Minecraft passes 10 million downloads

It’s official. There is no stopping Minecraft.

Some time overnight, the indie gaming phenomenon passed 10 million downloads. That figure doesn’t include the units bought and played on Xbox 360.

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Minecraft has only been available as a full-version download since November 2011. Since then, the brainchild of Swedish programmer Marcus “Notch” Persson has becoming one of gaming’s most remarkable stories. At $26.95 a copy, and given that Persson largely bootstrapped the development, the success has no doubt made him a remarkably wealthy person.

In addition to the continued growth of the game itself, which allows players to build and mine in a virtual environment that has the look and feel of an 8-bit game from the early ‘80s, Minecraft has also spawned countless YouTube videos in which players show off and discuss their work.

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