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Minecraft Reaches 22 Million Sales on PC and Mac

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Published: January 5, 2016 9:51 AM

The build anything you like procedurally generated game Minecraft has reached a new sales milestone. The game, which came out in 2009, has managed to move more than 22 million copies on PC and Mac platforms. Note that this does not include sales on console and mobile platforms, nor does it include the Windows 10 exclusive beta release that was free for owners of the PC version who are now Windows 10 users. Even with this, this writer wouldn't surprised if those numbers turn out to be significant as well. To put that number into perspective a bit: this game has sold more units than there are people in a lot of countries. 

Minecraft has managed to remain extremely popular since its inception, and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon due to fans demanding that the game gets ported to every platform known to man.

The Minecraft brand stretches out beyond just the base game. You'll be hard-pressed to find a toy store or an online merchandise store that isn't carrying some form of Minecraft merchandise, from t-shirts to bags to creeper figurines. The game has also found its ways into classrooms in the form of MinecraftEdu, a customized version of the base game that teaches kids to program, amongst other things. The game is also easily moddable, a feature which the community has made ample use of. Hell, even Telltale made one of their adventure games based on the franchise. The game's success also inspired an ever-present trend of voxel-based games, as well as give survival and crafting games a second wind . The game's initial public alpha release also inspired the Early Access model, showing that people are willing to adopt a title early in its development, and allowing players to directly influence the game's development.


Quick Take

I love how far this game has come over the years, and how far yet it can go. Minecraft proved itself to be a widely applicable tool with a near-endless pool of possibilities that can be used to taught as well as entertain. Not many games can claim that people of all ages can (and usually will) find something they like in that game. 22 million sales is an extremely impressive achievement and I will be very surprised if they don't manage to double that number at some point in the not too distant future. I really need to check up on my town again.


Chris Anderson
| Staff Writer

I've been playing games since I was just barely able to walk so I might as well write about them.