Minecraft passes 8 million units sold on PC

The PC version of Minecraft has passed 8 million units sold, its creator Markus "Notch" Persson confirmed on his Twitter account.

"The PC version of Minecraft just passed 8 million sales!" Wrote Persson. "My face is making grinning sounds, so I assume it's grinning!"

In comparison, indie developer Playdead stated last year the popular platformer Limbo sold over 1 million units across PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as of Nov. 2011, while earlier this year, indie developer Re-logic announced its 2D sidescroller Terraria sold 1.6 million copies on PC. The gulf between indie projects and large-scale productions remains as wide as ever, however. At launch, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold an estimated 6.5 million units within its first 24 hours, beating out the launch sales figures of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sold 5.6 million in one day.

This figure follows news made earlier in July after Persson took to Twitter to confirm he Xbox Live Arcade version of the title reached over 3 million copies sold within two months of its release.

Minecraft officially launched on PC Nov. 18, 2011, following a long development period in which users could access a playable alpha version of the game. Its XBLA counterpart released in May of this year.