I would imagine that lots of you enjoy Minecraft and understandably so as it is fun and very creative. Microsoft has revealed today that the sandbox title has over 90 million monthly active users which is more than Epic Games Fortnite which had 78 million players monthly in August. Minecraft is currently the second best-selling video game ever after the mighty Tetris. It’s followed by Grand Theft Auto V. Here’s what Microsoft had to say about the series:
“The way that we’ve decided to expand — and I think ‘Dungeons’ is the first example of that — is a way that we’re trying to keep our community together,” she said.
“That’s why our updates our free. We don’t want to ask [players] to move from Minecraft 1 to Minecraft 2. We want them to just enjoy Minecraft.
“And there’s other ways that we can expand that are more meaningful and authentic to what we want to be, rather than just releasing another iteration in the way that most other franchises do.”
Seems weird that Microsoft is patting themselves on the back for this success when all they did was just buy the studio for billions of dollars.
Plenty of companies have bought up successful IPs and drove them into the ground so I guess it’s an accomplishment.
These greedy bastards make it looke like Minecraft was their idea. Like “See how inventive and in-touch with customers we are! Buy our products!”
They are in touch with customers, that’s why they bought a game people were flocking to.
While your point does stand to a degree, it’s pretty important to note that Microsoft bought Minecraft in 2014 when Minecraft had sold about 50 million units. Today that number is 154 million. This means in sales and playerbase Minecraft has grown by about 204% under Microsoft. Put another way, Microsoft has managed roughly 67.5% of Minecraft’s lifetime sales. So Microsoft does in fact have room here to argue they were a big part of the success they currently have with Minecraft.
I do agree though that it’s more than questionable Minecraft would have done any worse without being purchased by Microsoft or any other large company, especially given they have been so hands-off with Mojang’s development decisions. Microsoft has pretty much only managed monetization and distribution.
I mean, it’s not like Minecraft wouldn’t have continued selling if it had gone on solo by itself.
Nintendo and Sony shall forever be my favorite game companies. Square Enix’s Dragon quest builders is a far superior building game to minecraft. It looks good too.
F=Ma.
Minecraft > Fortnite.