Minecraft passes 3 million units

Minecraft creator Markus Persson revealed via Twitter that the game has now sold 3 million copies.

The announcement suggests that Minecraft has sold 1 million units in less than four months, and 500,000 units since the middle of June.

However, in an interview with Develop, Persson urged other independent developers not to get the wrong impression from his success.

"I'm afraid people will think indie games make a lot of money – they don't, and you won't get rich off them, probably," he said. "I was lucky, few are as lucky. Only one or two get – bam – that moment which catapults them. That was me."

"The global market means it's very cheap to distribute, and if you're very small with low costs you don't have to sell many orders to make a profit."

"But becoming rich? As in all other businesses, it's the same. Take music - you hear lots of talented musicians on YouTube but not many of them get a recording contract, but some who are talented, through a combination of luck and skill become popular, rich and mass produced."

Minecraft is only available for the PC at present, but a Kinect-enabled Xbox Live version is scheduled for release by the end of the year.