Minecraft has been out for over a decade now. The game has received multiple awards and nominations over the years. Many people like to play Minecraft regularly and have spent their childhood in this game and have many fond memories of it.
When it was first released in 2011, Minecraft immediately blew up and quickly became one of the biggest games of all time. Then shortly after, the game became a target of many controversies, which is why its popularity started to diminish.
People who play Minecraft thought it had completed its lifespan and would be replaced by other upcoming games. But to everyone’s surprise, Minecraft rose to the charts again in 2019 and started ranking among the most played game at the time.
And with Minecraft’s rise, we also saw Minecraft content creators become extremely popular. One of the most notable content creators being Dream, famous for his unrivaled Minecraft skills. He is also known for his Manhunt YouTube videos, where he tries to escape from three to four players hunting him down.
With this much history under its name, the question that resurfaces every once in a while is that Is Minecraft Dying?
Google Search Statistics For Minecraft
If we want to really check whether Minecraft is dying or not, then a good place to start looking would be Google Trends. Search is Google’s official tool for checking how often a word or phrase is searched on google.
This tool gives us a good idea of Minecraft’s popularity since the game has to be downloaded independently and isn’t available on platforms like Steam or Epic Games.
Looking at Google Search Trends for the keyword “Minecraft,” we can see that the keyword is almost at an all-time high compared to the last five years.
Here is the search breakdown by the top regions where this game is most popularly searched for.
When we look at the most commonly searched Minecraft terms, we can see that players often like to search for different Minecraft versions so they can download and play them. The top search being Minecraft 1.18, which is the Caves and Cliffs: Part II.
These search results also confirm that since Minecraft isn’t available on Steam or Epic Games, players search for it on Google, giving us more accurate search information.
Minecraft on Twitch
While we are on the topic of statistics, let’s look at the statistics of Minecraft on Twitch and see how it’s performing there. We will also look at the most popular Minecraft content creators and their channels to see if their views and followers align with Google Trends.
Minecraft currently ranks top 10 in the most viewed topics on Twitch, with more than 44k views. But if we were to exclude over topics and only rank Minecraft with other games, it would be the top 8 most popular game on Twitter right now, based on viewers.
If we see the Minecraft views for all of August (2022), we can see that it is the 4th most popular game on Twitch, with almost 76 Million monthly views. This is an improvement in views from the current viewers. But to have a more accurate conclusion, let’s look at the yearly views of Minecraft.
Most Streamed Games On Twitch In 2021
Credits: SullyGnome – Twitch stats and analysis
Unfortunately, we don’t have the statistics for the year 2022 yet, which is why we will use the data from 2021 as a sample.
According to this data, we can see that Minecraft was the 6th most viewed game in 2021, with over 863 million hours of watch time. These stats align nearly with the monthly stats, so we can confidently say Minecraft is well in the Top 10 most popularly viewed games on Twitch!
Are Minecraft Top Creators still Active?
Another reliable source of information would be to see the channel views of popular Minecraft content creators. We can compare their current views to their average views to see how their channels are performing. If we see a dip in views, that means that Minecraft content isn’t being watched as much as it used to.
In this comparison, we will look at the Twitch platforms of Dream, Sapnap, and Karl Jacobs, all popular names in Minecraft content creation.
Minecraft Top Creators: Dream
We can see that Dream’s Twitch channel has underperformed slightly in the last 30, receiving 2.2% less followers than he usually would.
These graphs show that Dream’s twitch channel isn’t performing nearly as well as it used to. In February of 2021, which was the best month for Dream, his channel gained more than 554,000 followers. Just in one month! Comparing this to his performance in July of 2022, where he gained 45,000 new followers, the performance seems to be dipping down.
It is also worth mentioning that Dream recently had his worst performing month in terms of new followers gained. This was the month of May (2022) when he only gained 13,000 new followers.
His twitch views also follow the same pattern, where they used to be much higher but now have dipped down quite a lot.
Sorry Dream, but the stats are what they are.
Minecraft Top Creators: Sapnap
Sapnap’s twitch channel received only 10k new followers in the last 30 days. Over 28% less than normal. This is quite the number dip since he once was extremely popular.
Looking at the followers’ graph for Sapnap’s twitch channel, we can see that the dip is much more significant than it was with Dream. Sapnap has his best month in December 2020 in terms of followers. This was when he gained almost 268k new followers. Compare that to 12k followers in the recent month of July, and we can see that Sapnap has also faced a major dip in numbers.
His twitch views also follow the same pattern as his followers. Interestingly, Sapnap had a pretty good month in March (2022), where his channel received more than 500k views. And right after that, his channel only got 13k views in April, which is a significant dip in performance.
Minecraft Top Creators: Karl Jacobs
Karl Jacobs, also famous for being a part of Mr. Beast’s crew, had a relatively good performance in the last 30 days. Unlike Dream and Sapnap, Karl didn’t see a dip in his new followers gained in the last 30 days. He gained 90.9% more followers than usual.
Karl had his best month in March of 2021 when he gained more than 558k new followers, and currently, his channel seems to be doing the best out of all the three streamers we have mentioned. In the last month, which was July of 2022, his twitch channel received 44k new followers, which is not a bad number.
In terms of channel views, Karl has the biggest difference in peak views and current views out of the three. In March 2021, he received more than 3.8 million views, which was the most views his channel would gain in a month. In April 2022, Karl received almost 20k views in the entire month. This was the lowest-performing month for his Twitch channel.
Conclusion
Minecraft has a vast community of loyal players and is also used inside teaching institutions to educate young children. So it is difficult to say that this game will ever die. The Google Trends graphs show that Minecraft is performing well and is regularly searched for and downloaded by players.
However, Twitch views don’t align with these stats, as the most popular Minecraft content creators are not performing nearly as well as they used to. This means that Minecraft content isn’t being watched all that much. Does this indicate Minecraft dying? We don’t think so. But it is difficult to be certain.
