Minecraft Franchise Facts and Sales May 2020

May 21, 2020 at 3:39am
By Jason Stettner

It would seem that Minecraft is growing even more rapidly as it expands its content across additional devices. We haven’t been given statistics for quite awhile, and this point does mark about a year from the last one that was available.

I've listed highlights below and went further to note how these numbers compare to when I last did this franchise facts write-up which was May 2019, they noted interesting jumps.

That's right, the game has seen a really large jump in sales and we'll have more follow-up comparisons to see the tracking overall. I've included a bolded note for the original statistics from the previous article in the year past.

By the Numbers
-Minecraft has sold more than 200 million (from 176 million on May, 2019) copies to date to players from nearly every country in the world.

-It is still the best selling game of all time having passed Tetris.

-There are now more than 300 million users in China (from 200 million).

-More people are playing Minecraft than ever before, every month 126 million (from 91+ million) unique Minecraft players engage across all platforms.

-In 2016, Minecraft averaged over 53,000 units sold every day, and was the eighth best-selling video game of the year.

-The average Minecraft player age is 24 (US and Western Europe)

-Minecraft is the best-selling PC game of all time, and also one of the highest rated (93 Metascore)

-Partners now included Target, LEGO, Mattel, Jay Franco, Global Brands Group House and Bioworld for various products.

-The official big live action Movie is set to release on March 4, 2022.

-Since 2015, learners around the world have completed 130 million hours of Minecraft code sessions.

-Minecraft was the number one most watched game in 2019 on Youtube. It reached over a 100 billion views.

-More than 160 million people have watched more than 5 billion hours of Minecraft video content on YouTube.

-There were 50 billion views of Minecraft online video content in 2018.

-The Minecraft “Togetherness ACTIVATED!” YouTube ad for the Better Together Update placed #6 on YouTube’s list of top game-trailer ads of 2017, garnering over 11.8 million views.

-51 percent of U.S. children aged 9-11 play Minecraft

-90 percent of the U.S. online population is aware of the Minecraft brand

-About ¾ (77 percent) of the U.S. general online population age 8-65 has heard of Minecraft.

-More than 35 million students and teachers are licensed to use Minecraft: Education Edition, in more than 115 countries. It also offers more than 500 free lessons.

Minecraft has consumer products through the following global retailers and licensees. Uniqlo, LEGO, Mattel, Havaianas, Pottery Barn Kids, Jay Franco, Penguin Random House and many more.

Minecraft received the Double Platinum PlayStation Award for exceeding 2 million in sales on PlayStation Platforms in Japan, with only 13 other titles receiving this award since 1995. Minecraft has been the only game developed and published by a non-Japanese company to receive the award.

These were yet again impressive details about the game on a global and United States scale, the game is rolling from its Bedrock update that brought cross-play, a community store and a refined experience to most platforms. This was boosted by the addition of the Nintendo Switch to the "Bedrock" edition and further niche releases. The Minecraft Xbox One X enhanced version was cancelled in favor of a new engine and the move to Xbox Series X.

We'll follow up with any changes in the future, though with such a large gain I’d be surprised to see another jump for awhile. Direct comparisons being made to the May 2019 news article which has changed a lot. For more details and coverage on the game check out our Minecraft Hub below.

Read our Minecraft Frozen Review
View our Minecraft Hub