Minecraft Hits 1 Trillion Views On YouTube: How The Game Has Maintained Its User Base

The popular video game Minecraft reached a significant gaming milestone Wednesday that led to a celebration across one of the biggest media platforms in the world.

What Happened: YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL, celebrated Minecraft passing one trillion views on the video platform. The milestone comes as Minecraft is one of the most popular games for others to watch being played and continues to generate millions of active players over 10 years after it was released.

“We built this city. We built this city on wood and stone,” the parody of the Jefferson Starship song “We Built This City” plays to kick off the YouTube milestone video.

Minecraft has attracted a strong following across different ages and countries thanks to its storytelling, the company said.

“We have people who are off on an adventure and people who are building and people who are playing together, and all those ways of playing are important to us,” Minecraft Chief Storyteller Lydia Winters told The Verge.

There are more than 35,000 creators on YouTube sharing videos about Minecraft.

Minecraft also remains popular on Twitch, the video streaming platform owned by Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN. Over the last seven days, the game ranked as the sixth most-watched topic and it continually ranks in the top 10 on the platform.

Related Link: This Day In Market History: Minecraft Launches 

Why It’s Important: Microsoft Corporation MSFT paid $2.5 billion to acquire Mojang Studios, the company behind Minecraft, in September 2014. The acquisition has helped boost an already extensive gaming studio at Microsoft.

The game has sold over 238 million units, making it one of the best-selling PC games of all time.

Minecraft remains incredibly popular today, with it mentioned as a top download for mobile on both iOS from Apple Inc AAPL and the Google Play store. The game was downloaded around 200,000 times for both iOS and Google Play in the month of November.

Earlier this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Minecraft had around 140 million monthly active users, an increase from the 131 million in 2020.

The success and strong usage of Minecraft are even more incredible considering competitors such as Roblox from Roblox Corp RBLX have come along and taken players from one platform to the other.

A look at Google Trends shows Minecraft reached its highest search point in July 2013. The game has lost some momentum over the years but has seen several returns to near-highs. In February 2021, Google Trend data for Minecraft reached levels not seen since 2015.

The COVID-19 pandemic helped many video games see a boost in usage and downloads. Minecraft likely saw players return to the game and it appears many of them have stuck around to play and watch the block-building game.

Image: Screenshot from Minecraft YouTube video