You won't believe how nice Notch's office is

[thingie]

No, what I admire most isn't the office itself, though it's quite nice, it's the location. I can imagine that you can, for example, get some nice restaurants and few other option to get a real food within a walking distance.

From my window, I can see just three freeways tightly surrounding this place-less office park from each side. And I am hungry, right now, there are just two ugly canteens that close by 2 PM anyway. It makes me feel desperate. Hunger is not nice.

[lucaspiller]

Here in Europe business parks aren't really that popular for tech companies (unless you work for something like IBM, but I'd guess they'd have their own canteens), most are based in the city centre which is nice for lunches.

[sopooneo]

I realize not everyone has this luxury, but the market is still very hot in Boston/Cambridge around me. And I'm sure others can second that for their cities. I have at least fifty restaurants within a fifteen minute walk. I'm not trying to taunt and life has a location hold at times, but if you can make the jump, we as developers are in a very fortunate position right now, and you can have a job within days/weeks around here if you've got the skills. Best to you.

[nutjob123]

Not to brag, but the midtown Manhattan food selection is outstanding.

http://midtownlunch.com/lunch-by-food-type/

[willvarfar]

I used to work in Gamla Stan. Stockholm city is a really great feeling place to have a little indie tech company.

In those pictures, you can see a long table that looks like lunch is eaten in-house.

Reminds me of the Joel Spolsky school of keeping good developers happy: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html

[fghh45sdfhr3]

I recently switched from a job where the corporate cafeteria (horrible) was the only option, to a new job in town of my food full city. No one know how much of a big deal that difference was in my decision to switch.

[lucian1900]

I got into the habit of making an extra portion for dinner that I take to work as lunch for the next day. It's quite low effort and I get to eat tasty food every day.

[jiggy2011]

Ah, that brings back bad memories of working for a large consulting company in a business park.

We worked in a building that was only at about 20% capacity so the canteen was closed and there was no food shops within a miles walk.

Basically, forgetting to make a packed lunch meant staying hungry all day and trying to subside on vending machine coffee alone.

[mhomde]

Söder is Stockholms "Harlem" ;) While being pretty central it's not located in the most central part of the city, and the only decent lunch place around here just closed last week, ack! :)

[lucasdailey]

As a (steel & glass) architect I'm certain this is not an expensive office when compared to other tech companies. I think most people are being fooled by the "high-class americana" style, but really this does not cost more than a high-end minimalist office.

Question the style choices, sure, but the assumption that is in anyway more expensive than average is completely false.

[bluthru]

Same here. It seems as if the color palette is throwing people off.

[tomjen3]

If the price is about the same, why does anyone go for glass & steel? This is so much better.

[dkhenry]

You know what the first thing I pick up on is? Everyone is dressed nice. I don't know if that's just for the camera, but I see suits and vests all around. They look classy in a classy office. I wonder how the office would look if notch was wearing cut off shorts and a wife beater.

[lrm242]

They don't dress that way all the time. From what I've gathered they have "Formal Fridays". At first when I saw Notch mention this on Twitter I was a bit confused, but now I see it goes nicely with the theme of their office.

[petercooper]

I don't know if that's just for the camera,

That picture is about as posed as posed gets but in my (limited) experience, people in the tech industry do tend to dress 'up' somewhat more than in the US.

But, you know, if notch were in a smoking jacket or a Hefner-style robe, I think it would still work ;-)

[englishcheck]

suits.

[constant_change]

I appreciate seeing an office for a successful indie company that doesn't consist of brick facades, exposed ventilation and a big open room filled with people, computers, video game consoles and foosball tables. I just appreciate the slightly more mature look than I'm used to seeing glorified in office pictorials for tech companies.

That being said, I don't see ANY computers there, so maybe they just didn't picture their brickwork in this photo shoot.

[andyjohnson0]

Slightly OT, but lots of pictures of other offices here: http://www.officesnapshots.com/

[taybin]

It looks like a prohibition era speakeasy.

[scotth]

Reminds me of the holodeck. Are they working, or playing characters in a gangster/detective story?

[tibbon]

An interesting observation, on Kotaku the comments are focusing on a weird jealousy over Notch's success. Comments about people suddenly regretting buying a license to Minecraft, saying how tasteless the offices are, or how bad things are in Africa.

[MartinCron]

Pro tip: Never read the comments on Kotaku.

You're welcome.

[pycassa]

"meanwhile in Africa.." thing might be a joke.. come on, you can't possibly think that the guy posted that comment is jealous..

[hnriot]

I can't imagine getting any work done there, but since there are no computers, I'm assuming nobody does, and this is really just a set for some HBO drama. To me, this is a huge waste of time and money. Good for the economy though I suppose.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

There are computers in the room at the back of the third photo, and at the right of it.

Also, I expect many of them use the rest of the space to dream up ideas, plan, and work on laptops.

[minimax]

Where are the computers?

[11031a]

was thinking the same thing. maybe they pop out of the armrests of those leather chairs?

[gilrain]

Time will tell, but this is beginning to sound like echos of Ion Storm[1]. We've already got our Deus Ex out of Mojang, though -- my girlfriend and I still regularly play Minecraft together -- so I can't really feel any enmity for them.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Storm

[anonymouz]

Seems to be quite a different story to me: Mojang has, with minimal expenses, already created an extremely successful (and profitable) game. It seems that they are now using some of that cash to get a really nice office.

Ion Storm on the other hand basically used their fame and some promises of a future product to get a load of cash from investors, and spent that on a very nice office.

[FredFredrickson]

While I didn't think exactly of Ion Storm, this photo did remind me a bit of the extravagance of that generation of "rock star" developers. Not saying that out of any malice or jealousy of Notch or Mojang - just being honest about my gut, knee-jerk response.

[logn]

"many leather-bound books, and... smells of rich mahogany"

[RivieraKid]

Wow, I would really want to work in a place like that. I would probably feel more relaxed and creative than in the typical whiteish plain-looking offices.

[zerostar07]

No light No light

This is some kind of ultimate mancave, I can't imagine a girl working in there.

[JackC]

Hey, I don't know why you assume Mojang doesn't employ women. They totally have ... uh ... two female employees out of 28?

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mojang_AB#Current_employee...

Oh, so that's why.

Incidentally, I don't mean to call you out in particular, but when you call grownup female programmers "girls," lots of very cool women will decide to hang out somewhere else -- sort of for the same reason black men in the US aren't going to love it if someone calls them "boys." Not trying to police your language, just something to think about.

[citricsquid]

They have a couple of female employees, their finance manager is female and has worked there for about a year, their "director of fun" (manages events, media relations) is also female and has worked there for about 8 months. They both talk highly of the office so I guess it's more than just a "man cave".

[knowaveragejoe]

You have a pretty serious misconception of aesthetic tastes of females. I know many that would -love- to work/hang out in a place like this, and they aren't geeky/nerdy/"gamer girls" either.

[mhomde]

Apparently I live right next doors to their office. Explains why I keep running in to Notch wherever I go, almost started to think he was stalking me :)

Personally I wouldn't had gone in the "gentlemen's club"-direction, feels a bit old and stuffy as well as having some bad connotations (if it isn't meant to be ironic that is) but each to their own I guess :)

[Shorel]

Can you elaborate on the bad connotations?

Prohibition era gangsters?

[Tyrannosaurs]

Nice is clearly a matter of opinion.

The space is great, the facilities and the culture they're obviously trying to create through them but let's just say it's not to my taste.

Which is a polite way of saying that to me at least the place looks foul.

[k-mcgrady]

Foul? What about it do you not like? It seems a bit over the top to me (it's an office not a private club) but interested as to why you dislike it so much.

[tluyben2]

I would not say 'foul', but I wouldn't like to work in that space. It feels to heavy and I personally like techie things like devices splattered around and at least one 'hardware table' with a scope + soldering iron and such. Books are nice, but leather bound? Pretentious; I rather have books which are actually read and look shit.

Of course it's a matter of taste and I think this part is nice to receive customers / partners. But for me (and at least a few of my colleagues) it would have to be a lot looser than this. And lighter.

And about the suits; I have a bit of an issue with that because it was mandatory for programmers to wear a suit here not 15-20 years ago. And I did and hated it. I do it now when there are formal events or client contact, but outside that, I really feel forced if I wear such a thing. Again; matter of taste. I do agree you should try and that you DO feel more powerful doing it. It just doesn't mix that well with coding :) IMHO.

[pnathan]

Wow.

I think this place looks amazing. Leather and books and dimmer lighting are exactly my personal sweet spot.

[catshirt]

foul? really?

[herdrick]

Yep. Surprisingly tacky given the appreciation of simplicity shown in Minecraft.

[verroq]

So is there still a reason to why Minecraft is so buggy?

[MartinCron]

How can you even tell if something like Minecraft is buggy or not?

[quaunaut]

Wait, isn't their team like, less than a dozen people right now? Christ that's a lot of chairs. And space.

[timdiggerm]

I wonder if they got the space checked out by an architect, or some kind of inspector. Probably not, as that would be destroying the open platform of building whatever you want.

[nilsimsa]

I guess you can save a lot of money not hiring texture artists.