Does Minecraft still make a lot of money? I was under the impression that sales had slowed down considerably. It's not a worthless property, not at all, it's just a matter of if it really can make enough back to actually make it a worthwhile investment.
The problem with the mobile market is that it's incredibly unpredictable. When you strike gold, then that makes you a silly amount of money, but there is very little consistency in it, and few companies have been able to repeat their success (Rovio seem to be one of the few exceptions, and even they've had trouble doing so). Something like Diablo will sell, unless you completely botch it, though the profit margins won't be as good as a mobile game that sells well. Something like Candy Crush might possibly sell, but for every successful one, there are hundreds upon hundreds of failed ones. King have not been able to repeat their own success, despite putting far more money into marketing for their newer games, so buying them in the hope that they'll produce another big seller seems like a really risky move.
In the case of Mojang they're not getting people who have produced a big seller, they get people who have worked on a big seller after it got big. Notch has left the company. I'm not saying that the people who work at Mojang are bad at what they do, but they have not proven that they can produce another minecraft. I don't know how it works with King, if they still have their key people left.
As for tech, yeah that's a good point. Again, I'm not seeing what they might have that's so valuable, but there might be more going on behind the scene than meets the eye.
