Best-selling indie open-world videogame

As of 28 January 2015, the official site for Minecraft lists PC and Mac sales at 18,314,346 – that's an average sign-up rate of 13,546 people every day since its alpha launch on 17 May 2011. The game, which allows players to create various constructions using textured cubes in a three-dimensional world, was written by one man, Markus “Notch” Persson (Sweden), using software platform Java. Minecraft had no advertising to speak of yet quickly became a huge word-of-mouth success, allowing Persson to form his own videogame company and employ more staff to further the game’s development. In September 2014, Microsoft bought out Minecraft's Swedish developer, Mojang, for $2.5 billion.