Minecraft has been around across various platforms since 2011, and it has maintained a good momentum of sales over the years. In January, the title became number 1 in the Japanese Wii U eShop charts LTD, overtaking Nintendo’s new IP, Splatoon.
What is also interesting about the Minecraft phenomenon, is the reported fact from today’s article in The New York Times, mentioning that the sandbox title sells 10,000 copies a day. Along with this, the article also reveals that there are now over 100 million registered players, and it has become the third best-selling video game in history, after Tetris and Wii Sports.
“Today it costs $27 and sells 10,000 copies a day. (It’s still popular across all age groups; according to Microsoft, the average player is between 28 and 29, and women make up nearly 40 percent of all players.”
With the addition of a Story Mode and steady amount of updates, Minecraft has continued to bring new content, allowing players to re-discover the game.
As journalist Clive Thompson portrays in the article, the title has endless possibilities for the player to let loose with their imagination and create whatever they desire. Which as he states is “the most obvious appeal to the game.”
“Nearly everyone who plays Minecraft, or even watches someone else do so, remarks on its feeling of freedom: All those blocks, infinities of them! Build anything you want! Players have recreated the Taj Mahal, the U.S.S. Enterprise from “Star Trek,” the entire capital city from “Game of Thrones.” It’s the most obvious appeal of the game.”
You can check out the full article here.
“Nearly everyone who plays Minecraft, or even watches someone else do so, remarks on its feeling of freedom: All those blocks, infinities of them! Build anything you want!”
Really? I find it incredibly boring watching someone else play. And when I play it myself, it just isn’t that interesting to keep my attention.
(Don’t kill me, just my opinion!)
I still haven’t played this game
And I never will!
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generally it’s the endless mods and custom content that keeps it going.
I’ve never even had any desire to play Minecraft because of how dumb it looks. Even when I see Minecraft merchandise in stores (figures, plastic swords etc.) I always think they look dumb.
Then again, I feel that same way about the Fire Emblem series. So it’s easier to say that it’s just not my cup of tea.
“the average player is between 28 and 29”
No offense to anyone, but that sucks. Considering that the player could theoretically be as young as 4-5.
I personally don’t like sandbox titles as I’m a completionist, and yes this has a ‘story’ but it’s hardly the main focus. It’s like playing Smash on the Wii for the story.
I don’t really think that the average player is between 28 and 29, it can be:
A) A parent within that age group owning Minecraft on the system so their children can play
or
B) A kid probably putting some random year as their year of birth, for the e-shop and stuff like that
But I am kinda surprised that Minecraft is selling so much on the Wii U, so that’s good.
Considering the average age of a gamer is 31 and there are more gamers over age 36 than between 18 and 35, why is it so hard to believe that a game about building whatever you want would be appealing to adults?
No way in hell that statistic is true. Whatever methodology they used to come up with it, it has to be flawed.
If I actually played minecraft I’d probably just build it to resemble WoW, or maybe Secret of Mama or Pokemon. The Pokemon Mod actually almost had me playing Minecraft, but its for PC only. It’s kind of a hard game to get into.
Secret of Mama: Cooking Mama and the Magic Kitchen
Huur? Don’t play no mamas kitchen! I make my own damn sammiches!
lol I’ve never played Cooking Mama either but Secret of Mana is a classic ^^
Oh man, its the only SNES cartridge I have left that I know works. I still play it on my Wii. SoM is the one main series that I feel NEEDS to make a comeback. The action and summoning work so differently. Other than Legend of Mana, all the new reiterations have been meh at best.
But yes!
I’ve only played the original (which is actually a sequel in japan) on the SNES the whole way through. I played a little bit of the Sword of Mana (a remake of the original from Japan) on the GBA, I wasn’t really feeling it at much. I think they made a 3D remake of the original Japan release again just recently for the Vita, it could be interesting.
Even though it’s on ps1 (I think) Legend of Mama is fun as well, I’ve only played parts of it.
Wii sports and Terri’s do not count. Utter bullshit when a came is bundled
*tetris
You’re a fucking idiot! If anything, then the Wii Sports games should count 5x as much because all the casuals bought a Wii JUST to play that single game! Same goes for Tetris, when the Game Boy came out most people bought it only for that game alone!
I wonder how long it will take to make their 2 billion back, at that rate about 20 years
Approx 74 days. It’s not that hard to do the math.
2,000,000,000/(10,000*27)/365 is about 20 years … so yeah… math.
Why is Wii Sports always named the highest selling game ever? It came with the Wii. That’s the only reason I (and MOST others) own Wii Sports. It’s a crappy, casual game. Actually, it’s just a demo to show off the Wii controls. I wanna know what the highest selling game is that people specifically bought, that wasn’t just included in a bundle?
Tetris?
I still get down on Wii Bowling when I’m in the mood, the Wii U version allows you to play with people online which is actually kind of fun. The controls are actually quite accurate with the type of spin and speed you can get on a ball, but I’ve been into bowling since 5 years old so maybe I’m biased lol
They should have added some resort games though. That one had even more and better things to do.
I like how you had the option to buy the games individually though, I only really wanted bowling so I only had to spend $9.99
How and why is Splatoon “infamous”? WTF!?
Why not just amazing new IP from Nintendo?