Minecraft has been quietly dominating for over 10 years, and now has 112 million players every month.

IbizaPocholo

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
www.businessinsider.com.au

'Minecraft' has been quietly dominating for over 10 years, and now has 112 million players every month

Every month, over 112 million people play Microsoft's biggest game: "Minecraft." In fact, the game has been hugely popular for years.
www.businessinsider.com.au www.businessinsider.com.au

For over 10 years, the wildly popular game "Minecraft" has been a cultural juggernaut.

Despite other major games sweeping up millions of players, like "Fortnite" and "Roblox," "Minecraft" continues to quietly dominate.

As of this week, the game now has over 112 million players every month.

That represents a jump of over over 20 million players since the last time Microsoft announced as much, back in October 2018 – an absolutely massive increase in players, considering the game has been available for over 10 years. The number includes players across game consoles, computers, mobile devices, and the education-focused version of the game.

Notably, "Minecraft" isn't free on the many platforms it's available on.

The tens of millions of new players "Minecraft" added in the last year all bought the game in one form or another, whether it was a direct purchase of a physical copy in a store or as part of Microsoft's popular Game Pass subscription service or a digital purchase.

The game has been a famously explosive phenomenon since early in its life; "Minecraft" started as a work-in-progress game, made by a single man (Markus "Notch" Persson). It had rudimentary graphics and controls. It was only available on PC. It was prone to breaking, because it was an unfinished game being made by a single person.

And yet, millions of people bought and played that early version of "Minecraft."

When Microsoft bought the game back in 2014 for $US2.5 billion, the tech world was surprised and confused by the purchase.

But clearly that early success has persisted under Microsoft's care across the past five years.

"What we find is that it's a game that players keep coming back to," Helen Chiang, "Minecraft" studio head, told Business Insider in a phone interview this week. "It may not always be the one that's in the forefront, because there are a lot of great games that continue to come out, but it's one that they love to return to."
 
20 million more players, still unable to finish the mega graphics pack for Xbox One X.

A large part of that is probably thanks to Microsoft spending money to get influencers like PewDiePie to play the game again.
 
Well deserved. It's one of the few crafting/survival games that manages to balance simplicity, freedom, danger, and creativity all in one package. I still play it regularly.
 
Remember when people were calling the Mojang purchase a failure? lol.

DunDunDunpachi said:
Well deserved. It's one of the few crafting/survival games that manages to balance simplicity, freedom, danger, and creativity all in one package. I still play it regularly.
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I've liked most of the updates they've bought to it, but lately, it's been baffling.

I mean, mining has been essentially the same since like 2010.... yet we got a useless ocean update that 1% of players will ever use. I still like the game, but put the mine back into the Minecraft.
 
I haven't messed around with ocean stuff too much flashfire926 flashfire926 but it seems like solid mid- or end-game content since you kinda need those breathing potions to make use of it, though I could be mistaken.
 
Modded minecraft is old faithful for me. Doesn't matter what the latest AAA blockbuster is, sooner or later I will be back to playing modded minecraft. Creating stuff is ultimately more entertaining than destroying things, at least in the long run.
 
ThePiddle said:
20 million more players, still unable to finish the mega graphics pack for Xbox One X.

A large part of that is probably thanks to Microsoft spending money to get influencers like PewDiePie to play the game again.
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On a side note, he actually wasn't paid.

What makes the Minecraft rejuvenation/Pewdiepie recent success cool, is he just happened to pick the game up for a themed gaming week along with others, and everyone loved the combination, ending up turning him into a Minecraft channel, and giving the game a massive boost, lol.

Well deserved. This game has stood the test of time as one of the very best, and most unique, the industry has to offer.
 
joe_zazen said:
The true genius of that game was convincing parents it is educational.
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it's the most educational a game can be without being specifically an educational game first.

the redstone stuff you can do in it is ridiculous and kids can learn basic programming in it too with command blocks.
 
Amazing.

I don't know one person who plays it..... friends list or my nieces and nephews.

You never even see articles about it, or forums threads.

But hell, someone is playing it.
 
Play it on Survival - Hard and try to make it to The End. It gets a rep as a LEGO toy, as a kid's game, as a casual playground, but it's still a genuinely challenging SP experience.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Amazing.

I don't know one person who plays it..... friends list or my nieces and nephews.

You never even see articles about it, or forums threads.

But hell, someone is playing it.
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This and Fortnite made me realize that traditional gaming can be kind of a bubble. Two of the biggest games to ever exist, yet most traditional forums or reporting or whatever don't bother with them at all.

During its rise, I even got introduced to Fortnite for the first time through streamers and YouTubers — I would have had no idea the game existed otherwise.
 
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Crazy.

Also firmly believe mega graphics pack was canceled to be repackaged as a sequel for next gen. (Wouldn't be surprised if it was an exclusive to xbox/pc for the first bit either)
 
-Arcadia- said:
This and Fortnite made me realize that traditional gaming can be kind of a bubble. Two of the biggest games to ever exist, yet most traditional forums or reporting or whatever don't bother with them at all.

During its rise, I even got introduced to Fortnite for the first time through streamers and YouTubers — I would have had no idea the game existed otherwise.
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League of Legends too.

If someone is a core LoL player, they probably have some dedicated forums to chat about.

Yet in mainstream game forums, you'll hardly see any LoL threads.
 
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I thought GTAV did the same in way less time.

That is dominating.

Ohhh wait GTA V probably did more.
 
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It really makes you wonder if it would have had this same trajectory if Microsoft hadn't purchased it. Would Mojang have been able to capitalize on it this well on their own? I don't have a clue, but I find it interesting to think about.

It just makes me wonder if Notch ever thinks about how much more money he could have extracted from it or if he was happy with whatever percentage of the $2.5B he took home.
 
Anyone who thinks Minecraft has been "quietly" dominating must not have kids. I am reminded of its existence several times every day.
 
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Everyone I know has played it. People at work that usually play Fifa and nothing else? played it. Dudes that are into gun porn and modern warfare? played it. People I met in WoW? played it. Nephew? nephew's friends? neighborhood kids? played it. My ancient parents who can't work Netflix? played it...naw, but they have had to buy the merch like every parent in existence.

Game of the decade by sheer cultural dominance alone, nevermind the crazy lifetime sales and goddamn legs of steel.
 
i absolutely still play minecraft from time to time. still never "beat" the game though. ender dragon and al that. just seemed like such a time consuming thing to do. i remember going out of my way to try and do it a number of times but never being successful. ill have to give it another go one f these days.

when i lived with room mates, we all played on a map together creating our own mansions and shit. it was huge and awesome. inevitably, one day one of us got extremely wasted and blew up a bunch of shit lol. i think i woke up next morning to the carnage and wound up blowing up all their shit too, and getting on video so he could see it :messenger_grinning_squinting:
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Amazing.

I don't know one person who plays it..... friends list or my nieces and nephews.

You never even see articles about it, or forums threads.

But hell, someone is playing it.
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I've played it, I have a friend who ran (and has run before) a server for his friends some of whom I also know, and I have another friend who set up a server for his family.

Granted however that we're all gaming-oriented people. Depends on your circle of course.
 
I don't even get Minecraft. I've tried to play it a few times and it's never clicked for me.
 
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