How Many People Play Minecraft?

Are you wondering how many people play Minecraft in 2022?

When Minecraft was first launched back in 2011, few could have predicted what a global phenomenon it would become. Created by a Swedish game developer Markus “Notch” Persson in 2009, Minecraft is a sandbox video game with open-ended gameplay and no pre-determined objectives or goals.

Players are dropped in the middle of a pixelated landscape, where they can build 3D worlds with various kinds of blocks, mine for resources, craft items and weapons, and fend off attacks from hostile mobs. It’s a simple concept that has proven to be incredibly addictive and popular.

Since its release, over 238 million copies of the game have been sold across all platforms, making it the best selling video game of all time and a classic within the gaming community.

But what makes this game so captivating?

Let’s dive into the latest Minecraft statistics and look at the numbers behind this global gaming phenomenon. 

General Minecraft Usage Statistics 

If you’re curious about how many people play Minecraft every month, these numbers may surprise you. 

Minecraft’s active player count hasn’t stopped growing a decade after its release, reaching an impressive 141 million monthly active players in August 2021. reaching an impressive 141 million monthly active players in August 2021. That is a new record for the platform, which broke its own previous record of 140 monthly active players in March 2021.

For comparison, in June 2016, Minecraft had “only” 40 million monthly active players, a figure which more than doubled by October 2018, reaching 91 million. Since then, the player base has continued to grow steadily, hitting the 126 million mark in May 2020 and reaching 140 million just a year later.

The table below shows Minecraft’s monthly players from 2016 to 2022:

According to PlayerCounter, Minecraft’s live player count fluctuates between 2.8 million and 3.6 million a day. The website uses a unique algorithm that determines the number of people playing the most popular games across the world in real-time.

As of October 2021, the Minecraft: Chinese Edition (a localised edition of the Java and Bedrock editions of the game made for mainland China) has surpassed 500 million players. In China, Minecraft is published by NetEase on PC and mobile and is free to play.

The coronavirus pandemic added even more players to Minecraft’s player count. In May 2020, Microsoft reported a 25% increase in the number of new Minecraft installations across all platforms. 

At the same time, Minecraft’s multiplayer sessions rose 40%, indicating players were using the popular gaming platform to virtually connect with friends they couldn’t see in person.

During a 2021 Minecraft Live broadcast, Mojang Studios revealed that the game has more than one billion multiplayer hours logged in so far. A single Minecraft multiplayer game can have a maximum of 30 players and can connect players across all supported platforms.

In September of 2014, Microsoft announced its acquisition of Minecraft’s developer Mojang Studios for $2.5 billion (roughly £2 billion), one of Microsoft’s largest acquisitions to date.

As much as people love playing Minecraft, they enjoy watching other people play too. In February 2021, Minecraft’s live-streamed content on Twitch peaked in viewership, with an average of 122,000 viewers.

The following month, in March 2021, Minecraft events on Twitch were watched for a total of 87.7 million hours, which is a current record for the game.

He was followed by RanbooLive and Philza, with users watching roughly 972,000 and 853,000 hours of their content, respectively.

Over the years, Minecraft has accumulated a total of 11.18 billion views on Twitch, making it the seventh most popular Twitch game of all time.  By comparison, the most-watched Twitch game of all time is League of Legends, with a staggering 48.1 billion views, followed by Fortnite with 27.7 billion Twitch views.

Still, when it comes to YouTube, no other game comes close to Minecraft’s popularity.

According to YouTube’s Culture & Trends Report, Minecraft was the most-watched game on the platform in 2020, with over 201 billion views. To put that number into perspective, the second most-watched game on YouTube in 2020 was Roblox, with an impressive 76 billion combined views, which is still 2.5 times less than Minecraft’s total views.

So, the following Minecraft statistic shouldn’t come as a surprise.

In December 2021, Minecraft reached another milestone — it passed its one trillionth view on YouTube, making it the most popular game in YouTube’s history. The Minecraft YouTube community consists of over 35,000 creators based in 150+ countries worldwide.

Content ranges from gameplay videos and tutorials to challenges, role-plays, fan-made animations, and more.

Minecraft Players by Country

According to PlayerCounter, the majority of Minecraft’s fan base comes from the US, with 21%. Brazil follows with 6.17% and Russia with 5.59%.

Here are the top five countries by active daily participation:

Minecraft Demographics

Despite the general public’s perception that Minecraft’s user base mostly consists of children, Minecraft’s studio head Helen Chiang claims otherwise. In a 2019 Edge magazine interview, Chiang stated that the average Minecraft player is a 24-year-old male.

A possible reason for that is the game’s continuous updates and addition of new content, which has kept players engaged for years.

Still, Minecraft enjoys huge popularity among children as well.

A 2018 survey which took into account the answers of 754 parents of children up to the age of 12 found that up to 68% of children aged between 9 and 12 and 53% of those aged 6 to 8 actively played Minecraft.

Opposite to public perception, Minecraft is not gender-neutral. The same survey found that boys aged 3 to 12 are much more likely to play Minecraft than girls, with 54% of boys and only 32% of girls playing the game.

A Statista survey which took place from October 2020 to January 2021 found that 80% of children in the UK between the ages of 12 and 15 regularly play online games such as Minecraft or Fortnite.

Another Statista survey, which took into account the answers of 1,440 boys aged 7 to 9 in the UK, found that 23% of the respondents ranked Minecraft as their favourite entertainment brand. Lego came in first with 27% of the votes, while Fortnite came in third with 21%.

Minecraft Players by Device

Minecraft is available on PC and consoles like Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, 4, 5, and Nintendo Switch. For gamers on the go, there is also the Minecraft: Pocket Edition, which has proven insanely popular among Minecraft users, regularly topping Google Play and App Store charts.

But exactly how many downloads does Minecraft have?

In fact, Minecraft was the top paid app on Google Play worldwide for longer than any other app. It spent a total of 1,944 days in the number one place in the period from January 2012 to October 2018. The app currently costs £6.49 on Google Play and £5.99 on the App Store.

When it comes to PlayStation, Minecraft gamers prefer PlayStation 4 the most.

A Gamestat survey from January 2021 showed that 68% of Minecraft players use PlayStation as their console of choice, with PlayStation 3 coming in second with 28%. Only 4% of players used PlayStation Vita to play Minecraft.

What’s more, the same survey showed that up to 94% of new players and 95% of trophy earners on Minecraft favour PS4 over PS3 or Vita.

The Xbox One edition of Minecraft was released in September 2014. As of August 2020, it has sold an impressive 5.43 million units worldwide. The United States accounts for 3.23 million of those sales.

Minecraft Revenue and Sales

Bearing these statistics in mind, you must be wondering how many copies has Minecraft sold in total so far.

According to Microsoft, as of April 2021, there are 238 million Minecraft copies sold. That figure takes into account every country and territory in the world, including Antarctica and the Vatican City, making Minecraft the best-selling video game in history.

The second best selling video game of all time is Grand Theft Auto, with 150 million units sold, followed by Tetris, with 140 million units sold.

The table below shows how Minecraft’s sales have grown over the years.

According to the latest Minecraft revenue statistics, the game generated $415 million (£332.31 million) of revenue in 2020, which is a significant increase from the $375 million (roughly £300.28 million) it made in 2019. 

Here is what Minecraft’s annual revenue has looked like over the years:

Minecraft is one of the highest-grossing mobile games of all time.

The latest Statista report shows that, in 2021, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, the mobile version of the game, generated up to $160.7 million (roughly £128.7 million) in global in-app purchase revenues. That is a 12.68% increase compared to the year before, when the game generated $142.12 million (roughly £113.80 million).

In the table below, you can see the annual mobile revenue generated by Minecraft over the years. 

According to Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella, Minecraft Marketplace creators have made over $350 million (roughly £280.26 million) in sales from over a billion downloads of mods, add-ons, and other experiences.

The Minecraft Marketplace is a great way for players to enhance their Minecraft experience by purchasing new skins, textures, and worlds. It is estimated that over two-thirds of Minecraft players purchase in-game content from the Minecraft Marketplace every week.

Wrap Up

After taking a closer look at how many people play Minecraft in 2022, it is evident that more than a decade after its release, the game is still as popular as ever.

With its pixelated graphics and open-ended gameplay, it’s no surprise that people of all ages can’t get enough of this voxel-based adventure game.

So why not join the millions of others who already enjoy this fantastic game? You might just find yourself getting addicted too!