Minecraft has sold over 144 million copies worldwide and currently has more than 74 million active players, Microsoft has announced earlier this week.

Development of Minecraft started in 2009 and quickly became popular because of its intuitive controls and multiplayer functionality. The first official major release was in November 2011 when the game came out of its beta testing phase.

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Three years later, in 2014, Microsoft acquired the game's development studio Mojang AB as well as the Minecraft brand. Microsoft has been working on the game ever since.

The latest major releases are those built upon the game's new bedrock engine. With the engine Microsoft is able to target all major platforms the game is available for.

These recent updates power the game's popularity. At the time of writing, Minecraft has 74 million monthly active players.