Data from a new report suggests that Minecraft now has over 600 million active players worldwide -- and 400 million of them are from China.Since its release in 2009, the multi-platform sandbox game has become the best selling video game of all time, having sold 200 million copies across the globe. Though it has fallen in and out of fashion over the past few years, its popularity has remained absolute. Last year, Minecraft Studio Head Helen Chiang announced that the game had over 112 million players per month, a huge 20 million increase since 2018. This year, however, Minecraft gained 100 million players from China alone -- the fastest growth in Minecraft's history.
Daniel Ahmad, a senior industry analyst at Niko Partners, shared the information in a recent tweet. The number of active players in China -- now up to 400 million -- means that 28.5% of the people living in mainland China own the game. That's one in every four people. This could possibly be explained by the fact that in China, unlike in the rest of the world, Minecraft is free-to-play on mobile and PC. It is not, however, the most popular free-to-play game in the country -- that remains CrossFire, a first-person shooter with over a billion registered users.
Minecraft remains relatively unique in both its graphic style -- a blocky, procedurally generated and infinite 3D world with first-person and third-person views -- and in its flexible gameplay, with options for multiplayer, single-player, survival, creative and heavily modded experiences. It is a firm favorite among gaming streamers on YouTube and Twitch. Recently, Minecraft developer Mojang held a live stream presentation detailing future updates to the game.
The biggest announcement was the upcoming Caves and Cliffs update, which will add new plants and creatures (including mountain goats and axolotls), new materials like copper and amethyst, craftable items like telescopes and new cave biomes like Deep Dark and Dripstone. The update will also add a new mob: The Warden. Blind but with very sensitive hearing, The Warden has not been designed to be hunted by players, but to help "recapture that feeling of the first night of Minecraft."
Minecraft was created by Markus "Notch" Persson as a paid alpha for computers in 2009. Following the general release in November 2011, it was ported to several other platforms and is currently available on Windows, iOS, Linux, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS and Raspberry Pi. It has three spin-off games: Minecraft Classic, Minecraft Earth, Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft: Story Mode.
Source: GameRant