Minecraft reaches 74m MAUs from 144m sales Monthly active users are up 35 per cent in the space of a year

Matthew Handrahan Editor-in-Chief Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Microsoft Mojang

Minecraft has broken its own record for monthly active users, with 74 million different people now playing the game each month.

According to Helen Chiang, who now leads Microsoft's Minecraft teams following the promotion of Matt Booty, the new milestone was reached in December last year. That number represents half of all the people who own the game, with 144 million copies sold across 12 different platforms to date.

"That's really a testament to people coming back to the game, whether it's through the game updates or bringing in new players from across the world," Chiang told PopSugar. "That's really our goal, to keep building the community that we have."

It also represents significant growth for Mojang's game, which Microsoft paid handsomely for in 2014. In February last year, Minecraft had 55 million players from 122 million sales, making the new figures an increase of 35 per cent and 18 per cent respectively in a little over 12 months.

The biggest change to Minecraft in 2017 was the Better Together update, which united the game's various communities (PlayStation aside) into a whole. The next big change will be the 4K graphics update that Microsoft teased at E3 last year.