Minecraft With Over Half a Billion Players Thanks to Chinese F2P Version
The world-famous Minecraft has reached a new user record this year. Developers from Mojang owe this amazing growth to the Chinese free-to-play version of their hit.
According to data provided by game analyst Daniel Ahmad, Minecraft has gained another 100 million users in 2020 alone , thus building up a global playerbase to 600 million users. The Chinese version of the game, released in 2017 in free-to-play model, made a huge contribution to the result. In total, it attracted as many as 400 million customers. It is worth adding that the annual growth of users was the fastest since the release of the game.
Such a high popularity of the game in China is most likely due to the F2P model. Mojang's game is published in this country by NetEase not only on PC, but also on mobile devices with Android and iOS.
Additionally, Ahmad mentions that a key role in the development of Chinese Minecraft was played by the community and the content it creates. Currently, about 12,000 developers are working on game content, such as skins, which is later available for sale on the digital game market. These developers have already earned around 100 million Chinese yuan (over $15 million).
