Minecraft Tops 100 Million Sales

With 106,859,714 copies sold as of Thursday, Minecraft is the second most popular video game ever. Only Tetris has sold more copies than Minecraft, and that game was launched in 1984.

Minecraft’s first test version was launched in 2009, and the company that built the game, Mojang AB of Stockholm, was formed a year later. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) acquired Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014.

The sales count for both games includes PC, game console and mobile versions. Microsoft claims that it has posted average sales of more than 53,000 copies of the game every day so far in 2016.

[nativounit]

Mobile versions account for 51% of Asia/Asia-Pacific sales, 44% of Middle East/Africa sales, 41% of total North America sales, 38% of Latin America sales and 36% of sales in Europe.

Sales of the PC version have fallen to 15% of total Latin America sales, 19% of North America and Asia-Pacific sales, 21% of Middle East Africa sales and 29% of sales in Europe.

Console game sales range from a high of 47% in Latin America to a low of 19% in Asia-Pacific.

A Minecraft live-action movie is in the works and, according to the Minecraft Wiki, is unlikely to be released until sometime in 2018. Earlier this year, producer Roy Lee, who produced the wildly popular “The LEGO Movie,” said that the film was in the “scripting stages” and that work on visual design was also moving ahead.

What’s the movie about? According to website Blastr, Lee said “Minecraft would be part of a multiverse where humans can enter that has the feel of what the live action version of a Minecraft experience.” [sic]

[wallst_email_signup]

With more than 100 million copies sold and more than 40 million people a month playing the game, a Minecraft movie has a good chance to be a big hit.

For the record, Tetris is believed to have sold about 425 million copies.