DEC. 5, 2010 • Markus Persson, the developer behind the retro sensation Minecraft, released data that of the games 2.3 million-plus registered users, 705,000 had actually purchased the title.  By mid-December registered users had grown to 2.57 million, and purchasers of the title had surpassed 800,000.

Impact: The Minecraft phenomenon has been under the radar of most executives and analysts in the games industry for some time, but the core PC gamer and games development community has been on fire with this cult sensation since it originally released in May 2009. Minecraft is a true sandbox game where players actually build their own worlds from textured cubes in a 3D space.  The worlds can be populated with objects and monsters and features peer-to-peer multiplayer modes.  Lacking central servers like traditional multiplayer console and PC games, Minecraft takes freedom and creativity to the extreme, and PC gamers are willing to pay for it despite its primitive graphics, lack of tutorial and highly unstructured gameplay.  In essence, Minecraft is tapping into the need of many core PC gamers to create and not just play, something that has been diminished since the original modding scene that grew up around Doom, Dark Forces, Quake and Half-Life.