Interactive ‘Minecraft’ Videos Watched By More People than Any Other on YouTube [OPINION]

If you are not familiar with Minecraft chances are that you are, in fact, alone.

In honor of YouTube's tenth anniversary Google, the owner of video service, made the announcement this morning that videos featuring the game "Minecraft" are the ones most watched on YouTube.

Second place honors went to videos featuring "Grand Theft Auto" and third went to "League of Legends."

Ryan Wyatt, Global Head of Gaming Partnerships - a/k/a "Gamer in Chief - " for Google, says that there are more than 42 million Minecraft-related videos on YouTube.

Minecraft was created by Markus Persson ("Notch") and released by Mojang and 4J Studios in 2009.  Since then it has become a favorite of children and teens.  And, online other video games on the market, many parents give constructive praise of the game, since it, quite literally, involves building and sustaining a virtual world comprised of blocks and block-like creatures.

Players "grow" their own food, hunt for resources, and have to occasionally fight off a scorpion or Enderman in an effort to protect their realm.  The game has a creative mode and a competitive mode, where players can play the game themselves or within a virtual community.

That, coupled with the fact that Minecraft is available not only through platforms provided by Xbox, Playstation and the like, but is also just as good on an (old-fashioned) personal computer, makes the game almost universally accessible.

Combined those factors have attributed to the success of Minecraft in the realm of YouTube, which tangibly measures not only the popularity of a video, but its success in terms of dollars generated from those videos.

And so far no one has been able to duplicate the inherently complicated success story of a seemingly simple digital sandbox.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The author of this post is the mother of two dedicated fans of "Minecraft," and their subconscious personal preferences for the game are, most likely, reflected in this piece.]

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