It was recently claimed that over 300 million units of Minecraft had been played, but according to a Microsoft developer’s LinkedIn profile, Minecraft brings in far over $100 million annually, which is pretty low.
The annual revenue from Minecraft is estimated to hit around $100 million, as indicated on the LinkedIn page of a Microsoft developer based in Redmond.
Jeff Y., who was previously a game developer and later rose to a senior leadership role, disclosed this figure. He mentioned his involvement in crafting vital game features, resolving numerous bugs, and enhancing engagement, quality, and usability.
His “About” section stated, “Utilizing C++ and various other languages, I developed key features and solved many bugs on multiple platforms, including game consoles, for one of the biggest Live Service Games, with 160+ million monthly active players, which led to increased engagement, quality, and maintaining usability, helping drive our $100M+ annual revenue.”
Jeff also gave information on the number of monthly active users on Minecraft in addition to the total amount of money earned. It seems that activity is equally enormous on this front as well, with over 160 million players checking in each month to explore the survival sandbox. However, statistics like these are somewhat expected for an IP of this size, considering how Mojang constantly updates Minecraft with new material.
Now to have more clarity, it is important to note that this comes from a director and general manager who handled IP and license agreements for the Mattel brand. The data isn’t for this year or current work; it’s for their work from 2013 to 2015. Also, not all of the collaborations or money from Minecraft are related to software, as this is somewhat related to the work that Mattel and Minecraft did ($200M for Mattel is inferred).
According to this LinkedIn profile from 2021, Minecraft is a $100 million product, while many sources indicate that its income at that time was more like $300 million or more. So, it’s highly likely that these numbers only apply to a particular vertical.
Not too long ago, a few reports began to come in, detailing how successful Minecraft has been so far. Last month, the game’s developers hosted a live stream event dubbed Minecraft Live, during which they discussed some of the forthcoming features, DLCs, and partnerships that players may anticipate.
Helen Chiang, the CVP of the Minecraft brand and the head of Mojang Studios took center stage during the Minecraft 2023 live stream to announce that the game had sold over 300 million copies, maintaining its record as the best-selling video game of all time and marking a huge milestone. Some of the statistics that were recorded as players played the game were made clear by the press release version of the stream.
Hence, it’s crucial to note that this information doesn’t come from Microsoft disclosing its earnings or anything else, and it should be regarded quite cautiously because “100M+” is a wide range of potential figures, even if we believe that it is accurate and includes the whole Minecraft ecosystem.
For those unfamiliar, Markus “Notch” Persson created Minecraft using the Java programming language. It underwent private testing before its public release in May 2009 and was fully launched in November 2011. Jens “Jeb” Bergensten took over development from Notch. With over 300 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2023, Minecraft remains the top-selling video game and has been adapted to various platforms.
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