Minecraft is an open-world indie video game released in 2009 by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson and later developed and published by Mojang. Minecraft's crafting and building capabilities allow players to build structures by combining textured cubes in a 3D world. Other activities in the game include searching, gathering resources, crafting, and fighting. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft announced an agreement to purchase Mojang and Microsoft's proprietary rights, intellectual property rights for US$2.5 billion; The acquisition was completed on November 6, 2014. Currently, Minecraft is one of the world's best-selling games with approximately 180 million copies worldwide.