This post has become the official discussion for trends regarding Minecraft popularity. The game itself shows no signs of dying, yet you are free to share ideas and suggestions in the comments below. Thanks!
As a server owner, I have seen players come and go. It's a cycle that we have all come to understand and accept. One day though when traffic was especially low, I wondered aloud, "Is Minecraft dying...?"
Upon further pondering, I came to a further understanding of the situation at hand.
It honestly just depends on how you look at this.
In most cases, the players who joined in beta and before have grown up significantly, and much of the original player base has declined. They age and then move on to other games, get jobs, and lock away the juvenile dreams of building castles to build something more realistic; a family. Minecraft has been able to bring in more young players too, though, so it's more that Minecraft itself is aging with it's players, and is also bringing in new players from time to time.
What would you say? Is Minecraft dying, or is it still growing up?
Depends on what you mean by dying. Sales-wise? The game's still growing strong with new players all the time, so I'd say no, at least not for a long time.
Quality-wise? That's a large matter of opinion, though there is currently a big community split that can't be ignored.
Server-wise? I'd say yeah, people seem to be less and less interested in playing on servers, and that's probably because overall server quality seems to have dropped, with good servers becoming increasingly hard to find. There's also the fact that many servers are refusing to update to 1.9+, and that, coupled with the EULA changes, are making servers increasingly less appealing.
That's not just referring to Minecraft, which, at least according to statistics like views and Google trends, appears to have plateaued and even declined - just video games in general, which has a very similar trend:
Guess people just don't like playing video games so much anymore. Or maybe not:
Of course, most of that is for mobile - Minecraft has sold well over 100 million copies - half that in just two years (up to the middle of last year but I do not see how it could suddenly just die off over a few months) - but the majority of new sales are for the Pocket and Console Editions, not PC, which has the majority of servers.
In fact, the PC Edition likely accounts for less than 10% of all new Minecraft sales! (based on the number of total copies sold and growth in PC sales over the period mentioned in the Mojang article).
Personally, though, I think the game is only dying if YOU think it is; I'll have been playing for four years in a couple months, and have retained full interest in the game with an average of 24 hours of playtime per week (a bit more than the average "core" gamer, albeit I do not benefit the industry since all that time is just for Minecraft (as opposed to regularly buying new games). I have also never played on a multiplayer server, so no benefits there either).
No, if anything it is still growing, It is just the mind-set people have gotten into about it dying, when In all actuality, It has leveled out, it isnt dying, it isnt booming.
No, if anything it is still growing, It is just the mind-set people have gotten into about it dying, when In all actuality, It has leveled out, it isnt dying, it isnt booming.
Depends on what you mean by dying. Sales-wise? The game's still growing strong with new players all the time, so I'd say no, at least not for a long time.
Quality-wise? That's a large matter of opinion, though there is currently a big community split that can't be ignored.
Server-wise? I'd say yeah, people seem to be less and less interested in playing on servers, and that's probably because overall server quality seems to have dropped, with good servers becoming increasingly hard to find. There's also the fact that many servers are refusing to update to 1.9+, and that, coupled with the EULA changes, are making servers increasingly less appealing.
I think still growing. I can be one of those old players. I have been playing since 2010 but I can not enjoy it as much as the old one.
Everything has an end, one day will end in this game.
I don't think Minecraft is directly dying, I made this post more to see what others feel about the topic.
I saw some great points and ideas throughout this post so far, especially the statistics that TheMasterCaver provided, and it definitely brings the predicament into a new light for me. It's not just Minecraft that may be losing it's original glow, but it's the ideation of gaming in general.
Something can only be either growing or declining if you take it Black or White, but nah, it's not dying in a sense, as sales and server traffic are just two factors. I've seen this thread for the past three years, and I'm sure older players than me have seen it before too. As someone who has been playing games since the 1990s, and Minecraft since 2012, no, neither is dying. Using Google search trends to answer it is like using global PC shipments being down year on year for like the past five years to say PC gaming is dying (when I believe it's been growing). There's more factors than sales or search trends.
In my opinion, if Mojang keeps going down the road they are currently on, for example: make updates, adding new thing and fixing bugs as well as interacting with the community the way they do I think Minecraft will not only survive but thrive!!!!!!
I would say the Minecraft hype is clearly gone, but it's not dying at all. It's just growing up and leaving over hyped kiddies behind. I'm quite sure that Minecraft will still be a thing in 10 years, more as a hardcore niche maybe, but it will be there.
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's dying. Just moving on from all the initial marketing. Kind of like the Lego company, it'll probably last a long time as long Mojang actively keeps it interesting.
I saw some great points and ideas throughout this post so far, especially the statistics that TheMasterCaver provided, and it definitely brings the predicament into a new light for me. It's not just Minecraft that may be losing it's original glow, but it's the ideation of gaming in general.
Actually, the point I was making was that you can't claim that Minecraft, or gaming in general, is declining because of Google trends or YouTube views; among other things, there is something called "market saturation":
The theory of natural limits states: "Every product or service has a natural consumption level. We just don't know what it is until we launch it, distribute it, and promote it for a generation's time (20 years or more) after which further investment to expand the universe beyond normal limits can be a futile exercise." -Thomas G. Osenton, economist
For example, the American weekly consumer magazine Sports Illustrated was launched in 1954 with 400,000 subscribers and grew through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s until reaching 3.5 million subscribers in the late 1980s where it has remained ever since. With some estimates of up to 100 million sports fans in the United States, many at Time Inc. believed that Sports Illustrated's subscription base could have been much higher. However, after many years of investment, the sports weekly's natural and most profitable consumption level was reached – where it has remained for more than 20 years.
Note that total sales, or even yearly sales, increasing does not necessarily mean that the playerbase is still increasing, since older players will stop playing; this also likely explains why so many big YouTube channels (not just Minecraft or gaming channels) have such a low view-subscriber ratio, since people stay subscribed to them but don't want them anymore (I don't even subscribe to any channels anymore since I know they will eventually no longer provide content that I like; I only regularly watch maybe 1/5, if even that, of the channels I did subscribe to years ago. Some of the channels, none of them related to Minecraft, are even dead with no activity for years).
I think Minecraft has a large adult demographic that won't go away anytime soon. Many active forum users are over the age of 30, at least from what I've seen.
Based on myself along with other family members who are familiar with MC I would say that overall our own interest in it has declined significantly. The last few updates really have not done a thing to reinvigorate our interest. Mostly we try them and play for a short time then go back to the older versions. Vanilla is hideously boring and many of the great mods have not been updated past 1.7.10.
Graphs showing "interest" in searches mean nothing. Of all the servers I have played on over the years they all suffer the same fate: people get bored.
Overall? I think Minecraft is perfectly healthy, and is going to continue to be so for a long time to come.
That being said, I think that the urge to play multiplayer with random people may well be on the decline. I loved doing it when younger. Nowdays, playing online with other people is almost exclusively something I do with friends and family. Family in particular.
And youtube? Blah. Watching other people play the game is extremely boring. Sometimes useful, especially for redstone stuff, but still about as interesting as reading ikea furniture assembly manuals. The only surprise to me is that so many people have actually been successful at it.
Youtube is a boring mess. The only thing worse than watching some YT'er playing a game is a YT'er making commentary while playing a game unrelated to the commentary. DanTDM is a total bore now. Why call himself TDM when he rarely makes MC videos? How many times can Mumbo Jumbo create a video of the same exact redstone contraption? He moves a torch to another location and makes a new video. The fact that many of the old YT'ers who used to exclusively make MC videos have moved on to other games is a sign of the overall decline.
No, it isn't a sign of the overall decline. It might be, of course, but it isn't necessarily so. It could be just that the people making youtube videos have gotten bored of MC. Given that they are a microscopically small segment of the population, they aren't really representative of anything.
It could also be indicative of the fact that people are getting bored with watching people play Minecraft. Let's face it. Playing MC isn't hard. It is dirt easy, really. The hard part is making fancy redstone machinery, or making something look good, or generating enough innate creativity to figure out what to do when one doesn't have a game telling them "you must do this." Watching someone else do something that we can all do is boring. Which is probably the only MC videos I watch are either redstone tutorials or of people doing crazy parkour stuff. That's something I can't do, and hence it is more entertaining.
Also, there is a limit to how many videos we need of people doing effectively the same thing over and over again. Especially when so many videos are of people playing spleef or other games. People could instead, you know, go play them.
Crap, how many of these threads are there going to be?
Can't you see? Minecraft isn't dying- servers are. The traffic on a small server is in no way indicative of the overall status of the game's popularity.
As for Youtube, I don't see why people see it this way. "OMG!!! DanTDM got bored with Minecraft!!! Minecraft is dead!!!"
No.
I would not say that big-time Youtubers are representative of the entire community.
Some people get bored with Minecraft. Deal with it.
Excuse my pessimism, I'm feeling rather philosophical today.
This post has become the official discussion for trends regarding Minecraft popularity. The game itself shows no signs of dying, yet you are free to share ideas and suggestions in the comments below. Thanks!
As a server owner, I have seen players come and go. It's a cycle that we have all come to understand and accept. One day though when traffic was especially low, I wondered aloud, "Is Minecraft dying...?"
Upon further pondering, I came to a further understanding of the situation at hand.
It honestly just depends on how you look at this.
In most cases, the players who joined in beta and before have grown up significantly, and much of the original player base has declined. They age and then move on to other games, get jobs, and lock away the juvenile dreams of building castles to build something more realistic; a family. Minecraft has been able to bring in more young players too, though, so it's more that Minecraft itself is aging with it's players, and is also bringing in new players from time to time.
What would you say? Is Minecraft dying, or is it still growing up?
Be the change our world needs.
Project Realism - A Charity Network
I think still growing. I can be one of those old players. I have been playing since 2010 but I can not enjoy it as much as the old one.
Everything has an end, one day will end in this game.
Depends on what you mean by dying. Sales-wise? The game's still growing strong with new players all the time, so I'd say no, at least not for a long time.
Quality-wise? That's a large matter of opinion, though there is currently a big community split that can't be ignored.
Server-wise? I'd say yeah, people seem to be less and less interested in playing on servers, and that's probably because overall server quality seems to have dropped, with good servers becoming increasingly hard to find. There's also the fact that many servers are refusing to update to 1.9+, and that, coupled with the EULA changes, are making servers increasingly less appealing.
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
How many more of these threads will we see?
Something to ponder:
That's not just referring to Minecraft, which, at least according to statistics like views and Google trends, appears to have plateaued and even declined - just video games in general, which has a very similar trend:
Guess people just don't like playing video games so much anymore. Or maybe not:
Level up! Video Game Industry Revenues Soar in 2015
Of course, most of that is for mobile - Minecraft has sold well over 100 million copies - half that in just two years (up to the middle of last year but I do not see how it could suddenly just die off over a few months) - but the majority of new sales are for the Pocket and Console Editions, not PC, which has the majority of servers.
This also follows the trends for most games:
Mobile game revenue to pass console, PC for first time
In fact, the PC Edition likely accounts for less than 10% of all new Minecraft sales! (based on the number of total copies sold and growth in PC sales over the period mentioned in the Mojang article).
Personally, though, I think the game is only dying if YOU think it is; I'll have been playing for four years in a couple months, and have retained full interest in the game with an average of 24 hours of playtime per week (a bit more than the average "core" gamer, albeit I do not benefit the industry since all that time is just for Minecraft (as opposed to regularly buying new games). I have also never played on a multiplayer server, so no benefits there either).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
More threads like this and it will....
No, if anything it is still growing, It is just the mind-set people have gotten into about it dying, when In all actuality, It has leveled out, it isnt dying, it isnt booming.
I don't think Minecraft is directly dying, I made this post more to see what others feel about the topic.
I saw some great points and ideas throughout this post so far, especially the statistics that TheMasterCaver provided, and it definitely brings the predicament into a new light for me. It's not just Minecraft that may be losing it's original glow, but it's the ideation of gaming in general.
Be the change our world needs.
Project Realism - A Charity Network
My 4yo son is just gettng into it,
I think it is the new Lego, and you pass it on when your done
So my son wanted to start a lets play,
He is 4yo loves minecraft and Youtube. Have a look, please leave a comment and like it if you want to see more
Thanks
https://youtu.be/oT_p7vXL-14
Something can only be either growing or declining if you take it Black or White, but nah, it's not dying in a sense, as sales and server traffic are just two factors. I've seen this thread for the past three years, and I'm sure older players than me have seen it before too. As someone who has been playing games since the 1990s, and Minecraft since 2012, no, neither is dying. Using Google search trends to answer it is like using global PC shipments being down year on year for like the past five years to say PC gaming is dying (when I believe it's been growing). There's more factors than sales or search trends.
In my opinion, if Mojang keeps going down the road they are currently on, for example: make updates, adding new thing and fixing bugs as well as interacting with the community the way they do I think Minecraft will not only survive but thrive!!!!!!
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's dying. Just moving on from all the initial marketing. Kind of like the Lego company, it'll probably last a long time as long Mojang actively keeps it interesting.
Actually, the point I was making was that you can't claim that Minecraft, or gaming in general, is declining because of Google trends or YouTube views; among other things, there is something called "market saturation":
Note that total sales, or even yearly sales, increasing does not necessarily mean that the playerbase is still increasing, since older players will stop playing; this also likely explains why so many big YouTube channels (not just Minecraft or gaming channels) have such a low view-subscriber ratio, since people stay subscribed to them but don't want them anymore (I don't even subscribe to any channels anymore since I know they will eventually no longer provide content that I like; I only regularly watch maybe 1/5, if even that, of the channels I did subscribe to years ago. Some of the channels, none of them related to Minecraft, are even dead with no activity for years).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I think Minecraft has a large adult demographic that won't go away anytime soon. Many active forum users are over the age of 30, at least from what I've seen.
Based on myself along with other family members who are familiar with MC I would say that overall our own interest in it has declined significantly. The last few updates really have not done a thing to reinvigorate our interest. Mostly we try them and play for a short time then go back to the older versions. Vanilla is hideously boring and many of the great mods have not been updated past 1.7.10.
Graphs showing "interest" in searches mean nothing. Of all the servers I have played on over the years they all suffer the same fate: people get bored.
Overall? I think Minecraft is perfectly healthy, and is going to continue to be so for a long time to come.
That being said, I think that the urge to play multiplayer with random people may well be on the decline. I loved doing it when younger. Nowdays, playing online with other people is almost exclusively something I do with friends and family. Family in particular.
And youtube? Blah. Watching other people play the game is extremely boring. Sometimes useful, especially for redstone stuff, but still about as interesting as reading ikea furniture assembly manuals. The only surprise to me is that so many people have actually been successful at it.
Youtube is a boring mess. The only thing worse than watching some YT'er playing a game is a YT'er making commentary while playing a game unrelated to the commentary. DanTDM is a total bore now. Why call himself TDM when he rarely makes MC videos? How many times can Mumbo Jumbo create a video of the same exact redstone contraption? He moves a torch to another location and makes a new video. The fact that many of the old YT'ers who used to exclusively make MC videos have moved on to other games is a sign of the overall decline.
No, it isn't a sign of the overall decline. It might be, of course, but it isn't necessarily so. It could be just that the people making youtube videos have gotten bored of MC. Given that they are a microscopically small segment of the population, they aren't really representative of anything.
It could also be indicative of the fact that people are getting bored with watching people play Minecraft. Let's face it. Playing MC isn't hard. It is dirt easy, really. The hard part is making fancy redstone machinery, or making something look good, or generating enough innate creativity to figure out what to do when one doesn't have a game telling them "you must do this." Watching someone else do something that we can all do is boring. Which is probably the only MC videos I watch are either redstone tutorials or of people doing crazy parkour stuff. That's something I can't do, and hence it is more entertaining.
Also, there is a limit to how many videos we need of people doing effectively the same thing over and over again. Especially when so many videos are of people playing spleef or other games. People could instead, you know, go play them.
Crap, how many of these threads are there going to be?
Can't you see? Minecraft isn't dying- servers are. The traffic on a small server is in no way indicative of the overall status of the game's popularity.
As for Youtube, I don't see why people see it this way. "OMG!!! DanTDM got bored with Minecraft!!! Minecraft is dead!!!"
No.
I would not say that big-time Youtubers are representative of the entire community.
Some people get bored with Minecraft. Deal with it.
Excuse my pessimism, I'm feeling rather philosophical today.
Far from dying.... it is going to the skyes!
Expect many more new features (and players) in the next years. Microsoft is doing a great job with the game.
just as there are Dawn and Sunset so accept the fact that Minecraft will soon die. But I hope this game will last century before it die.