Minecraft received critical acclaim and has won numerous awards and accolades. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the MineCon convention played large roles in popularizing the game. It has also been used in educational environments (Minecraft Education Edition), especially in the realm of computing systems, as virtual computers and hardware devices have been built in it. As of May 2019, over 176 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the best-selling video game of all time. In September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang and the Minecraftintellectual property for US$2.5 billion, with the acquisition completed two months later. A spin-off game titled Minecraft: Story Mode has also been released. By mid-2018, the game had around 91 million active players monthly.