Minecraft accolades. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the MineCon convention played large roles in popularizing the game. It has also been used in educational environments ("Minecraft Education Edition"), especially in the realm of computing systems, as virtual computers and hardware devices have been built in it. By late 2018, over 154 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time, behind "Tetris". In September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the "Minecraft" intellectual property for , with the acquisition completed two months later. Spin-off games, such as "",
Minecraft and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the "Penny Arcade" webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that "Minecraft" had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, "Minecraft" beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, "Minecraft" had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. , the game has sold 17 million copies