In the midst of the Bukkit episode, it didn’t seem possible for another shockwave to hit the Minecraft community. But it has, and from a completely unexpected direction in some ways.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that according to “a person with knowledge of the matter” Microsoft have been in some serious discussion with the makers of the sandbox game, Mojang with the intent to acquire them for themselves.

The deal, said to be worth around $2 billion could be signed as early as this week. It comes as a bit of a surprise given what else has been happening recently though.

Minecraft is undoubtedly a very popular game and it’s easy to see why Microsoft would be interested. However, Mojang founder Notch has always been fairly wary of venture capital and big business and even once criticised Microsoft’s Windows 8 as being very bad for indie gaming.

All I can say is that the idea of a Microsoft-owned Minecraft makes me feel very… uneasy.