
Minecraft sales top 100M - chang2301
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11838036/minecraft-sales-100-million
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newobj
If you have young kids, then there's a good chance you know how deeply
Minecrafted has penetrated their worlds, replacing or augmenting Legos (or
other, lesser, building toys) and video games in general. It's more than that
they've sold 100M units, it's that there's an entire generation of kids now
whose basis for creativity/entertainment is Minecraft, and who knows what
future behavior that will inform.

It's not just a staggering number of units, it's a shift in shared cultural
experience for a generation.

~~~
_puk
It blew my mind when Lego Minecraft appeared a Christmas or two ago.

I saw Minecraft as a digital interpretation of Lego; how meta that you can now
get a physical interpretation of Minecraft.

Simply having green and brown pixels[0] is enough to elicit cries of joy,
regardless of whether there is any minecraft logo visible.

0: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pixel-Duvet-Cover-Pillow-
Single/dp/...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pixel-Duvet-Cover-Pillow-
Single/dp/B0153HSWU4)

~~~
bwooceli
My 7yo is pretty big into minecraft and lego both. We have close to 30k bricks
in our inventory, and he did get a minecraft specific lego set for christmas.
We have a LOT of fun building things from minecraft into lego sets and vice-
versa. I thought that he would prefer to build things in the virtual world
(prototyping etc) before building in lego, but he really enjoys the physical
process in lego and then trying to make the virtual (and at times more
restrictive) blocks in minecraft.

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Mahn
According to Wikipedia this makes it the second best selling video-game of all
time [1], only behind Tetris. Pretty impressive.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
selling_video_gam...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
selling_video_games)

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lowtolerance
I haven't played in years, but it's incredible how popular this game has
become. One day, I'll be able to prove to my kids that I played Minecraft
before it even went Beta.

~~~
Loughla
I have a screenshot receipt just to be able to show them how few people were
playing when I was. I can't wait to get the "you're so out of touch"
_eyerolls_ from them when they're teenagers.

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neves
My sons, 8 and 10 years old, have just got bored of Minecraft. Their friends
are all on Clash of Clans or their subproducts. Even worse, they are spending
a lot of time just watching Netflix. I'd prefer they were doing something that
stimulates more their intellect.

I think MC is a really cool and creative game. A lot better than other
videogames. How would I get them interested again?

~~~
MaxLeiter
Have they tried using mods?

~~~
neves
Sure. They use the Technich Laucher and install mods themselves. They also
played a lot of minigames in online servers.

~~~
giancarlostoro
Try to get them into making their own mods. There's childrens books on just
doing that. They would learn programming, and we know that's a rabbit hole
that once you're hooked, you may never get out.

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rocky1138
How much of this is due to mods and minigames?

No one I know plays stock vanilla Minecraft anymore.

This is even stranger, considering mods and minigames have never been
supported by Mojang directly.

~~~
outworlder
I had the same opinion, but that may be just our perspective, given the people
we know (and follow on youtube).

Maybe it's more accurate to say "most old players have moved on from vanilla
Minecraft".

Frankly, Minecraft does not _need_ mods. However, Mojang took too long to add
content to the game. Heck, even Dwarf Fortress seems to add new features
faster.

Today, vanilla feels... "bland". "Oh right, I have no fluid containers nor
pipes, have to move stuff one bucket at a time". "Right, let me build this
redstone flip-flop for the umpteenth time". "Oh yeah, there's no way I can
automate crop replanting, just harvest". Every game start is grindy in the
same way, the only thing that keeps it interesting is the random terrain
generator.

But that's after playing for a while. New players still get the "discovery"
experience, redstone learning curve and so on. That can take months to wear
off.

Also, many people are using mods without even knowing, depending on which
server they play on.

~~~
khedoros
I play vanilla, and have since a short time pre-beta. I like the simplicity;
it's kind of like playing a creative version of Solitaire with a giant Lego
set.

Then again, I also don't play on a server, watch people on Youtube, or really
have a connection to any kind of community, so I don't really have the chance
to get envious of what other players have available.

~~~
rocky1138
I try to play Minecraft these days, but it makes me so lonely.

This comes from the fact that I run a server which used to have ~20 on at any
given time and now has 0, along with the fact that I learned to play it
alongside my ex-girlfriend.

I wish there was some way for me to get past the loneliness.

~~~
khedoros
Minecraft's always been a place to go when I want to be alone for a little
while, so playing on a server has always been a little uncomfortable to me.

I've had other places that I'd go for companionship that cleared out over
time, so while it wasn't Minecraft, I can imagine some of how you feel about
it :-/

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tonetheman
And yet somehow installing mods is a way to kill the parent in your family. :(

I know there are some tools around this but it is a painful exercise in
version numbers to get anything working in minecraft with mods.

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davidiach
>Microsoft's video games revenue has been climbing steadily since the
Minecraft acquisition, and it increased by $367 million in the 2015 financial
year "mainly due to sales of Minecraft."

Is that really a lot? How much more do they need to sell to get their money
back from what they spent to buy Minecraft in the first place?

~~~
noir_lord
They paid 2bn for Minecraft, not sure if 367m is just software sales or
merchandising as well but the merchandise is _everywhere_ here in the UK and
it seems to sell well.

~~~
NDizzle
The merchandising is awesome too. I see kids with creeper backpacks and I wish
I had things like that when I was that age.

~~~
emddudley
Not sure when or where you grew up, but at least in US in the 80s and 90s
there were _tons_ of television and video-game branded merchandise...

~~~
glandium
In the 80s and 90s, it tended to be the opposite, though: tons of merchandise
for which "advertising" television shows were created (things that come to
mind are GI Joe, M.A.S.K. ...).

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asimuvPR
The Minecraft EDU version has still not officially launched. It has the
potential to simply take the ed tech market by storm. Those sales numbers
should be interesting.

~~~
Nullabillity
MinecraftEdu has existed for years. That new one is just crippled and much
more expensive...

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tonmoy
>Microsoft says four copies have even been sold to people in Antarctica

Does anybody know who these people might be?

~~~
blktiger
Also, how do they know the sales are in Antartica?

~~~
brianwawok
Billing address?

96598 is the zip code of the south pole.

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dexwiz
I am surprised Minecraft doesn't have licensed content you can buy, like how I
can buy Spiderman or Harry Potter Legos. Seems likes a logical next move,
considering their target audience is very similar.

~~~
thomnottom
Minecraft licensed to Lego a few years ago. Lego even just revealed another
big set from Minecraft just this month.[0]

[0] [http://shop.lego.com/en-US/The-
Village-21128?icmp=SHM_21128](http://shop.lego.com/en-US/The-
Village-21128?icmp=SHM_21128)

~~~
wyldfire
I think they meant the flip side of that -- having Spider-Man and Harry Potter
themed downloadable content for the Minecraft game.

~~~
dexwiz
Correct. I know Minecraft has a large modding community. But last I checked, I
had to download third party software to do this.

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math0ne
This is impressive but I imagine at this point the profit in minecraft is in
the brand, merch is everywhere, there is minecraft lego, etc.

It's pretty impressive how much of a cultural icon steve and the creeper have
become, in the long run I think this will be a good purchase for MS.

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sandworm101
100 million sales. So? MS bought Minecraft for $2,500,000,000. At this point,
for all it's popularity, Minecraft is still being subsidized by the other MS
products. It has yet to reach profitability and might never do so ... at least
for Microsoft. Notch certainly made his numbers.

~~~
Mahn
It's not about what it is today, it's about what it can become. Minecraft is
firmly in the trajectory of becoming absolutely massive, and if nothing stops
its pace in the next few years, it's not crazy for Microsoft to bet that it
will become profitable at the price they paid in the next 5 years or so.

~~~
pakitan
The cold hard numbers suggest that Minecraft is well past its peak. MS sold
50M copies for 2 years, which is ~ 70K/day. 2016 they have sold 50K/day. Also:

[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=minecraft](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=minecraft)

And really, 100M is already "absolutely massive" in my book. How much bigger
can it grow? Will everyone on Earth be playng Minecraft?

