Minecraft revenues total $33 million so far

Minecraft has become a massive sales hit for any PC game, indie or otherwise, and a recent admission by its creator has given us a clue as to how much money the sandbox smash has grossed.

In a discussion on Reddit, Minecraft creator Marcus "Notch" Persson admitted that the game has generated "a lot" of money, but added, "It all ends up in an account somewhere, and I try not to look at it. I get a normal salary these days for day to day stuff, but there's a big pile somewhere."

The first alpha version of the game sold 800,000 copies at a price of €9.95, while the current beta version has so far sold just over 1 million copies at €14.95, according to Persson. Gamasutra calculated that adds up to around €23 million, or just over $33 million, so far.

Of course, not all of that money goes straight to Persson.

He said: "Paypal takes a cut, there are taxes, and such, but it's still a huge wad of money."

And it doesn't look like the money train will end any time soon: the Minecraft stats page shows that close to 10,000 people bought the game in the past 24 hours.