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Minecraft pulled over 100 billion views throughout 2019 on YouTube

Years after its launch, Minecraft showed it still has plenty of life in it as the most viewed game by far on YouTube in 2019.

TJ Denzer

December 6, 2019 9:55 AM

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Minecraft launched in 2011. During its time, a whole console generation has passed, trends have shifted, and technology has drastically changed. One thing remains the same though: Minecraft is still one of the most popular games in the world. On YouTube’s 2019 year-in-review video, Minecraft was revealed to be the most watched game of the year, garnering over 100 billion views.

YouTube posted their yearly YouTube Rewind video on December 5, 2019 which shares a number of data points including most popular channels and events throughout the year. Of course, one of them is the most viewed games of the year. In this category, a number of popular titles and a couple surprises populated the list. Roblox came in at #5 with 29.6 billion views, mobile device battle royale Garena Free Fire was #4 with 29.9 billion, and Grand Theft Auto garnered 36.9 billion at #3. Unsurprisingly, Fortnite was a large step away from the rest at #2 with 60.9 billion views, but even then, it wasn’t even close to the #1 spot.

Minecraft not only took #1 on the most viewed list of games, it took it by miles with around 100.2 billion views in 2019. It’s astronomical just how much Minecraft pulled away from a pack that included Fortnite, which has been the craze among gamers around the world for a good couple years now. That said, it certainly speaks to the staying power of Minecraft as well as Microsoft and Mojang’s continued support of the game.

In recent, we’ve seen a lot of new content come to the Minecraft-verse. There’s a dungeon crawler game called Minecraft: Dungeons on the way and Minecraft Earth is bringing an augmented reality to mobile devices, just to name a couple. That said, YouTube showed that even just the regular, yet vast experience of regular Minecraft is enough to keep it on top of the pack. As one of the most accessible sandbox games where you can build as you please, imagination is one of the only limitations to Minecraft. 

It’s okay, Fortnite. You did the best you could, but it will tough to imagine a game that can keep itself as constantly refreshing and popular as Minecraft.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.