Minecraft is one of the biggest brands in gaming, going from an independently published game to a major cross-media IP in short order.
No game has boomed in popularity the way that Minecraft did. Quietly released in a public alpha state in 2009, the game quickly attracted millions of players with its laid-back atmosphere and retained them with its surprising depth and complexity. The game was officially released in 2011 and spread to a vast assortment of platforms.
Minecraft’s release on PC, consoles, mobile devices, and handhelds allowed anyone to try the game if they wanted. Despite being more than 15 years old, its popularity only continues to grow.
Minecraft is a sandbox survival game that allows players to explore, collect resources, and build almost anything they can imagine.
When a player starts a new game of Minecraft, they are dropped in the middle of the wilderness with no direction. The only interaction players have initially is the ability to punch. Everything in the world appears in block form and punching a block enough times will break it. Once the block is broken, players can collect it and craft it into items, weapons, or tools.
However, the player cannot immediately collect all blocks. Tools first need to be built out of wood, then players need to start collecting ore that is forged into metal, which are then used to build pickaxes and shovels. This scales all the way into collecting and using diamonds.
As time goes on, players have to contend with both monsters and hunger. Monsters can be defeated with swords and magic, while animals can be hunted and crops can be grown for food.
Crafting isn’t just limited to primitive weapons and tools, though. As time goes on, players can construct various simple machines that can be combined to create things like elevators, lighthouses, and drawbridges. This allows players to flex their creative muscles after they’ve mastered the basics of survival.
According to numerous measures, Minecraft is the highest-selling video game of all time. The game has sold over 350 million units as of April 2025 according to Mojang, and maintains a nine-figure active monthly user count.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Minecraft is much bigger than just the original game at this point.
In 2015, a first official spin-off was released in Minecraft: Story Mode. As the name would suggest, the game is a narrative-focused adventure game produced by Telltale Games, the creators of The Wolf Among Us. It was released in numerous episodes from 2015 to 2018.
This was followed in 2020 by action-RPG dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons. The game sees players hack and slash their way through procedurally generated dungeons from a top-down angle, rather than the series’ normal first-person perspective.
While Minecraft: Story Mode and Minecraft Dungones were fairly well received, the Minecraft name doesn’t necessarily guarantee success or quality.
Minecraft Earth launched in 2019, offering a real-life Minecraft experience in the form of an augmented reality game. Though it was praised for its ambitious concept and gameplay, the title was shut down in 2021.
2023 saw Minecraft launch another spin-off in Minecraft Legends. Though the game used Minecraft’s aesthetic and characters, it’s a real-time strategy game more akin to StarCraft. The game received middling reviews.
In 2025, it also received a film adaptation entitled A Minecraft Movie. The film had an all-star cast led by Jack Black and Jason Momoa. It garnered mixed reviews, but was a commercial success, grossing over $900 million at the box office.
Though Minecraft hasn’t hit consistent home runs, the commercial success of its spin-offs demonstrates the enduring popularity of the game.
Minecraft remains one of the most popular games in the world more than 15 years after its public alpha release.
Mojang stated in 2025 that the game has approximately 170 million unique users per month. That user dwarfs almost anything else in gaming. That figure eclipses the estimated user count of Steam, and is higher than the total number of PlayStation 2 consoles sold.
The game isn’t just retaining its established user base, though. The game is still selling tens of millions of units each year, making it one of the top-selling titles on an annual basis. This has actually contributed to the game’s user count growing over time, going from 112 million in 2019 to the 170 million in 2025.
Even the most tenured Minecraft players have reason to return, though. Mojang is improving Minecraft by adding new content alongside releasing it on new platforms.
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