Minecraft getting in-game name changes, Pocket Edition sells 30 million

Minecraft players will be able to change their in-game name soon, development studio Mojang has announced. The process is set to go live on February 4, and looks to be pretty straightforward; once the name-changing system is in place, players can change their in-game name simply by logging into their account. Any name that is not being used by another player will be available, but players will have to wait 30 days before they can change again.

If you're worried about someone swiping your name while you wait said 30 days to come back to it though, don't be: it takes 37 days for an old name to become available for someone else. So if you were to change your name from, say, "MinecraftMasta" to something else, we wouldn't be able to swipe MinecraftMasta for ourselves before you had a chance to reclaim it. Changing names does not change inventory or character status, meaning if someone has blocked you, changing your name won't allow you to circumvent said block.

Mojang also announced that to date, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has sold a combined total of more than 30 million copies. Pocket Edition surpassed 21 million copies back in April, and expanded its reach to Windows Phone users in December, though Mojang did not share how many of the 9 million new sales were due to releasing on a new platform.