Microsoft and Mojang‘s perennially popular sandbox game Minecraft continues to pull impressive profits. The game had its best year yet on mobile devices with over $100 million grossed. Minecraft mobile saw a substantial boost in profits over 2017, pushing it to record highs.
Sensor Tower reports that Minecraft mobile earned more than $110 million on iOS and Android over the course of 2018. That number comes from the game’s premium purchase price and various in-app purchases for things like character skins and texture packs. Last year saw a 7 percent increase over 2017’s $103 million gross earnings. Minecraft had its best quarter ever in 2018, after grossing an estimated $30 million worldwide in the year’s first quarter. That was a 22 percent jump over the first quarter of 2017.
The United States provided nearly half of Minecraft mobile profits, with just under $53 million. Great Britain and Japan filled out the top three but were far from the US’s spending. Sensor Tower estimates that Minecraft has earned more than $500 million from mobile devices since 2014.
Mojang originally released Minecraft Pocket Edition in 2011 for Android and iOS devices. The game introduced the Bedrock Engine, which is now the C++ codebase upon which many versions of the game are derived from. Minecraft Pocket Edition sold more than 16.5 million copies of the game by December 2013, netting the company over $100 million dollars in that time frame.
Microsoft purchased Mojang and Minecraft for $2.5 billion in September 2014. By 2016, Minecraft on iOS and Android had sold over 40 million copies. The game’s massive success has grossed hundreds of millions of dollars, and that shows no signs of slowing down.
Minecraft has sold over 150 million copies across all platforms by late 2018. The game originally launched on PC in 2009 but went into a more widely available “alpha” phase in mid-2010. Version 1.0 released in November 2011, right around the time that Pocket Edition released. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 saw the first console release in 2012, developed by 4J Studios.
