Minecraft
In 2009, in between full-time shifts at a local factory, then-19-year-old musician Daniel Rosenfeld composed a score for an independent video game. “It was just a side hustle, maybe not even that. It was a hobby, really,” explains Rosenfeld, who records under the name C418.
The game, Minecraft, turned out to be successful beyond Rosenfeld’s wildest dreams. In 2014, Microsoft purchased Minecraft’s Swedish developer, Mojang Studios, for $2.5 billion, and through 2023, it had sold 300 million copies of the game, making it the best-selling video game of all time. Now, it’s the latest one to receive a movie adaption, and even that has been wildly successful: A Minecraft Movie, starring Jack Black, is the biggest box office hit of 2025 to date, having already grossed $550.6 million since it opened on April 4.
Because no one anticipated the game’s whirlwind success, or had the budget to properly pay him back in 2009, Rosenfeld was compensated for his work with a small fee and 100% ownership over Minecraft’s now-iconic score. Then, when Microsoft came calling in 2014, Rosenfeld made a fateful decision: he refused to sell the score to the tech behemoth, opting instead to bring on game composer manager Patrick McDermott to help him navigate building a business as an independent composer of Minecraft.
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McDermott counts himself as one of the rare folks who understands how to navigate both games and music. He started his career at Captured Tracks, and from 2015 to 2020 he built Ghost Ramp, a label which specialized in releasing game soundtracks on vinyl. At the time he was brought in to help Rosenfeld, he was also managing a number of other games composers, too.
Though McDermott says deals like Rosenfeld’s, where composers retain ownership of their IP, are increasingly rare, his Minecraft soundtracks have proven to be big business. The score, Minecraft Volume Alpha, which is distributed via TuneCore, was certified gold by the RIAA in 2023, and this month, it was inducted into the Library of Congress by the National Recording Registry, which cited it as an “audio treasure worthy of preservation.”
Since its release on digital service providers, streams of Minecraft Volume Alpha and its companion Volume Beta have averaged 38% year over year growth, and they have been streamed 2.8 billion times worldwide, according to McDermott. McDermott and Rosenfeld have built a surprisingly formidable vinyl business, too. The album, distributed by Ghostly, has sold over 200,000 units to date globally. Rosenfeld even has fans of his own who often congregate in a Discord server devoted to talking about his work, which includes the scores for other games such as Catacomb Snatch and Wanderstop.
But it’s not all fun and games for Rosenfeld. He thinks that by not selling the score to Microsoft, he might have sacrificed his chance to make future soundtracks for the Minecraft franchise — and it’s true that since the sale, Rosenfeld has not written anything for the game, with Microsoft instead turning to other composers. But because many Minecraft players are nostalgic for his original soundtrack, the score for A Minecraft Movie, composed by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, interpolates it — giving Rosenfeld some upside from the blockbuster’s success.
In the end, Rosenfeld feels he made the right choice. “I don’t want to be stuck with the same thing for the next 50 years,” he says of Minecraft, and now, he can turn his attention to the new scoring gigs that excite him.
Here, Rosenfeld and McDermott speak to Billboard about the strange business of scoring for games and building a living off of Minecraft. “I know it’s hard to believe, but there’s a real argument that Daniel’s music is up there for the most heard audio by humans in history,” says McDermott.
How were you compensated for the original Minecraft game?
Daniel Rosenfeld: I asked for a share of the game, and I didn’t get a share. I got a tiny, tiny amount of salary for the music itself. The good thing, though, is that I owned the rights to the music, and that’s still persistent to this day. At the time, like 2010, people liked doing [revenue] shares for indie games as payment — like the musician gets 10 percent [of the game’s IP], the visual artist gets 20, and then the main developer gets 40 or whatever. That’s usually what happened back then. Mine was a little different.
Back in the day, when you made this score, is this also how larger game scores worked? Would Nintendo, for example, offer a deal like this?
Rosenfeld: Absolutely not. Nintendo is a Japanese company and in that culture, it’s typical that you would likely not get ownership but you’d just be employed there for, sometimes, the rest of your life. It’s the expectation of a company like Nintendo that it’s like a family — we work together and stay together. The mindset of American video game companies is different. The usual deal is the composer writes a song, and they get a single fee. That’s it. No residuals are typical in a AAA [a term used to describe video games produced by large publishers] big game.
Patrick McDermott: The typical structure is to get paid a price per minute of audio.
Has the way composers are paid in the independent game industry shifted since Minecraft launched?
McDermott: The way I see it is that there was a big boom of independent games. The comparison I use to explain this is what happened to the music business when [digital audio workstations] and home recording got easier. We got a lot more independent musicians, right? Independent gamemaking was the same. It got a lot easier because you had new tools like Unity and Gamemaker that make it possible to start building your own games. I’d say the heyday of indie games was something like 2008 to 2012 or so. The upstart, scrappy indie game business that allowed for a lot of this shared equity model was really successful for a period of time, but it’s just one of the sad, prototypical things that as people see more success in a market, the more bureaucratic and standardized things become.
Minecraft was a surprise hit. Then, Microsoft came along and bought it. You’ve said before that they wanted to buy the music rights from you. Why did you decline that offer?
McDermott: We did have conversations about it. Honestly, beyond sheer dollar figures, there was a gap in our understanding of each other. This was the genesis of Daniel and my relationship — when these conversations with Microsoft started to happen. And Daniel was smart enough to say, “Maybe it would be good to have an intermediary to help with it.” We involved a really wonderful lawyer on our side, and we had a strong belief that this music really matters. We just never quite came to the same terms and understanding on it [with Microsoft]. Daniel’s music is doing incredibly well. Who knows? Maybe they’ll knock on the door again someday, but for now, we’re thrilled that Daniel maintained ownership through all this.
Rosenfeld: I’m still going to therapy for this whole process. [Laughs]
Do any of your peers have the rights to their music from popular games today?
Rosenfeld: I am in a unique position, but it’s a bit of a monkey paw. I think it’s still frowned upon by the Microsofts, Sonys and Nintendos of the world for an artist to have ownership like I do. I’m a proponent of keeping rights, but it comes with the problem of some people not liking you so much for it.
McDermott: A lot of these composers don’t have anyone to advocate for them in these deals. I’ve had a couple situations with clients that I’ve worked for that are less known than Daniel, and we’ve been able to secure some rights for them, just because video games lawyers typically don’t know the nuances of the music business language enough to iron some things out. In a number of cases, I’ve been able to get the full IP ownership [of the music for the composer] and give gaming companies the unfettered usages that they want, but we can still sub-license back the monetization of digital and physical royalties that the musician wants.
Patrick, when you go into a negotiation for one of your clients, what is the first thing you ask for?
McDermott: I always want artists to be able to maintain their digital royalties, their physical royalties and their autonomy to make those decisions where they can sign with a record label for the vinyl side of things — stuff like that.
I honestly wouldn’t expect someone to want a game soundtrack on vinyl, but it seems like you all have built a booming vinyl business.
McDermott: When we grew up, we would buy games, and we loved the physical boxes and manuals and keepsakes that came with it. Now, most things you buy you just fire up on Steam or on the PlayStation store. I think people are drawn to the idea of having something physical from the Minecraft game they’ve always loved. If I had to guess, probably like 75% of the people who buy it never put it on a turntable. Even beyond just Daniel’s music, there’s just a lack of physical collectibles in these digital spaces, so it just fills that need.
Patrick, you’ve mentioned before that there’s a lack of understanding, on both the music and gaming sides, of the other. What are some of the mistakes you saw musicians making in the gaming world?
McDermott: When I got into game audio, I would talk to these game composers and realize their sales numbers were so massive compared to the independent tier that I had worked on. It was akin to the top artists at a label like Captured Tracks [where I previously worked]. You’d find someone who casually had Mac DeMarco-level sales numbers. The biggest mistake I saw some game composers making is they would be selling 30,000 units on Bandcamp in six months, but they never registered their music with a PRO. They didn’t know about SoundExchange. They probably had not been receiving publishing royalties in a meaningful way. I realized I could at least bridge these gaps for these composers and help them capture the royalties that are out there for them.
Rosenfeld: Yeah, I wasn’t signed with a PRO [when I met Patrick]. There were a lot of back royalties that were owed to me that I didn’t know existed.
McDermott: BMI, to their credit, reached out to Daniel because there was uncollected money. Thankfully these PROs have a period of about three years for retroactive royalties. So some of his money was technically lost, but we were still able to garner three years of back royalties.
I imagine the streaming habits for fans of the Minecraft score are pretty different from traditional mainstream pop listeners. Patrick, can you explain what listening behavior you’re seeing?
McDermott: There are two main things that I find pretty wild about Daniel’s digital performance. One is just the sheer amount of organic listens that avoid any of the algorithmic and editorial playlisting. The other thing is Spotify started sharing streams per listeners, which obviously shows if listeners hear a single once and move on or if they are bingeing the track, and Daniel’s is quite high. It’s 15 streams per listener. That’s at least seven or eight listens higher than anyone else I have access to. It’s also very evenly listened to throughout the soundtrack.
How is Daniel’s score represented in the new Minecraft film?
McDermott: There’s a song that the film licensed from us for interpolation across the score. It’s in there a number of times. There’s one song called “Dragonfish” that’s from a separate composition Daniel did during his negotiation with Microsoft, and Microsoft actually owns the rights to that one — well, Daniel owns the royalty and monetization rights, but Microsoft owns the IP. They actually play that song in full in the movie. We have no idea if that was gamesmanship on their part, using one of the songs of Daniel’s that they have better access to, or if they creatively just chose that one.
Rosenfeld: To their credit, I find the way they interpolated my song to be quite respectful. I haven’t seen the movie. I don’t know if I want to see the movie. I still need to go to more therapy. [Laughs]
The movie is still very new, but has hype around it translated into more streams for Daniel’s original score?
McDermott: Since the release of the film, his three highest streaming days ever were consecutive. Like within a range of 10 percent to 20 percent higher than usual.
Patrick, have you seen a noticeable impact in the consumption for this soundtrack since you came on as manager?
McDermott: Since Daniel and I started working together, the catalog is probably about eight to 10 times [more] in terms of monthly [listeners]. Still, every year has been bigger than the last since we started working together. I think it’s just worth saying that Minecraft is obviously continuing to add players — I think that’s what separates this. It’s such a unique IP to be associated with — so different from traditional music or even film. It’s just getting bigger over time.
Do you attribute the growth in listenership to Minecraft’s continually growing popularity, or do you also think that the trend is due to your various marketing efforts?
Rosenfeld: This is actually my little source of pride: as long as I have worked on Minecraft, there has been next to no marketing help.
McDermott: We don’t have a marketing budget for ads or anything. This is just organic. We just let it ride and see where it goes. But I think the reason it’s growing is twofold. It’s new Minecraft fans, and I think there was a transition of game audio listeners leaving Bandcamp and becoming Spotify users. We saw a big drop in Bandcamp and a big jump in Spotify in the last few years.
What about YouTube? There are so many gamers who are streaming their game play on there and other sites like Twitch. How do you handle monetizing your IP versus letting users enjoy the soundtrack?
Rosenfeld: We don’t collect any Content ID stuff on YouTube. We just rejected the idea of claiming those videos.
Why?
Rosenfeld: Legally I wasn’t allowed to. It was part of the original first contract.
McDermott: It’s a pretty unique thing to gaming. You would never want to short-change the marketing of the game to monetize the music. It just wouldn’t make any sense to pull monetization from these streamers because then they will just start muting the music. The spirit of the arrangement is to let content creators play the game and even do things beyond the game and let the score be part of it. It’s definitely different. If my music was being used on a random stream, I would claim it, but that’s not how it works here.
How much does Spotify account for Daniel’s soundtrack income now?
McDermott: Nearly 70 percent.
Back when you had the opportunity, you decided to not sell to Microsoft. Since then, there have been more compositions made to build on the Minecraft universe that came from other composers. Do you feel that if you had done it differently then maybe you’d be part of the newer scores?
Rosenfeld: Yeah, I bet I would, but here’s the thing: If I would have said yes, I would probably be able to write so much more music for them, but I probably would not feel great about it. I chose not to sell it, and now, I get the different sadness of, like, a messy divorce [with Minecraft] — but in return, I get my mental health and my freedom.
This story is part of Billboard’s music technology newsletter Machine Learnings. Sign up for Machine Learnings, and other Billboard newsletters for free here.

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For Minecraft‘s 15th anniversary, we’ve seen a number of collaborations with top brands and retailers, like Lego, BMX, Walmart and others. But now, another popular company announced a new partnership and collaboration with the sandbox video game.
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Beats by Dre just dropped the Beats Solo 4 Wireless Headphones in the style of Minecraft. The new pair goes for $199.99 at Target.
And if you’re a Target Circle member, you can order now and get Beats Solo 4 Minecraft Wireless Headphones delivered straight to your home for free with orders over $35.
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Not a member? Sign up for a free membership to take advantage of all that Target Circle has to offer, including access to “deal of the day” products, instant savings on select items, three months of Apple TV+ to watch hit originals, access to exclusive shopping events — such as Target‘s Deal Days and early Black Friday deals — and other perks.
If you want to take it a step further, you can sign up for the Target Circle Card (with no annual fee), which offers an extra 5% discount on all purchases, two-day free shipping with no order minimums and more. Learn more about the Target Circle Card here.
The Beats Solo 4 Wireless Headphones: Minecraft Special Edition are also available at Apple.com.
Beats/Minecraft
Beats Solo 4 Wireless Headphones, Minecraft
Meanwhile, the wireless headphones feature Minecraft’s iconic pixel art style and frames, while they come in a black and green colorway. They also have a “hidden” Minecraft Creeper on the inside of the headband.
Aside from the Minecraft touches, these wireless headphones are pure Beats by Dre with premium and robust audio, deep and rumbling bass and a comfy fit with up to 50 hours of battery life per charge. The headphones are foldable for easier travel, while they come with a matching travel case. They feature Apple’s “Spatial Audio” for virtual surround sound and seamless syncing to any iPhone, iPad, MacBook and Apple TV 4K.
Priced at $199.99, the Beats Solo 4 Minecraft Wireless Headphones are available at Target. In the meantime, watch the Beats x Minecraft announcement trailer below:
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Additionally, Amazon has the Beats Solo 4 Wireless Headphones in various colors — like matte black, slate blue and cloud pink — on sale for $120, or 40% off their list price. This is the all-time lowest price ever on these stylish wireless headphones.
Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Happy 15th birthday, Minecraft! The open-world sandbox game is bigger and more popular than ever, and it all started on May 17, 2009 — when Minecraft was simply known as “The Cave Game.”
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To celebrate the occasion, we rounded up a few gaming exclusives from Walmart that can show off your love and affection for all things Minecraft.
And since it’s from Walmart, you’ll get Minecraft 15th-anniversary merch and apparel shipped to your home for free as soon as it’s available if you’re a Walmart+ member.
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If you’re not a member, then you can sign up for a 30-day free trial to take advantage of everything the retailer’s rewards program has to offer with perks, such as free and fast delivery; fuel discounts; streaming access to Paramount+; additional savings with early access to exclusive deals; and much more. Learn more about Walmart+ here.
Although it started out as a computer game, Minecraft quickly caught on with gamers when it was introduced to various platforms and consoles — such as Google Chromebook, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS and iPadOS, Android and others. One of the best things about Minecraft is, no matter what you’re playing it on, everyone’s playing the same game in the same community — thanks to online multiplayer.
And in that spirit of togetherness, you’ll find our picks for the best items to shop for Minecraft’s 15th anniversary at Walmart below. Meanwhile, a number of the items listed below come with exclusive in-game DLC (downloadable content and codes) for additional skins, texture packs and more in Minecraft.
Walmart
Minecraft Lineup Crew Tee
The Minecraft Lineup Crew Tee comes in five sizes from XS to XL and features loveable and iconic characters from the game. It also comes in two colors: heather gray (pictured) and black.
Walmart
LEGO Minecraft The Pirate Ship Voyage
The LEGO Minecraft The Pirate Ship Voyage — which is only available at Walmart — comes with 166 pieces and is best for anyone who is 8 years old and up. It also comes with a buildable pirate ship, a squid, a camel, two pirate minifigures and accessories.
Walmart
Minecraft Netherite Sword
Bring the Netherite Sword into reality with this life-size model. It’s ideal for taking a piece of Minecraft into the real world.
Walmart
Minecraft Creeper Spinner
Minecraft Creeper Spinner makes for a great office or gaming accessory, while it spins between your fingers to pass the time.
Walmart
‘Minecraft Dungeons: Ultimate Edition’
Take Minecraft into the realm of role-playing adventure with Minecraft Dungeons: Ultimate Edition for the Xbox Series X (it’s also compatible with the Xbox One). The game features all six of its DLCs (downloadable content), including Jungle Awakens, Creeping Winter, Howling Peaks and others.
Walmart
Dynacraft x Minecraft BMX Bike
Best for children under 4 feet tall, the Dynacraft x Minecraft BMX Bike is an 18-inch bike that’s best for boys and girls over the age of 6. It even has a removable and plush creeper on the handlebars.
Walmart
Minecraft Red TNT Fridge
$38
$43
12% off
The Minecraft Red TNT Fridge is just over 10 inches tall, 10 inches wide and 10 inches deep in a stylish cube that sits on a desk. It’s designed to hold up to nine 12-ounce soda cans and great for a kid’s room, dorm room, office or gaming setup.
Minecraft’s 15th-anniversary merch and apparel are now available at Walmart. Shop more, below:
Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best over-ear headphones, wifi extenders, laptop deals and more.
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Source: Burberry / Minecraft
Consider the lines between digital and physical to be blurred thanks to this new collaboration between icon British luxury brand Burberry and the insanely popular videogame Minecraft.
Burberry and Minecraft have teamed up for a new capsule collection available on Burberry’s website and in select retailers.
Gamers will also get to show off their self-expression with in-game items also.
Source: Burberry / Minecraft
The collection includes signature pieces like the iconic trench coat, hoodies, and other accessories that feature Minecraft-inspired prints.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Minecraft to bring the Burberry brand story to life in such an immersive way,” said Phillip Hennche, Director of Channel Innovation at Burberry. “With a shared belief in adventure, community, and the power of creativity to open spaces, the natural synergy between both of our brands has allowed us to connect our respective worlds in a way that is unexpected and yet entirely natural. By coming together, we hope to connect communities and inspire our consumers with a whole new way to experience our brand.”
“We are excited to announce Minecraft’s first luxury goods collaboration with one of the most iconic fashion brands in the world, Burberry. Our capsule collection and exclusive in-game content bridges the digital and physical worlds through a celebration of adventure, exploration, and self-expression,” says Kayleen Walters, Head of Franchise Development at Mojang Studios. “Through our partnership, we will bring the joy of gaming to the world of luxury fashion and introduce new audiences to the endless creative possibilities within Minecraft.”
Source: Burberry / Minecraft
Minecraft Players Can Also Download Free Burberry-Inspired In-Game Content
The collaboration doesn’t end with real-world and virtual clothing. Minecraft players can also embark on a Burberry-inspired adventure as well.
“Burberry: Freedom to Go Beyond” will encourage players to “complete various outdoor challenges and interact with the animal kingdom.”
The new content also reflects the fashion brand and Minecraft’s appreciation of the wonder of nature. Both entities teamed up to protect naturescapes for the explorers of tomorrow.
Burberry and Minecraft will donate “to help protect 500,000 trees and plant 25,000 trees through environmental organization Conservation International and their forest conservation efforts around the world.”
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Photo: Burberry / Minecraft
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