TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: Minecraft surpasses 112m monthly users; UK MPs suggest player data should be shared with researchers; and Discord abandons Nitro games library.

Minecraft surpasses 112 million monthly users

Minecraft has surpassed 112 million monthly users according to an interview with Helen Chiang, Minecraft studio head, published in Business Insider. This marks an increase of 23.1% since the last time these figures were divulged in October last year, when 91 million monthly users were said to be playing the game. In May, Minecraft was added to Xbox Game pass and this, coupled with continued updates and interest around the upcoming Minecraft Earth AR title, have been attributed to its continued success.

In the interview, Chiang stated, "What we find is that it's a game that players keep coming back to. It may not always be the one that's in the forefront, because there are a lot of great games that continue to come out, but it's one that they love to return to."

UK MPs suggest player data should be shared with researchers

In last week’s report on the video games industry from the UK parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DMCS) committee, MPs suggested that player data should be shared with researchers, with a levy paid by publishers to support studies addressing the issue. The report follows the World Health Organization’s classification of ‘gaming disorder’ as a mental health condition earlier this year.

However, the WHO’s proposal to formalise gaming disorder as a condition has been criticised by a selection of academics in an open debate paper originally published in the Journal of Behavioural Addictions. The DMCS report was heavily criticised by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), namely over the recommendation that loot box sales be banned to those under the age of 18.

Discord abandons Nitro games library

Discord will be shutting down the games catalogue on its premium Nitro service on October 15th, one year since the library was added. While the games catalogue was praised for its breadth, it also attracted some criticism as many of the titles were available on alternative platforms for free, or at least at a heavy discount. Customers will be able to claim a full refund on their Nitro subscription if they are unhappy with the removal of the library.

The statement announcing the move reads, “We learned a lot from all of you over the last year. Through your valuable feedback, it became clear that while we and some of you love these games, the truth is the vast majority of Nitro subscribers didn’t play them.”