Minecraft hits 20M registered users

Minecraft developer Mojang Specifications popped a cork on a new milestone over the weekend. Creator Markus "Notch" Persson announced that the game has hit 20 million registered users. The number would be big for any developer, but seems doubly impressive from a previously unknown indie studio.

Keep in mind, that counts those who signed up for a free demo. In November, the game had hit 16 million registered users, with about four million (25%) choosing to purchase. If that trend continued, the actual sales number for Minecraft would currently stand at around five million, which is still nothing to sneeze at.

Though Persson created the game, he has since stepped down as project lead and is moving on to mysterious things. The game is still adding updates, having recently gone to version 1.1 and still planning other improvements for this year.

Persson suggests that if each Minecraft user weighs about 154 lbs (70 kg), the user base is about 1/4 the weight of the Great Pyramid of Gaza -- so only 60 million more before we can take that snooty pyramid down.