Nearly two years after it was acquired by Microsoft, Minecraft sales have soared past the 100 million mark, with the game now selling at a pace of 53,000 units per year this year. Started as an indie game project, Minecraft is now one of the most successful video games of all time.
Of course, it’s not clear whether Microsoft will ever make back the $2.5 billion it paid for Minecraft maker Mojang in late 2014, though the software giant did claim that a $367 million increase in video game revenues in fiscal year 2015 was “mainly due to sales of Minecraft.”
But whatever. So far, Microsoft has been a faithful and fair steward of the game, helping to ease fears that it would destroy the franchise. Today, the game is available everywhere, there’s a Story Mode rendition, and Microsoft has made a big push with Minecraft Education Edition too.
So let’s celebrate the milestone.
“We’d like to offer our heartfelt thanks to every one of you who’s bought Minecraft over the past few years, no matter which platform you play on,” Microsoft’s Owen Hill writes. “We’re constantly in awe of our community and the amazing things you achieve together. You really are the best.”
Microsoft has provided a nice looking but largely empty infographic that explains a few key data around the 100 million milestone, apparently because the younger crowd that embraces this game has the attention span of a cat. But here are some of the few data points provided:
Mobile is huge. Unless I’m reading the chart wrong, the mobile app versions of Minecraft are slightly outselling those on consoles, and are dramatically outselling the PC version.
53,000 copies per day is the average sell-through rate in 2016.
106,859,714 is the exact number of copies of Minecraft sold so far.
40 million people play Minecraft every month.
There are no conversations