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Minecraft has become a sensation, with well over 100 million copies sold for all platforms. And it’s not just kids who play the game; adults like it, too. The game started out for the PC, but has expanded to include versions for major gaming consoles and mobile devices.
The price for Minecraft varies, depending on where you buy it. If you buy it for a PC from the Minecraft.net website, expect to pay around $27 as of July 2017. You can also buy gift cards at the website. If you want to download Minecraft to your favorite console, expect to pay $20 to $30 for the base game, and about $30 or more on the Wii U if you opt to buy the Favorites Pack. Minecraft: Pocket Edition allows you to play the game on a variety of mobile devices and costs about $7 for the app.
How Much Does Minecraft Cost? How Much Does it Cost to Make a Minecraft Account?
Skins and texture packs cost extra
You also have the option of downloading character skins and texture packs, which change the look of your game play. On the PC, these modifications are free at Planetminecraft.com. On the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii U consoles, you pay a small fee to download skins or texture packs, though occasionally they are offered for free. The cost for skin packs hovers around $2, while texture packs cost closer to $6. Skin packs for Minecraft: Pocket Edition for mobile devices cost around $2 each, with texture packs running $1 to $2, or free in some cases. Both skin and texture packs are in-app purchases.
Minecraft: Pocket Edition (for Android)
When you download the game, youre actually getting a launcher application that lets you maintain several separate installations of Minecraft on your computer. You might, for example, need to maintain an older version to play a specific world you created or to run a particular mod. Just create a new profile, select the version of Minecraft you wish to run, and youre ready to go. If you are interested in the world of Minecraft mods, be sure to read our roundup of the best Minecraft mods. Everyone else will just press Play and start off in the most up to date version of the game.
Ive been playing Minecraft since 2010, and I am still shocked at how much the game has changed and continues to change over time. Swedish developer Mojang avoided the sky-high prices of major game releases by selling copies of Minecraft long before it was “finished.” New features continue to come out at a fairly regular pace.
An Ever-Changing, Infinite Game The first time you play, you enter Minecraft as helpless and confused as a newborn child. The only difference is youre not crying (yet) and your default character is not nude and covered in goo. At your disposal is nothing but your hands and an inventory, and night is approaching with all its terrors.
In this world, your only advantage over a hostile landscape is the ability to build, so if you dont want to die, you need shelter. If you want shelter, you need to gather materials by mining the landscape around you. Dirt, rocks, and trees break into distinct cubes that you can reassemble building-block style. If you want to gather materials faster, you need to craft tools, which requires arranging materials in special configurations in either your inventory or on a special Crafting Table. If you dont want to cower in a dark hole every time the sun goes down, then you better build a nicer house. If you dont want to starve to death—and yes, hunger is a game mechanic—you better learn how to find and prepare food.
But Minecraft is far from an empty, homogenous world. The procedurally generated landscape is broken into biomes with their own ecosystems and minerals. The endless supply of common and rare materials to build with is both an outlet for creativity, and a built-in incentive to explore. Stumble into the savanna and youll find acacia trees with wild horses and little rain. Wolves can be found and tamed in the frigid taiga. The entire landscape is crisscrossed with mesas, mountains, valleys, forests, and oceans.
Most of the creatures you meet in the wilds of Minecraft are of the friendly, cuddly variety. Some, such as pigs and cows, can be slaughtered to provide food, and most can be persuaded to breed. But zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, and the iconic exploding Creepers also prowl the landscape. These critters mean that you have to be on your toes if you want to protect yourself, and your buildings.
Recent updates to Minecraft have focused more on fleshing out abilities and stats of your in-game representation. Skill points and mystical ingredients can be converted into enchantments and potions that let you fly, deal more damage, or breathe under water. These will definitely appeal more to the adventuring, hard-core gamer and less to the more architecturally inclined.
The Minecraft Way The underlying rule of Minecraft is that you have to work for everything. Even figuring out the specific crafting recipes or how to turn raw pig meat into a cooked pork chop will require several steps and various resources. You can try to figure these out on your own, but the Minecraft Wiki(Opens in a new window) is an invaluable source that will connect you to everything that can be done in the game along with the huge, active community of players.
Minecraft even offers two modes of play. Survival Mode more is geared towards dodging enemies, building with what you can find, and exploring the surprisingly beautiful landscape. Creative Mode frees you from gravity and provides a pallet of every block and item in the game so you can easily construct enormous architectural triumphs or massive functional computers. This side-steps one of the games biggest problems, which is that everything takes time. Youll spend hours collecting materials, and then hours more building something from those materials. Its simultaneously intensely creative and intensely dull.
The satisfaction provided by Minecraft really comes from your desire to complete goals you set for yourself. But even setting those goals can be a challenge to some. Not everyone wants to dream up a design for a building, or take the time visiting online forums in order to learn how to recreate 19th-Century German architecture using Minecraft cubes.
You also wont find much of a story in Minecraft. Though the game has an “ending,” its more of an opportunity to harvest rare materials and doesnt actually end your game. Players looking for a satisfying character arc should look to Dragon Age: Inquisition ($9.24 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , and those in need of cinematic action would better appreciate Rise of the Tomb Raider ($50.67 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . But what Minecraft can supply is the backdrop for memorable moments, like watching the sun rise from the top of your newly completed tower, or the time you got lost in a cave carrying an inventory full of rare minerals and had to fight your way out.
For the Minecraft super fans out there, developer Telltale Games created Minecraft: Story Mode ($24.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . This stand-alone game merely uses the aesthetics of Minecraft, and we werent impressed with the result.
The Joys of Multiplayer Minecraft really comes alive when you and your friends start playing together. In fact, once you start logging in regularly to see whats been built and share your resources, going back to your single-player game will probably feel downright lonesome.
Any single player world can be shifted into a multiplayer game with the touch of a button, provided all the players are on the same network. Its a free and convenient way to share your creations with friends, or quickly host a game LAN party-style.
To play with more far-flung players, youll need to manage your own game server or take advantage of Mojangs hosting service called Minecraft Realms. I know from experience that hosting a Minecraft server is frustrating at best and maddening at worst. Realms, on the other hand, is wondrously easy. Just create a Realms account, select the type of map you want—either a traditional Minecraft map or a minigame map—and invite up to 20 friends to play using their Minecraft usernames.
You can rest assured that your game is safely backed up, and your game is available to all players, all of the time. Best of all, the service is currently discounted to $7.99 a month, from the usual $9.99. A 30-day free trial is available for new users, and longer billing periods are discounted. Currently, Realms does not support user modding. Nor can it support more than 10 simultaneous players. But these are small limitations in an otherwise stellar service.
An Investment That Pays Minecraft isnt a game that will tell you to, say, build a 60-room castle complete with secret passageways, library, alchemy chamber, portrait gallery, underground forest, lava chandelier, and portal to a Hell dimension. You have to want to do those things enough and appreciate their completion as its own reward. Minecraft (for PC)
The Bottom Line
Minecraft offers an infinite, blocky world of creativity where you earn your own reward by mining the landscape to build whatever your heart desires.
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Here’s how to download Minecraft for PC in a few simple steps
If you’re wondering how to download Minecraft for PC, you’ve come to the right place.
One of the best Xbox One games, Minecraft can also easily be played on a computer and the benefits of taking the time to download it onto your PC make it well worth your while.
For starters, if you have one of the best graphic cards for PC, youll find the resolution stunning and the visuals much sharper. You also have a wide variety of controllers and mice to choose from, and you can even kick back and relax with wireless options.
There are two PC versions of Minecraft available to download: Minecraft Java Edition, or Minecraft for Windows 10 (commonly known as Bedrock). There are some notable differences between the two versions.
Although Bedrock doesnt have an updated combat system, it does allow for crossplay between PC and Xbox One or mobile plays – and has some content that Java doesnt.
Meanwhile, whilst Java only allows players to play with other Java players, it is hosted on far more public servers and boasts a comprehensive modding community. If youre not quite sure which to choose then we advise going for Java, as it includes a free copy of Bedrock with it.
Whichever you choose, let’s go through how to download, register, buy the game, and install Minecraft in no time.
FAQ
Is Minecraft free at PC?
How much does it cost to play Minecraft?