How many Minecraft players are there? Minecraft might just be the biggest game in the world today, and the latest player counts indicate that it’s bigger than nearly every country in the world.

It’s no surprise that Minecraft has reached several milestones on it’s 11th anniversary this year, with over 200 million copies of Minecraft sold as of May, 2020, an increase of 24 million copies from the previous year. Needless to say it’s been a big year so far for Minecraft, with the rollout of Minecraft Earth and the launch of Mojang’s standalone action-RPG, Minecraft Dungeons.

The Minecraft open-world game that we know and love shows no signs of slowing down, either, with a yearly increase of players and frequent updates such as the Minecraft Nether update and introduction of new blocks, biomes, and mobs to keep Minecraft fresh, not that players seem to be running out of ideas. With so many impressive player creations popping up, including Minecraft Hogwarts and Minecraft house ideas, just how many people are playing Minecraft?

How many Minecraft players are there?

Mojang studio head, Helen Chiang says in a blog post, as she takes a look at the last year of Minecraft, that “126 million people are now playing Minecraft every month.” This is up from the 112 million monthly active users in September 2019, reported in an interview with Helen Chiang and Business Insider. “What we find is that it’s a game that players keep coming back to,” says Chiang. “It may not always be the one that’s in the forefront, because there are a lot of great games that continue to come out, but it’s one that they love to return to.”

Between traditional paid sales worldwide and registered accounts for the free-to-play version in China, Minecraft’s reached 480 million players all told in 2019.The bulk of that number comes from the Chinese release, which launched in 2017 and has already brought in nearly 300 million players, as analyst Daniel Ahmad notes on Twitter. The paid version has sold 180 million copies worldwide. The combined number would make Minecraft the third-biggest country in the world, behind only China and India.

There’s no sign of Minecraft 2 on the horizon, but if the first game carries on like this, we don’t need one. Check out the best Minecraft mods if you’re looking for more ways to extend the game for yourself.