Lessons from Minecraft Marketplace

gamesindustry.biz:

Brendan Sinclair

Managing Editor

Monday 6th June 2022

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the Minecraft Marketplace, the official avenue to monetize user-generated content in the hit game.

In the years since its launch, the Marketplace has seen more than 1.7 billion pieces of content downloaded, and more than $500 million in revenue generated by the creator community.

There are currently 295 partners and partner organizations, 43 of which have earned more than $1 million in payouts from Microsoft and Mojang.

"Our goal with the Marketplace was to empower our already very passionate creator community to create new experiences in Minecraft," Minecraft Creator Marketplace head Aaron Buckley tells GamesIndustry.biz. "We as a principle decided we needed to allow them to monetize their creations and support themselves and their families by serving Minecraft players, and we did this by putting creators at the center of everything we do."

Aaron Buckley

Buckley returns to that phrase of "putting creators at the center" repeatedly through our conversation. As an example of what that means, he points to the payout structure of the Marketplace. After the platform holder takes its cut (for example, Apple taking its 30% of revenues from the App Store version of the game), Buckley says creators get more than half of what's left.

He doesn't specifically name other monetized user-generated content offerings, but it's not difficult to see how strikingly different the Marketplace is from a user-generated content-driven business like Roblox, which has been criticized for exploiting its creators, who are often children.

"Helping keep kids safe online is a top priority for Microsoft and Minecraft," Buckley says. "Minecraft is an E for Everyone