Minecraft breaks 2.5 million sales barrier

Markus Persson, head of Mojang and lead developer of ubiquitous indie hit Minecraft, has announced that his company's game has now sold over 2.5 million copies.

Having pioneered a business model of selling copies whilst still in alpha, and now beta, versions - on the proviso that any future updates come free - Mojang has seen an incredible rush of custom for its browser-based first person adventure.

Currently the game sells at €14.95 for the beta version - the full release, which currently scheduled for 11 November, 2011, will cost €20.

Revealed via Twitter yesterday, Notch remarked that the new sales target means that the game has sold more than Wikipedia states either Diablo 1 or FarCry ever did.

But the game has taken one more major step towards even further success by appearing as part of Microsoft's E3 presentation, in which it was detailed that a Kinect-empowered version of the game would be coming to Microsoft's Xbox LIVE Arcade this Winter, albeit in a form crafted by an external studio.

A similar business model to Mojang's is being used by isometric indie survival title Project Zomboid, although largely because of a technicality in the terms and conditions of Google Checkout - which doesn't allow the sale of pre-orders or beta versions. Instead, Project Zomboid beta buyers receive a free indie game alongside the prototype code.