How Minecraft Creator Persson Almost Took a Job at Valve - Eric Johnson - General - AllThingsD - This chapter from “Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus ‘Notch’ Persson and the Game that Changed Everything,” excerpted with permission of the authors, tells the tale.
I think it's pretty clear that none of the "innovative" companies like Apple, Microsoft or whatever would ever green light a project like Minecraft. I mean at Apple, for 20 years, if you were a 3rd party developer and didn't have an icon that looked like a piece of furniture from The Sims you were treated like a leper.
