The popularity of Minecraft soared after the release of the movie "Minecraft: The Movie"
Minecraft has once again proven the fact that film adaptations lead to an increase in game audiences. This is reported by Christopher Dring from The Game Business, citing data from the analytics company Ampere Analysis.
The Minecraft Movie DLC
The premiere of the movie "Minecraft in Cinema" took place on Friday, April 4. The next day, Dring reports, the number of active users in Minecraft jumped by 9% compared to the previous week. On Sunday, the growth in the daily audience continued, resulting in a weekly increase of 17%.
Dring notes that these figures may not seem very large, but that's because the week before, Minecraft had already experienced an increase in active users. The excitement was fueled by the release of the spring update first, and then the addition of The Minecraft Movie DLC with content from the film. Against this backdrop, on Saturday, March 29, the size of Minecraft's daily audience increased by 25% week-on-week, and on Sunday, March 30, it grew by 14% week-on-week.
If the analysts are to be believed, the monthly active user (MAU) count for Minecraft currently stands at about 170 million people.
Weekly sales of Minecraft also grew, at least for its version on the Nintendo Switch. According to data from Nielsen and GfK, they increased by 25% on the eve of the movie's premiere, and by another 8% afterward. Changes in sales for other versions of the game were not reported.
Dring also shared how the MAU figures of several other games rose following the release of their adaptations:
- The Last of Us Remastered — by 1000% (series "The Last of Us");
- The Last of Us Part II — by 440% (series "The Last of Us");
- The Last of Us Part I — by 347% (series "The Last of Us");
- Fallout 4 — by 600% (series "Fallout");
- Halo Infinite and Halo: The Master Chief Collection — by 300% (second season of the "Halo" series);
- Sonic X Shadows Generations — by 46% (film "Sonic the Hedgehog 3");
- Gran Turismo 7 — by 20% (film "Gran Turismo");
- Borderlands 3 — by 0.5% (film "Borderlands").