Well it didn’t take long for Xbox users (some of them at least) to trade in their M16s for 8-bit pickaxes. According to Major Nielsen, Minecraft has “creeper-ed” its way onto XBLA’s number two spot for top live titles, bumping Black Ops down to the third spot. This may come as a surprise considering that those spots are almost always reserved for some version of a Call of Duty game, but seeing as how Minecraft sold over a million copies in its first week, I’d say this was bound to happen at some point. Still though, Modern Warfare 3 remains in the number one spot, as is tradition. But if Minecraft keeps growing, there is a chance, for the first time in a long time, that a non-Modern Warfare, non-shooter could be in the coveted number one spot.
While it is refreshing to see the community focus their efforts on a game based in creation and not destruction, there are still a lot of people playing that other Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3. Without the actual numbers it’s difficult to tell if that will change any time soon, but this is Minecraft we’re talking about, and it has a rich history of unlikely popularity. It’s also still technically a new release, meaning it will most likely continue to sell for a while. I don’t know if it has what it takes to make it to the top spot, but if any game can, it’s this one.
This does represent a paradigm shift in the types of games reaching popularity these days. For a few years there it was nothing but varying types of first and third person shooters. Perhaps social games, digital distribution, and mobile devices are helping to push developers in new directions, showing them that there is more to gaming that just death and murder. It’s not that Minecraft is void of any sort of violence, just ask the anarchy server I play one, but for Xbox title it’s definitely light on the violence. If Minecraft does manage to take the top slot, it will be the first time (that I can remember) that an essentially G rated game has done so.
Source: Major Nielsen – Via: Joystiq
