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Minecraft Tops 100 Million Sales (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the endless-hours-of-fun dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Mojang has announced today that its game 'Minecraft' has passed 100 million sales across all platforms, including PC, Mac, consoles and mobile. Nearly 53,000 copies of the game have been sold every single day around the world since the beginning of the year. What may be even more impressive is the fact that more than 40 million people actively open up a Minecraft world each month and play around with a blocky axe, shovel and sword. According to Wikipedia, Minecraft is the second-bestselling video game of all-time next to Tetris. Tetris has sold a whopping 495 million copies, so don't expect Minecraft to earn the number one spot anytime soon. Microsoft did acquire Mojang almost two years ago, and there has been no word on a sequel as the company continues to release Minecraft for new platforms like HoloLens and Samsung's Gear VR. Soon, there will even be a version made just for China too.

9 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Re:who did what, now? by rapu · · Score: 3, Informative

    They mean Microsoft.

  2. Blocks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Note the top two selling games of all times are about placing blocks.

    1. Re:Blocks? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sorry, but the fact that it's written in Java is, if anything, detrimental to its success. What makes it so great is that it can be modded, you identified that one correctly, and there are many other examples of games that are mediocre at best that had a lot of success mostly because they're easily modable, but Java is not the reason for this.

      If anything, you could say that it was lucky Notch coded it in Java because he didn't think of making it modable and owing it to Java it can be modded easily. Well, not as easily as it COULD be if he actually created it with modding in mind in a sensible language instead of this memory hog clusterfuck, but yes, in a roundabout way, Java made Minecraft a success. But saying that Java is the reason is about as sensibly as saying the unsanitary conditions in Flemming's lab were the key to his discovery of Penicillin.

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      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Re:who did what, now? by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Rename the company Minecraft.
    Kinda like Philip Morris changing their name to the Altria Group, to help people forget about the horrible products [i]they[/i] made.

  4. Re:Open Source by donaldm · · Score: 5, Informative

    I will not care until Minecraft is open source.

    Well, you could try "Minetest" or any of the following here

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    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  5. Re:Open Source by Thanshin · · Score: 3

    How strong is your grasp on assembly?

  6. Re:who did what, now? by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Funny

    At least in my perception Microsoft's reputation has increased in past few years. They make stable, fast and secure software. Also, for feedback and support, their developers are more easy to reach than before.

  7. Re:Open Source by SharpFang · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, following some leaks, decompilation, forgotten debug symbols etc, full source of Minecraft is available. Not legally, but still.

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  8. Re:who did what, now? by SharpFang · · Score: 3, Informative

    It got a decent boost with Win7. Win8 was more or less underwhelming, but not disastrous. Now the current push for Win10 earns them reputation of some supervillain with a master plan.

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