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Minecraft PC Tops 100 Million Users
After touching off a wave of sandbox building games and the early access movement, Minecraft now boasts 100 million registered users. The wildly popular game has made its way to other platforms, including Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and mobile.
In the same tweet from Mojang head Markus “notch” Persson, he revealed that 14.3 percent of registered users convert to paid accounts. Minecraft’s demo, which requires a user account, lasts five in-game days, which amounts to approximately 100 minutes of game time.
Minecraft continues to appear on the monthly NPD report, which measures new, retail hardware and software sales. The Xbox 360 version, first released in May 2012, charted in seventh place in January 2014 and ninth overall for 2013.
[Source: @notch]
Our Take
Minecraft’s success is the perfect storm of clever marketing (early access), innovative play (bringing the creative openness of building blocks into the digital space), and a balance of social and solitary experiences. Mojang is responsible for a number of trends that have defined (and continue to impact) gaming as we know it today.
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