“Minecraft” continues to be one of the most popular games ever made.
The creation/survival indie game that Microsoft purchased back in 2014 for $2.5 billion has now sold 144 million copies, and enjoys a monthly userbase of 74 million players. The latest numbers were revealed in an interview with Helen Chiang, the new head of Microsoft's “Minecraft” group, at PopSugar.
Those numbers are exceptional, even by “Minecraft” standards.
The game has been a notoriously explosive phenomenon since early in its life; “Minecraft” started as a work-in-progress game, made by a single man (Markus “Notch” Persson). It had rudimentary graphics and controls. It was only available on PC. It was prone to breaking, because it was an unfinished game being made by a single person.
And yet, millions of people bought and played that early version of “Minecraft.” When Microsoft bought the game back in 2014, the tech world was surprised and confused by the purchase. Persson did not join Microsoft.
But clearly that early success has persisted under Microsoft's care. Just to compare, more people play Minecraft on a monthly basis than the populations of France, UK, Italy, or South Korea.
But why is it so popular? We're talking about a game that looks like this:
“Minecraft” is available on nearly every game platform available, including the Nintendo Switch.Nintendo
Think of “Minecraft” as virtual LEGO.
It's a system for fitting pieces together to create something — sometimes amazing somethings — from nothing. “Minecraft” provides endless building blocks and a blank canvas. It's up to you to create something incredible, or silly, or referential, or whatever, using the tools it provides. The tools are blessedly user-friendly, as are the systems for employing those tools.
With that in mind, it's not hard to understand why “Minecraft” has been such a hit. That it's graphically rudimentary and simple to play just makes it all the more accessible to a large audience — nearly 75 million people every month, apparently.
Minecraft developer Mojang will join us on-stage at the PC Gamer Weekender to discuss future updates for the game, as well as offering insight into how features for the game are conceived and developed. The studio's lead creative designer Jens Bergensten will present at 16.00 on Sunday, 18 February at the Olympia in London. Come along, and learn more about what they've got in store for 2018.
Minecraft, of course, just had its biggest active month ever with 74 million users. Hell, you know what it is. This is a great opportunity to go behind-the-scenes with the developer, and while you're at the Weekender, you can check out many more speakers, games and booths. Tickets are available now from £12.99, and you can save an extra 20% with the voucher code PC-GAMER20.
We’ve launched the PC Gamer Club, a membership program that offers ad-free browsing on this site and a bunch of other benefits including a digital subscription to PC Gamer magazine, monthly game keys, access to our private Discord server and more. For all the info, visit club.pcgamer.com.
Minecraft has blitzed through yet another record player count, with the multi-million selling survival phenomenom having notched up a staggering 74 million active users during December 2017.
The figure was confirmed by Minecraft overlord Helen Chiang during a chat with PopSugar, although she didn't clarify how this figure was broken down across the many platforms the game is supported on.
‘We just recently set a new record in December for monthly active users, so now we're at 74 million monthly active users—and that's really a testament to people coming back to the game, whether it's through the game updates or bringing in new players from across the world,' she said.
Minecraft updates have been pretty slow as of late, although its developer has confirmed that things will change in Spring 2018 with the release of the Aquatic update. Oh, and if there was any possible lingering doubt of the game's popularity, it's now flogged 144 million copies worldwide, making it the second best-selling game ever behind Tetris.
Warner Bros. has released a brand new TV spot for Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, which features a hidden Easter Egg that unlocks an awesome featurette with even more never-before-seen footage!
As Tom Brady and the 5x World Champion New England Patriots attempt to secure another trip to the Super Bowl, Warner Bros. has released a spectacular new TV spot for Steven Spielberg's highly-anticipated Ready Player One, which features one very special Easter Egg that actually unlocks even more new footage.
The film stars Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke as Parzival and Art3mis, respectively, with a supporting cast that features Ben Mendelsohn, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, T.J. Miller, Hannah John-Kamen, and Lena Waithe, amongst others.
Watch the new TV spot below:
Plus, in case you couldn't spot the hidden QR code, here's the exclusive featurette that features never-before-seen footage and narration from the legendary Steven Spielberg:
The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.
Ready Player One features: Director: Steven Spielberg Tye Sheridan as Wade Owen Watts/Parzival Olivia Cooke as Art3mis Ben Mendelsohn as Nolan Sorrento Simon Pegg as Ogden “Og” Morrow Mark Rylance as James Donovan Halliday/Anorak T.J. Miller as i-R0k Hannah John-Kamen in an undisclosed role Lena Waithe as Aech Win Morisaki as Toshiro Yoshiaki/Daito Philip Zhao as Akihide Karatsu/Shoto Ralph Ineson as Rick Letitia Wright as Reb Mckenna Grace in an undisclosed role
As the AFC Championship Game between the 5x World Champion New England Patriots and the Jacksonville Jaguars continues, Warner Bros. has released an awesome new TV spot for their upcoming video game movie adaptation/reboot of Tomb Raider. The film stars Alicia Vikander as the daredevil extraordinaire Lara Croft, who finds herself on the adventure of a lifetime, searching for the truth behind her father's disappearance.
On another note, it looks like Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life are both getting the 4K Ultra HD treatment ahead of the new film's release. Both titles are due out on February 27th and are currently available to pre-order on Amazon (1, 2).
Watch the new “Adventure” TV spot below:
Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone.
Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death.Going explicitly against his final wishes, she leaves everything she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lara, who—against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit—must learn to push herself beyond her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.
Tomb Raider features: Director: Roar Uthaug Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft Walton Goggins as Mathias Vogel Daniel Wu as Lu Ren Dominic West as Lord Richard Croft Hannah John-Kamen as Sophie Antonio Aakeel as Nitin Kristin Scott Thomas as Ana Miller
