The most popular video game in the world, Minecraft, has set yet another sales record. Developer Mojang Studios announced at a weekend event that the game has now sold more than 300 million copies globally.
Grand Theft Auto V, which had sold 185 million copies as of August 2023, lags significantly in sales. However, neither franchise sells as many games as Super Mario, which has sold more than 800 million games in total across all of its multi-game series. The retro puzzler Tetris, which has sold more than 520 million copies across all of its iterations since the 1980s, is the second most popular series. Since its initial releases for iOS and Android in 2008, Tetris has sold at least 425 million units exclusively on mobile devices. As a result, some lists rank it as the best-selling game.
However, these releases varied greatly in terms of gameplay and graphics. For instance, Tetris was available on Ericsson phones in 2001, Tetris Mania on mobile devices in 2006, and later editions on iOS and Android, to name just a few examples. Because of this, Tetris is typically regarded as a series, while Minecraft remains the same game whether played on a mobile device or the Nintendo Switch. The 300 million mark is a milestone “no one could have dreamed of when we were all placing our first blocks,” according to Helen Chiang, the head of Minecraft Studios. Although Mojang Studios first made a pre-release, incomplete version of the game available in 2009, it wasn’t until November 2011 that the game was officially published.
Due to its sandbox aspect, which allows players to create anything they can imagine using Lego-like building blocks, Minecraft is highly popular among kids, teens, and adults alike. Microsoft acquired Minecraft in 2014 for $2.5 billion (£2 billion), and it has since become a cornerstone of its gaming empire. Microsoft recently expanded its presence in the gaming industry with a record-breaking $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company behind the Call of Duty video game. The immense success of Minecraft, both in and outside of the game, can be attributed at least in part to this. According to Google, Minecraft-related YouTube videos have been watched over one trillion times. Even the two most well-known YouTube stars, Mr. Beast and PewDiePie, have produced Minecraft videos at some point.
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