Minecraft is a sandbox game owned by the company Mojang that was released to the public on May 17, 2009. On May 17, 2024 Minecraft officially became fifteen years old and it is still getting updates and being played. Despite a decade and half long journey, the underlying principle of the game has stayed the same. The best way to describe Minecraft is digital LEGO except with its own lore and mostly real-world environments. Another way of looking at it is dissecting the words mine and craft. Mine is a verb that refers to the act of mining for (or gathering) resources and craft is also a verb referring to the skill or practice of making something. The game is made up of two primary modes; survival and creative. These aren’t words to describe their overall experience but mostly to differentiate between them. Survival mode forces the player to gather resources and fight off threats as creative mode has resources already available to the player and there is no risk of death.
Many players prefer survival as it gives an authentic joy to playing the game, there are genuine stakes as one can lose items in their inventory when they have died, it’s grounded and closer to reality, and how some extremely talented people have used the mechanics of the game to farm resources, practically making survival mode a creative mode experience (the Sci-craft and Hermitcraft multiplayer servers definitely come to mind). It has been said countless times before but one of the beauties of the game is that it does not have any set goal or objective. Yes, in survival mode, the community has constructed goals and there is even an end credits screen when you defeat a dragon in another realm but that’s not where it concludes. Ironically, it is where the game truly begins as it gives access to mechanics that make the survival experience more enjoyable for traditional and advanced players. I believe that its success has truly come from the possibilities it has.
Minecraft is a game, but it is also an art form. One can find countless people on the internet making some incredible creations from block-placement that are not just limited to architecture. There are so many different ways people have played the game and have morphed it into a new experience. Some of the many ways people play Minecraft are singleplayer survival or creative let’s plays, survival or creative guides, player versus player (PVP; its popularity blossoming on the public Hypixel server), redstone (engineering) tutorials/showcases, building tutorials/showcases, music tutorials/showcases with note blocks, adventure/challenge maps, survival or creative multiplayer let’s plays, a mix of them, and more that I definitely haven’t thought of.
I think it is important to understand that because Minecraft has limitless possibilities, that doesn’t mean that it should be the only game that is played. Most of the people one will see online have spent hours playing the game and do it for a living. Comparison is the thief of joy and, not just for Minecraft, one should recognize that because you are passionate about something and you don’t feel as if you can live up to other people’s work, you will feel as if you’ve lived a meaningless existence. What you are good at, how you contribute to others is what you can look back on and realize the meaning that comes from your life is the good you do. The fiery passion that lives in all of us can still be a facet of things we are good at like an aspiring doctor becoming a teacher of medicine. If you feel that you aren’t doing the best you can with what you are passionate about, be happy about what you can do and admire from afar what humans have inspired you with.
