Essays 08 May 2023, 11:06

What's the Most Popular Game? List of Most-played Video Games

Call of Duty, Minecraft, or Red Dead Redemption 2? The most popular games in the world are much less obvious than it might seem to regular players.

Minecraft

Scale of popularity:

over 238 million copies of the game sold on various platforms (as of May 2021);
300 million users of the free Chinese version of Minecraft;
over 181 million active players in March 2023 (source).

Can one person independently conquer the world of computer games? Marcus Persson proved it is possible. Before Microsoft purchased from him the rights to Minecraft (in creation since 2009) along with the Mojang studios, which was taking care of the game (for a small fee of $2.5 billion), this title has sold over 60 million copies, becoming a hit – once again, particularly among the younger generation.

The game is a true sandbox, offering an incredible freedom of creation. Consisting of procedurally generated, three-dimensional cubes, the world not only allows to explore, fight for survival, or craft, but also to create some impressive designs – as it was very accessible to modders, it further expanded its capabilities, basically ad infinitum.

After Microsoft's acquisition, the game did not slow down. Conversions to more hardware platforms further cranked up the cosmic score and by May 2021, a total of 230 million copies of Minecraft had been sold. More than half of it is owned by active players – data from May 2023 indicate 181 million people logging into the game. This phenomenon has also received several spin-offs, and an interactive series on Netflix.

Learn more about Minecraft

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Minecraft