The Minecraft movie is the latest video game adaptation to find wild financial success that goes beyond any realistic expectations viewers and industry professionals might have had for it. So it's no surprise that the film has also continued the trend of an adaptation, leading to more game sales.
As reported by The Game Business, following the launch of the Minecraft movie, daily active users in Minecraft rose 9% week-on-week, according to Ampere Analysis data. Minecraft sales, particularly on Nintendo Switch, went up 25% per Nielsen/GfK data before the movie was released and another 8% after the movie launched.
The Game Business then goes on to show how the Minecraft film is participating in what's now become a trend with film and TV adaptations of video games. Regardless of whether the adaptation is good, engagement and game sales get a nice spike. Some are smaller than others, but the point is that the line goes up in every case.
Even without financial success, like in the case of the Borderlands movie. Critics have panned the Minecraft movie, but it's a major box office success, so game sales and engagement both getting a bump makes sense. Critics also panned the Borderlands film, and it was also a box office failure. It still led to a bump in sales for the Borderlands series. However, as The Game Business does, it should be noted that a 90% discount on Borderlands 3 at the time also helped.
The Fallout TV show led to a bump in sales for Fallout 4, and HBO's The Last of Us led to a massive spike in sales for both The Last of Us games. The Super Mario Bros. movie increased the sales of Mario games and Nintendo merchandise. As The Game Business points out, the Gran Turismo movie, the Halo TV show, and the Five Nights at Freddy's film all boosted game sales and engagement for the games they were adapted from.
Microsoft's Minecraft movie is the latest to participate in this trend, and it is another sign that the video game industry is very interested in keeping these adaptations going, just as Hollywood is excited to have finally found a way to mine a new bevy of popular series that'll help fill seats in movie theatres.
