It may be disappointing to discover that Minecraft has been falling in popularity for a long time for people who played it as children—or who presently play it. Will it, however, come to an end?

Google Trends Data

Data from Google Trends Analyzed.

According to Google Trends, there has been a gradual fall in interest (an official Google source).

Google Trends counts how many times a particular topic is searched online, assigns a score out of 100, and plots the results.

As you can see, Minecraft reached its pinnacle throughout time. When you reach the pinnacle of anything, what comes next? There’s just one way to go now: down. For four years, Minecraft’s popularity has progressively fallen. Between June and September of 2016, the biggest drop occurred.

Of course, Google Trends doesn’t necessarily track a game’s popularity; it simply counts the number of times it’s been searched for. Minecraft is searched less frequently than it used to be, as shown in this graph.

In contrast to prior data, the game has recently shown an upsurge in searches and Google popularity (early 2020). Minecraft may be resurfacing in the gaming community. We’ll go over this in more detail later in the article.

YouTube Minecraft Google Trends Data

YouTube Minecraft Data from Google Trends has been analyzed.

This graph resembles the preceding one in appearance; however, this graph reflects YouTube searches.

We all know that YouTube is the juggernaut of online video-streaming and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, and much of the content on the site advertises or promotes games free of cost for game developers. Much of Minecraft’s fame was built on Youtube thanks to dedicated content creators, and this is partly responsible for the survival-game genre’s dominance.

Minecraft’s popularity on YouTube is waning, which isn’t a good indication. For example, we’ve seen several incredibly prominent Minecraft content creators leave the platform or lose community interest. When content makers like “SkyDoesMinecraft” or “The Yogscast” leave Minecraft, it loses visibility to the community and young children who might be interested in playing.

Similar to the previous data, we see a sudden surge in popularity, and Minecraft appears to be back in its original up swinging position for the first time in many years.

Why Is Minecraft Becoming Less Popular?

There are many reasons why the game’s popularity may have waned.

Though there is no way to know for sure, we may infer it is due to the community’s maturation and content updates.

Minecraft continues to receive feature updates, but they pale in comparison to the number of updates received during the game’s popularity peak in 2012–13. Many of the current upgrades haven’t piqued the interest of the majority of the fan community. For example, the “Battle Update” added a new combat mechanic. Many players were dissatisfied with the modifications and abandoned the game, or just did not play as consistently as before. However, as we see new and frequent updates being introduced to the game, this is likely to alter soon.

The second reason, which we believe is the most important, is the community’s maturation. Minecraft has lost the bulk of players that were interested in the game during its “good old days” as much of the original fan base has grown older and lost interest.

However, we must face the game’s recent surge in popularity, which has attracted more players than it has in years.

Minecraft is optimistic in reviving its old appeal with new interesting and innovative improvements being released for the game, such as the latest Nether rejuvenation. They aren’t just going after the new, younger generation. They are, however, actively luring back the old community, possibly for a taste of the fantastic survival game that formed them into the people they are today.

What Does Minecraft’s Future Hold?

We can confidently state that, regardless of the game’s future, the fact that Minecraft has maintained a stronghold on an active community for nearly eleven years is tremendously astounding, and may indicate that the game is here to stay.

The game will continue to exist for the foreseeable future, and we can only be positive as Minecraft re-evaluates previous community annoyances and continues to attract industry attention. The long period of steady interest decline may be coming to an end, at least for the time being.

 

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