Minecraft passes 300 million copies sold

Video game Minecraft, owned by US tech giant Microsoft, where players build virtual worlds, has passed 300 million copies sold, it announced Sunday, cementing its status as the best-selling game ever.

In a post on its website, the game's makers said it had recently "crossed 300 million copies sold."

"A milestone no one could have dreamed of when we were all building our first dirt houses!" it said.

For comparison, Grand Theft Auto 5, another behemoth on the video game scene, has sold over 180 million copies since its release in 2013, according to Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of the game's publisher Rockstar Games.

Officially released in 2011, Minecraft was the brainchild of Swede Markus Persson, who co-founded Mojang Studios to develop the project.

Popular among several demographics, the game allows players to explore a virtually infinite world, where they can gather materials that can then be used to craft tools or build structures.

The game can be played in survival or creative mode depending on whether players aim to test their resilience or simply use their imagination to build and for many the game is used as a virtual infinite Lego set.

In 2014, Markus Persson sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, after announcing that he had become exhausted from running the company in light of the massive media and public attention it was receiving. (AFP)