released an education-focused version of Minecraft for Raspberry Pi devices, and—after
8448-422: The company Mojang Specifications AB (an aktiebolag ) in 2007. Persson left the project later that year and wished to reuse the name, so Jansson renamed the company Onetoofree AB and later Code Club AB. Meanwhile, Persson had joined Midas , later known as King.com, where he developed 25–30 games. He departed the company when he was barred from creating games in his free time. In May 2009, Persson began working on
8576-478: The company aim to revive growth in their branded checkout products amidst increased competition from big tech, following an upward revision of the full-year profit forecast. The fiscal year for PayPal is from January 1 to December 31. For fiscal year 2019, Paypal reported earnings of US$ 2.459 billion, with an annual revenue of $ 17.772 billion, an increase of 15% over the previous fiscal cycle. PayPal's shares traded at over $ 108 per share, and its market capitalization
8704-503: The company announced its partnership with Discover Card to allow PayPal payments to be made at any of the seven million stores in the Discover network. By the end of 2012, PayPal's total payment volume processed was US$ 145 billion . and accounted for 40% of eBay's revenue, amounting to US$ 1.37 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2012. In 2013, PayPal acquired IronPearl, a Palo Alto startup offering engagement software, and Braintree ,
8832-628: The company had $ 2.5 billion in offshore bank accounts that it could not bring back to the United States without paying repatriation taxes . Nadella separately stated the possible use of Minecraft with the HoloLens , Microsoft's mixed reality device, to have been a major factor in pursuing the acquisition. The company first approached Mojang regarding a potential acquisition in June 2014, making its first offer shortly thereafter. Mojang subsequently hired advisers from JPMorgan Chase . Microsoft's agreement to purchase Mojang for $ 2.5 billion
8960-564: The company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang. In May 2020, Mojang was rebranded as Mojang Studios. As of 2021, the company employs approximately 600 people. Åsa Bredin is the studio head . Apart from Minecraft , Mojang Studios has developed Caller's Bane , Crown and Council , and further games in the Minecraft franchise : Minecraft Dungeons , Minecraft Legends , and
9088-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on
9216-508: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to
9344-554: The default payment method used by the majority of eBay users, and the service competed with eBay's subsidiary Billpoint , as well as Citibank 's c2it, Yahoo! 's PayDirect , and Google Checkout . In 2005, PayPal acquired the VeriSign payment solution to provide added security support. In 2007, PayPal announced a partnership with MasterCard , which led to the development and launch of the PayPal Secure Card service,
9472-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from
9600-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over
9728-471: The development of a new version for mobile devices. Due to the incompatibility of the game's Java -based framework with mobile devices, this version was programmed in C++ instead. Another version, initially developed for Xbox 360 , was outsourced to Scotland-based developer 4J Studios , which also used C++. Scrolls was announced by Mojang in March 2011. The studio's attempt to trademark the game's name resulted in
9856-596: The domestic card system RuPay and is planning to further integrate Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in collaboration with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). PayPal now has the largest global engineering team in India outside of the US, which is spread over Bengaluru , Chennai and Hyderabad . PayPal is available in Israel but is not available in the Palestinian territories . Nor can Palestinians working in
9984-655: The eBay site. A late 2003 reorganization created a new business unit within PayPal—Merchant Services—to provide payment solutions to small and large e-commerce merchants outside the eBay auction community. Starting in the second half of 2004, PayPal Merchant Services unveiled several initiatives to enroll online merchants outside the eBay auction community, including: PayPal can be used in more than 200 countries/regions. Different countries have different conditions: Send only (Package Service allows sending only, valid in 97 countries), PayPal Zero (package suggests
10112-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as
10240-467: The exclusivity clause penned with Microsoft over the availability of the game's console edition on Microsoft's platforms had expired—announced editions of the game for PlayStation 3 , PlayStation 4 , and PlayStation Vita . In October 2013, Jonas Mårtensson, formerly of gambling company Betsson, was hired as Mojang's vice-president. That year, Mojang recorded revenues of $ 330 million , of which $ 129 million were profit. Persson, exhausted from
10368-585: The first foreign operator with 100% control of a payment platform in China, gaining an advanced position in the local online payment market. In an international survey conducted in March 2021 by Morning Consult , PayPal was found to be the second most trusted brand globally. In June 2022, Shopify partnered with PayPal to offer Shopify Payments to merchants in France. In February 2023, PayPal announced layoffs for 2,000 of its workers, or 7% of its total workforce. It
10496-516: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of
10624-478: The focus of PayPal.Me was to create a mobile-first user experience that enables faster payment sharing than PayPal's traditional tools. On May 17, 2018, PayPal agreed to purchase Swedish payment processor iZettle for $ 2.2 billion. This was PayPal's largest acquisition until late November 2019 and the company claims that it is the in-store expertise and digital marketing strength that will complement its own online and mobile payment services. In 2018, PayPal became
10752-491: The full game released in February 2016 for Xbox 360, Xbox One , and Windows . A multiplayer-focused spin-off, Cobalt WASD , was also developed by Oxeye Game Studio and released by Mojang for Windows in November 2017 after some time in early access . For the full release of Minecraft , Mojang held Minecon , a dedicated convention event, in Las Vegas on 18–19 November 2011, with Minecraft formally being released during
10880-421: The game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business as Mojang AB in late 2010, and they hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer . Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten . Minecraft became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and
11008-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create
11136-457: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed
11264-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for
11392-566: The local currency, 21 countries). In July 2017, PayPal announced a partnership with Baidu , to allow the Chinese firm‘s 100 million mobile wallet users to make payments to PayPal’s 17 million merchants through the Baidu service. In January 2015, PayPal ceased operations in Crimea in compliance with international sanctions against Russia and Crimea. As of March 2011, PayPal has made changes to
11520-404: The majority of countries that support online money transfers ; it serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders . The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. Established in 1998 as Confinity, PayPal went public through an IPO in 2002. It became
11648-559: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation
11776-485: The name, and that ZeniMax would sue the studio over the word's usage. Persson offered to give up the trademark and give Scrolls a subtitle. However, as Mojang ignored the cease and desist letter, ZeniMax filed the lawsuit in September. Bethesda's Pete Hines stated that Bethesda was not responsible for the lawsuit, rather the issue was centred around "lawyers who understand it". Mojang won an interim injunction in October,
11904-1066: The name. Alex Chapman, Mojang's lawyer, stated "I think there is clearly a misunderstanding here as to what Minecraft actually is. It's a game that, among other things, allows people to build things. Mojang doesn't control what users build and Mojang doesn't control the content of the videos users make. Suing Mojang for what people do using Minecraft is like suing Microsoft for what people do using Word ." Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing
12032-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices
12160-540: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in
12288-526: The offices of video game company Valve , where he took part in a programming exercise and met with Gabe Newell , before being offered a job at the company. He turned down the offer and instead contacted Jakob Porsér, a former colleague from King.com, to ask for aid in establishing a business out of Mojang Specifications. In response, Porsér stated that he would quit his job the following day, and they subsequently incorporated Mojang AB. While Persson continued working on Minecraft , Porsér would develop Scrolls ,
12416-450: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as primary reason for the game's closure, as its effects conflicted with the game's concept. In August 2011, after Mojang had attempted to trademark the word "Scrolls" for their game, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks , issued a cease and desist letter, claiming that Scrolls infringed on ZeniMax's "The Elder Scrolls" trademark, that Mojang could not use
12544-520: The patent. The patent was invalidated in March 2016. In July 2013, the minigolf chain Putt-Putt issued a cease and desist letter against Mojang and Don Mattrick (who was previously affiliated with Minecraft ' s Xbox 360 version but had since joined Zynga ), alleging that they infringed on its "Putt-Putt" trademark. Attached to the letter, which Persson shared on Twitter, was a Google Search screenshot showing videos of user-created maps using
12672-458: The possibility of enrollment, entry, and withdrawal of funds in foreign currency, but the user can not hold the balance PayPal account, operates in 18 countries), SRW Send – Receive – Withdrawal (the possibility of enrollment, input-output and the ability to keep your PayPal account balance in the currency and to transfer to the card when the user sees fit, operates in 41 countries) and Local Currency (SRW plus opportunity to conduct transactions in
12800-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,
12928-487: The pressure of being the owner of Minecraft , published a tweet in June 2014, asking whether anyone would be willing to buy his share in Mojang. Several parties expressed interest in this offer, including Activision Blizzard , Electronic Arts , and Microsoft. Phil Spencer , the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, urged Microsoft's newly appointed chief executive Satya Nadella to purchase Mojang to set out "a pretty bold vision" for Microsoft's gaming business. Furthermore,
13056-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be
13184-403: The project, rather than its designers. The Lego Group also considered acquiring Mojang at this point but later decided against doing so as they had not foreseen that Minecraft would become as popular as it would at one point be. In March 2012, Persson revealed that he would be designing a sandbox space trading and combat simulator in the likes of Elite . Titled 0x10 , it was to be set in
13312-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct
13440-415: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding
13568-439: The ruling being that Scrolls and The Elder Scrolls were too easy to differentiate, though ZeniMax could still appeal the ruling. In March 2012, Mojang and ZeniMax settled, with all "Scrolls" trademarks and trademark applications being transferred to ZeniMax, who would in turn licence the name to Mojang for use with Scrolls and add-on content, but not for sequels or any other games with similar names. On 20 July 2012, Uniloc ,
13696-503: The same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com, which was renamed PayPal in June 2001 and went public in 2002. PayPal's IPO listed under the ticker PYPL at $ 13 per share and generated over $ 61 million. Shortly after PayPal's IPO, eBay acquired the company on October 3, 2002, for $ 1.5 billion in eBay stock. More than 70 percent of all eBay auctions accepted PayPal payments, and roughly 1 in 4 closed auction listings were transacted via PayPal. PayPal became
13824-616: The same way as they would with a traditional credit card. The rebranding of Bill Me Later as PayPal Credit also means that consumers can use PayPal Credit to fund transactions virtually anywhere PayPal is accepted. In 2015 PayPal agreed that PayPal Credit would pay a $ 25 million fine to settle a complaint filed in Federal Court by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . From 2009 to 2016, PayPal operated Student Accounts, allowing parents to set up
13952-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through
14080-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,
14208-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of
14336-508: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to
14464-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via
14592-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in
14720-418: The year 281,474,976,712,644 AD in a parallel universe . The project was shelved by August 2013, with Persson citing a lack of interest and a creative block . Minecraft Earth was made available as an early-access game in November 2019 for Android and iOS . In January 2021, it was announced that the game would be withdrawn from sale in June that year, with all player data deleted in July. Mojang Studios cited
14848-411: Was a "loner" in school, he spent most of his spare time with games and programming at home. Following his graduation and a few years of working as a web developer , Persson created Wurm Online , a massively multiplayer online role-playing game , with colleague Rolf Jansson in 2003. They used the name "Mojang Specifications" during the development and, as the game started turning a profit, incorporated
14976-555: Was announced on 15 September 2014. Persson, Porsér and Manneh were the only shareholders at this time, of whom Persson owned 71% of shares. The acquisition was finalised on 6 November and Mojang became part of the Microsoft Studios branch. As part of the transaction, Persson received $ 1.8 billion , while Porsér and Manneh got $ 300 million and $ 100 million , respectively. All three subsequently left Mojang and Mårtensson succeeded Manneh. According to Bergensten,
15104-461: Was announced on September 30, 2014, that eBay would spin off PayPal into a separate publicly traded company, a move demanded in 2013 by activist hedge fund magnate Carl Icahn . The spin-off was completed on July 18, 2015. On January 31, 2018, eBay announced "After the existing eBay-PayPal agreement ends in 2020, PayPal will remain a payment option for shoppers on eBay, but it won't be prominently featured ahead of debit and credit card options as it
15232-525: Was announced that the SEC launched a legal investigation into both PayPal and Paxos, the trust responsible for issuing the stablecoin. Paypal said it was cooperating with the subpoena from the SEC’s Enforcement Division. In October 2023, it was announced PayPal has sold its reverse logistics subsidiary, Happy Returns to UPS for an undisclosed amount. In 2024, PayPal executives announced that
15360-668: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including
15488-476: Was minimal, leaving its operations independent but backed by Microsoft's financial and technical capabilities. The approach shaped how Microsoft would acquire other gaming companies. Scrolls was released out-of-beta in December 2014 and development of further content ceased in 2015. Also in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games jointly announced a partnership in which the latter would develop Minecraft: Story Mode , an episodic , narrative-driven game set in
15616-400: Was optimistic about the future success of the money transfer business Confinity was developing. Musk and Bill Harris, then-president and CEO of X.com, disagreed about the potential future success of the money transfer business and Harris left the company in May 2000. In October of that year, Musk decided that X.com would terminate its other internet banking operations and focus on payments. In
15744-496: Was renamed Confinity , a company which developed security software for hand-held devices. When it had no success with that business model, it switched its focus to a digital wallet. The first version of the PayPal electronic payments system was launched in 1999. In March 2000, Confinity merged with X.com , an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk , Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho. Musk
15872-592: Was replaced by Åsa Bredin in the same role. Mojang partnered with Humble Bundle in 2012 to launch Mojam, a game jam event to raise money for charity, as part of which Mojang developed the shoot 'em up mini-game Catacomb Snatch . The including bundle was sold 81,575 times, raising $ 458,248.99 . The following year, Mojang developed three mini-games for Mojam 2. The studio also participated in Humble Bundle's Games Against Ebola game jam in 2014 with three further mini-games. In 2011, Persson and Kaplan envisioned
16000-428: Was reported in February 2023, that CEO Dan Schulman will step away from his role by the end of 2023. Schulman will continue to serve on the board of directors after vacating the position. In August 2023, the company named Intuit executive Alex Chriss CEO, effective September 27, 2023. In August 2023, PayPal launched a U.S. dollar stablecoin , called PayPal USD (PYUSD) for payments and transfers. In November 2023, it
16128-589: Was the product of a three-phase strategy described by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman : "First, PayPal focused on expanding its service among eBay users in the US. Second, we began expanding PayPal to eBay's international sites. And third, we started to build PayPal's business off eBay." In the first phase, payment volumes were coming mostly from the eBay auction website. The system was very attractive to auction sellers, most of which were individuals or small businesses that were unable to accept credit cards, and for consumers as well. In fact, many sellers could not qualify for
16256-625: Was to earn interest on funds in PayPal accounts. However, most recipients of PayPal credits withdrew funds immediately. Also, many senders funded their payments using credit cards, which cost PayPal roughly 2% of payment value per transaction. To solve this problem, PayPal tailored its product to cater more to business accounts. Instead of relying on interests earned from deposited funds, PayPal started relying on earnings from service charges. They offered seller protection to PayPal account holders, provided that they comply with reimbursement policies. For example, PayPal merchants are either required to retain
16384-571: Was valued at over $ 127.58 billion in December 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of digital payment platforms, including PayPal, at the expense of the traditional banking sector. As a result, Paypal has seen an increase in its stock to up to 78% in 2020 as of October. In addition, total payment volume has increased 29% amounting to $ 220 billion increasing positive investor sentiment. PayPal laid off hundreds of workers across US offices and moved jobs overseas during 2020-2022 pandemic. PayPal's corporate headquarters are located in
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