On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms with over 126 million monthly active players.

Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids’ Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run.

In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of (the first two decades of) the 21st century, and in November 2019
Polygon called the game the “most important game of the decade” in its 2010s “decade in review”.

Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development.

“Herobrine” is an urban legend associated with Minecraft, who first appeared as a single image on 4chan’s /v/ board. According to rumors, Herobrine appears in players’ worlds and builds strange constructions.