Minecraft

Minecraft is a three-dimensional sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, giving players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game features an optional achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of third-person perspectives (back and front). The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, logs, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a voxel grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build structures. Very few blocks are affected by gravity, instead maintaining their voxel position in the air. Players can craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or bows and arrows), which allow monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely craft helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores, and torches that produce light—or exchange items with villagers (NPCs) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems. New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but are able to create and upload their own skins. Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, spawn during the daytime and can be hunted for food and crafting materials, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies and skeletons, burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). Generation The Minecraft environment is procedurally generated as players explore it using a map seed that is randomly chosen at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). Divided into biomes representing different environments with unique resources and structures, worlds are designed to be effectively infinite in traditional gameplay, though technical limits on the player have existed throughout development, both intentionally and not. The Far Lands and associated glitches were considered the effective edge of the world until they were resolved, with the current horizontal limit instead being a special impassable barrier called the world border, located 30 million blocks away. Vertical space is comparatively limited, with an unbreakable bedrock layer at the bottom and a building limit several hundred blocks into the sky. Dimensions Minecraft features three independent dimensions accessible through portals and providing alternate game environments. The Overworld is the starting dimension and represents the real world, with a terrestrial surface setting including plains, mountains, forests, oceans, caves, and small sources of lava. Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic pigs called piglins and their zombified counterparts. Piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension. The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand. The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal. The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past, is the game's only narrative text, and the only text of significant length directed at the player. At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely. Game modes Survival mode as well as some other blocks and items in the player's inventory|alt=The player attempting to make a wooden sword by placing the required materials into the crafting grid, a 3x3 block of item spaces hovering over the standard inventory, which is filled with other items. In Survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. If the hunger bar is at 3 units or lower, the player can no longer sprint, and if it is empty, the player starves. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, animal breeding, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects. Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update, and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters usually do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance. Players can run their own server by making a realm, using a host provider, hosting one themselves or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Nintendo Switch Online. Single-player worlds have LAN support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. Minecraft Realms In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use server addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018. Modification The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation. The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December, and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", Marketplace In June 2017, Mojang released the "1.1 Discovery Update" to the Pocket Edition of the game, which later became the Bedrock Edition. The update introduced the "Marketplace", a catalogue of purchasable user-generated content intended to give Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game". Various skins, maps, texture packs and add-ons from different creators can be bought with "Minecoins", a digital currency that is purchased with real money. Additionally, users can access specific content with a subscription service titled "Marketplace Pass". Alongside content from independent creators, the Marketplace also houses items published by Mojang and Microsoft themselves, as well as official collaborations between Minecraft and other intellectual properties. By 2022, the Marketplace had over 1.7 billion content downloads, generating over $500 million in revenue. == Development ==

Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One such project was "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes. Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDungs future direction. The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource. On 2 December 2011, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property. Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years. On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing, and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs. The public release was made available on 8 December 2020. Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website, or with compatible third-party texture packs. It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world. Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues. On 22 March 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. Vibrant Visuals was released as a part of the Chase the Skies update on 17 June 2025 for Bedrock Edition and is planned to release on Java Edition at a later date. Editions Java Edition {{Timeline of release years Minecraft originated in May 2009 when Persson developed the first known versions of the game, then called Cave Game, featuring a world composed of grass and cobblestone blocks that could be placed and removed. The game was renamed Minecraft following its publication on the TIGSource forums, and Persson continued updating it based on community feedback in a phase later referred to as Classic, during which multiplayer capabilities and a survival mode featuring hostile monsters were introduced. Ambient music composed by C418 was also added during the Classic phase. The game entered the Indev phase on 23 December 2009, inheriting features from a branch of Classic called Survival Test and introducing paintings by artist Kristoffer Zetterstrand, before Persson began a new development branch called Infdev on 27 February 2010 to experiment with infinite worlds. Minecraft entered the Alpha phase on 30 June 2010, during which updates were frequent and spontaneous, and redstone—a material capable of transmitting signals to alter the state of various blocks—was introduced. Alpha v1.2.0, released on 30 October 2010, added biomes and the Nether. Minecraft entered the Beta phase on 20 December 2010, with Beta 1.0 introducing throwable eggs and leaf decay. Beta 1.8, released on 14 September 2011 and titled the Adventure Update, reworked world generation by adding new biomes, structures, and terrain features including ravines, and overhauled player movement and combat by introducing sprinting, critical hits, and a hunger bar that replaced direct food healing. Beta 1.8 also added creative mode. The first full release, version 1.0.0, was officially released on 18 November 2011, Version 1.3, released on 1 August 2012, introduced villager trading and emerald currency, and notably merged the single-player and multiplayer codebases. Version 1.8, the Bountiful Update released on 2 September 2014, was followed by a period with no major updates until February 2016 due to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang AB and Persson's departure from the company. The Combat Update, version 1.9, released on 29 February 2016, Version 1.13, the Update Aquatic released on 18 July 2018, overhauled oceans by adding biomes, coral reefs, shipwrecks, fish as living mobs, and new underwater creatures including the Drowned. The Caves & Cliffs update was split into two parts, released in June and November 2021 respectively, with Part I introducing new mobs and materials including copper blocks that oxidize over time, and Part II increasing the world height from 256 to 384 blocks and reworking terrain generation with expanded caves and taller mountains. allowing players to excavate items from the ground using a brush. In September 2023, Mojang announced a shift from major annual updates to more frequently released game drops, with drops under this process adding features including trial chamber dungeons in version 1.21, bundle inventory items in version 1.21.2, and the pale garden biome with a new hostile mob called the Creaking in version 1.21.4. Legacy Console Edition The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012. Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. The Xbox 360 version evolved from an outdated PC port to a Java-equivalent edition before it was discontinued. The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players. Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively. Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release. A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios. Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016 and in Europe on 30 June. The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017. On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update, which disabled world transfers to newer versions. Following their discontinuation, the editions would later become known as Legacy Console Editions. The Legacy Console Editions source code was leaked on 4chan in 2026, revealing unused structures and world types. Pocket Edition and Bedrock Edition In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011. The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version. Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java. On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In July 2015, a port of the Pocket Edition to Windows 10 was released as the Windows 10 Edition, with full crossplay to other Pocket versions. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition, would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems. This version received its final update on 15 January 2019 and was subsequently discontinued. On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update merged the Windows 10 Edition, Xbox One Edition and Pocket Edition into the unified Bedrock Edition, enabling cross-play between these versions. Bedrock Edition was later released for Nintendo Switch The Bedrock Edition released a native version for PlayStation 5 on 22 October 2024, while the Xbox Series X/S version launched on 17 June 2025. Other versions Minecraft Education An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016. It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. Minecraft for Windows This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate. Minecraft: Pi Edition A version of Minecraft for the Raspberry Pi single board computer was released in alpha on February 11 2013. It shares many similarities with Minecraft: Pocket Edition Alpha v0.6.1, upon which it is based. The only available game mode is Creative Mode; Survival Mode is disabled, and there is no crafting or smelting system. A distinguishing feature of Pi Edition compared to standard Pocket Edition is its built-in application programming interface (API). The API allows players and developers to interact with and control the in-game environment through externally written programs, supporting languages including Python. This feature made Pi Edition particularly attractive for educational use, enabling teachers and students to write code that directly manipulates the Minecraft world in real time. Pi Edition never received any subsequent updates after its initial release. Despite this, it was included by default in installations of Raspberry Pi OS for several years before eventually being dropped from the platform. Although it has been officially discontinued, it remains available as a free download from the official Minecraft website. On 26 June 2025, a build of Brickcraft dated 28 June 2012 was published on a community archive website Omniarchive. Virtual reality Initially, Markus Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out." In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive. Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition, leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 Bedrock version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month. In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025. == Music and sound design ==

in 2011|thumb Minecraft music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. To create the sound effects for the game, Rosenfeld made extensive use of Foley techniques. On learning the processes for the game, he remarked, "Foley's an interesting thing, and I had to learn its subtleties. Early on, I wasn't that knowledgeable about it. It's a whole trial-and-error process. You just make a sound and eventually you go, 'Oh my God, that's it! Get the microphone!' There's no set way of doing anything at all." He reminisced on creating the in-game sound for grass blocks, stating "It turns out that to make grass sounds you don't actually walk on grass and record it, because grass sounds like nothing. What you want to do is get a VHS, break it apart, and just lightly touch the tape." According to Rosenfeld, his favorite sound to design for the game was the hisses of spiders. He elaborates, "I like the spiders. Recording that was a whole day of me researching what a spider sounds like. Turns out, there are spiders that make little screeching sounds, so I think I got this recording of a fire hose, put it in a sampler, and just pitched it around until it sounded like a weird spider was talking to you." On other sounds, such as those of the zombie, Rosenfeld remarked, "I actually never wanted the zombies so scary. I intentionally made them sound comical. It's nice to hear that they work so well [...]." To compose the music of Minecraft, Rosenfeld used the package from Ableton Live, along with several additional plug-ins. Speaking on them, Rosenfeld said "They can be pretty much everything from an effect to an entire orchestra. Additionally, I've got some synthesizers that are attached to the computer. Like a Moog Voyager, Dave Smith Prophet 08 and a Virus TI." Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which included the music that was added in a 2013 "Music Update" for the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. On 14 August 2020, Ghostly released Volume Beta on CD and vinyl, with alternate color LPs and lenticular cover pressings released in limited quantities. The final update Rosenfeld worked on was 2018's 1.13 Update Aquatic. His music remained the only music in the game until 2020's "Nether Update", introducing pieces from Lena Raine. Since then, other composers have made contributions, including Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, Aaron Cherof, and Amos Roddy, with Raine remaining as the new primary composer. Ownership of all music besides Rosenfeld's independently released albums has been retained by Microsoft, with their label publishing all of the other artists' releases. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions. Rosenfeld had stated his intent to create a third album of music for the game in a 2015 interview with Fact, However, due to licensing issues with Microsoft, the third volume has since not seen release. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not there was still a third volume of his music intended for release. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know." == Reception ==

Critics Minecraft has received critical acclaim, with praise for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have expressed enjoyment in Minecraft complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly. The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly identical to the Xbox One edition. The Wii U version received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price, technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its relatively larger worlds. Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized. After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of content. despite having no publisher backing or commercial advertisement except through word of mouth and unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that the alpha version had generated 800,000 sales and the beta version over one million, producing approximately €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue. Prior to the game's full release in November 2011, the beta had accumulated more than 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had sold over five million copies on PC, making it the sixth best-selling PC game of all time. Eight months later, in November 2012, PC sales had risen to over eight million copies. PC sales reached 10 million in April 2013, and the following month, Pocket Edition sales independently reached 10 million. As of 26 February 2014, the PC version had sold 14.3 million copies. By October 2014, PC sales had surpassed 17 million, at which point Minecraft became the best-selling PC game of all time. In April 2019, PC sales reached 30 million copies. The Xbox 360 version became profitable on its first day of release in 2012, breaking Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online simultaneously. Within one week of its appearance on the Xbox Live Marketplace, the Xbox 360 version had sold one million copies. In December 2012, GameSpot reported that the Xbox version had sold 4.48 million copies since its debut on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012, bringing total cross-platform sales at that time to 17.5 million. For the full year 2012, Minecraft ranked as the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade and the fourth most played title on Xbox Live by average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014, the Xbox 360 version had sold 12 million copies. Minecraft contributed $63 million to Microsoft's total first-party revenue in the second quarter of 2015. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies within five weeks of release. The PlayStation Vita version's launch produced a 79% increase in overall Minecraft sales, outselling both the PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation platform. Within the first two months of its Japanese release, the PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies, as reported by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies had been sold across all PlayStation platforms in Japan, with primary school children representing a notable portion of PS Vita purchasers. As of 2022, the PS Vita version had sold over 1.65 million physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Separately, Minecraft: Pocket Edition reached 21 million in total sales, and the free-to-play Minecraft China version had accumulated over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users across all platforms. In June 2016, total cross-platform sales reached 100 million units, and by October 2018 that figure had grown to 154 million copies. In May 2019, on the tenth anniversary of the game's release, total sales surpassed 176 million copies, making Minecraft the best-selling video game of all time. By 2023, total sales had exceeded 300 million copies, and as of April 2025, the figure stood at over 350 million. In January 2020, Minecraft was reported to be the best-selling new intellectual property of the 2010s in the United Kingdom by units, though Destiny surpassed it in that market by revenue. By September 2019, all versions of the game combined had over 112 million monthly active players. In May 2020, on the game's eleventh anniversary, Mojang announced that Minecraft had surpassed 200 million copies sold across platforms, with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the monthly active user count had risen further to 140 million. Awards In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013, it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year". Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2021. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same category in 2022 and 2023. At the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, it won the Still Playing Award - PC and Console. Controversies Minecraft has been subject to several notable controversies. In June 2014, Mojang announced that it would begin enforcing the portion of Minecrafts end-user license agreement (EULA) which prohibits servers from giving in-game advantages to players in exchange for donations or payments. Spokesperson Owen Hill stated that servers could still require players to pay a fee to access the server and could sell in-game cosmetic items. The change was supported by Persson, citing emails he received from parents of children who had spent hundreds of dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners protested, arguing that the EULA's terms were more broad than Mojang was claiming, that the crackdown would force smaller servers to shut down for financial reasons, and that Mojang was suppressing competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription service. The controversy contributed to Notch's decision to sell Mojang. In 2020, Mojang announced an eventual change to the Java Edition to require a login from a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang account, the latter of which would be sunsetted. This also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be offered, including two-factor authentication, blocking cyberbullies in chat, and improved parental controls. The community responded with intense backlash, citing various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of 10 March 2022, Microsoft required that all players migrate in order to maintain access the Java Edition of Minecraft. Mojang announced a deadline of 19 September 2023 for account migration, after which all legacy Mojang accounts became inaccessible and unable to be migrated. In June 2022, Mojang added a player-reporting feature in Java Edition. Players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane language, substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community Standards, they would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July 2022. Mojang received substantial backlash and protest from community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship, leading some to start a hashtag #saveminecraft and dub the version "1.19.84", a reference to the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Mob Vote The "Mob Vote" was an online event organized by Mojang in which the Minecraft community voted between three original mob concepts; initially, the winning mob was to be implemented in a future update, while the losing mobs were scrapped, though after the first mob vote this was changed, and losing mobs would now have a chance to come to the game in the future. The first Mob Vote was held during Minecon Earth 2017 and became an annual event starting with Minecraft Live 2020. The Mob Vote was often criticized for forcing players to choose one mob instead of implementing all three, causing divisions and flaming within the community, and potentially allowing internet bots and Minecraft content creators with large fanbases to conduct vote brigading. The Mob Vote was also blamed for a perceived lack of new content added to Minecraft since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang in 2014. In response, a Change.org petition was created on 6 October, demanding that Mojang eliminate the Mob Vote and instead implement all three mobs going forward. The petition received approximately 445,000 signatures by 13 October and was joined by calls to boycott the Mob Vote, as well as a partially tongue-in-cheek "revolutionary" propaganda campaign in which sympathizers created anti-Mojang and pro-boycott posters in the vein of real 20th century propaganda posters. Mojang did not release an official response to the boycott, and the Mob Vote otherwise proceeded normally, with the armadillo winning the vote. In September 2024, as part of a blog post detailing their future plans for Minecrafts development, Mojang announced the Mob Vote would be retired. == Cultural impact ==

In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of the 21st century to date, and in November 2019, Polygon called it the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade in review". In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access model in indie game development. (known professionally as "CaptainSparklez") is known for his musical Minecraft parodies of popular songs. Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit have played a significant role in popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most searched term on the entire platform. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a now-defunct gaming video company that owned a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. Another well-known YouTube personality is Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, who has also created many Minecraft music parodies, including "Revenge", a parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". Minecrafts popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant, although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthroughs of the game, Minecraft experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. Longer-running series include Far Lands or Bust, dedicated to reaching the obsolete "Far Lands" glitch by foot on an older version of the game. YouTube announced on 14 December 2021 that the total amount of Minecraft-related views on the website had exceeded one trillion. Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, and FTL: Faster Than Light. Minecraft is officially represented in downloadable content for the crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Steve as a playable character with a moveset including references to building, crafting, and redstone, alongside an Overworld-themed stage. It was also referenced by electronic music artist Deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park. In 2025, A Minecraft Movie was released. It generated $313 million in the box office in the first week, a record-breaking opening for a video game adaptation. Minecraft has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Generation Z, as many of the generation's members played the game at a young age. Minecraft speedrunning is widely practiced despite the game's unpredictable procedural generation. The most popular category, Random-Seed Glitchless, tasks players with defeating the Ender Dragon as quickly as possible starting from a new world spawn. Some speedrunners employ a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus to optimize their runs, while others compete under conditions closer to the default game, prioritizing consistency over the use of such tools. Real-world applications In a 2011 Minecon panel, a Swedish developer raised the possibility of using Minecraft to redesign public buildings and parks, arguing that rendering within the game was more accessible to community members and made it easier to envision the functionality of proposed structures. Also in 2012, Mojang launched the Block by Block project in partnership with UN Habitat, with the aim of recreating real-world environments inside the game so that residents could participate in designing changes to their own neighborhoods by modifying representations of their communities directly. Mojang's managing director, Carl Manneh, described the game as the "perfect" tool for facilitating this process and said that the three-year partnership was intended to support UN Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network in upgrading 300 public spaces by 2016. Mojang engaged the Minecraft building community FyreUK to assist in rendering the relevant environments, and the first pilot project was launched in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements. In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency used its own geodata to generate a full-scale representation of Denmark within Minecraft. The project was feasible in part because Denmark ranks among the flattest countries in the world, with its highest point standing at 171 meters and its elevation span placing it 30th smallest globally. At the time the project was completed, the default vertical limit in Minecraft was approximately 192 meters above in-game sea level, which was sufficient to accommodate Denmark's terrain. The non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders took advantage of Minecrafts accessibility in regions where other internet resources are censored, establishing an open server to host what it called the Uncensored Library. The library functions as an in-game repository of journalism produced by writers from countries including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, among them figures who have been censored or arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building housing the repository was constructed over approximately 250 hours by an international team of 24 people. Education Minecraft has been used in educational settings Educators have used Minecraft to teach subjects such as history, language arts, and science through custom-built environments, including reconstructions of historical landmarks and large-scale models of biological structures such as animal cells. The introduction of redstone blocks enabled the construction of functional virtual machines such as a hard drive and an 8-bit computer. Mods have been created to use these mechanics for teaching programming. In 2014, the British Museum announced a project to reproduce its building and exhibits in Minecraft in collaboration with the public. Microsoft and Code.org have offered Minecraft-based tutorials and activities designed to teach programming, reporting by 2018 that more than 85 million children had used their resources. In 2025, the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris held a temporary exhibition titled "Minerals in Minecraft". Clones Following the surge in Minecrafts popularity from 2010 onward, numerous other games were characterized as "clones" of it, whether due to direct inspiration or superficial visual similarity. Named examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, FortressCraft, Terraria, and Luanti, formerly known as Minetest. David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, acknowledged that his 2D game's low-resolution pixel art too closely resembled Minecrafts aesthetic, resulting in what he described as "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of Minecrafts alpha version for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, was also released and noted for its fidelity to the original given the console's technical constraints. Following Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang, several developers announced clone titles specifically targeting Nintendo's consoles, which were at the time the only major platforms not to have received an official Minecraft release; these titles included UCraft by Nexis Games, Cube Life: Island Survival by Cypronia, Discovery by Noowanda, Cube Creator 3D by Big John Games, and Stone Shire by Finger Gun Games. Those concerns ultimately proved unfounded, as official Minecraft releases on Nintendo platforms eventually resumed. Markus Persson developed a separate game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011. In 2025, Persson used a poll on his X account to signal he was considering a spiritual successor to Minecraft, subsequently clarifying he was "100% serious" and had effectively announced Minecraft 2, though he cancelled the plans within days after consulting his team. In November 2024, artificial intelligence companies Decart and Etched released Oasis, an AI-generated recreation of Minecraft presented as a proof of concept, in which every element is generated in real time without stored world data, producing hallucinations such as items and blocks appearing that had not previously been present. In January 2026, indie developer Unomelon announced that its voxel sandbox game Allumeria would be playable during that year's Steam Next Fest; on 10 February, Mojang issued a DMCA takedown of the game through Valve, alleging copyright infringement, though the takedown was later withdrawn. Minecon and related events Minecon was an annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first full Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event coincided with the official launch of Minecraft and included keynote speeches, including one by Persson, building and costume contests, Minecraft-themed breakout classes, exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies, commemorative merchandise, and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual "Minecon Earth" livestreams on minecraft.net and YouTube instead. These livestreams, later rebranded to "Minecraft Live", included the mob/biome votes, and announcements of new game updates. In 2025, "Minecraft Live" became a biannual event as part of Minecraft changing update schedule. == Notes ==