5 ms·

Sorry if this sounds a bit dry, but I think the reason it's so popular is because it has a much more open-ended play space than almost all other child-friendly

Sorry if this sounds a bit dry, but I think the reason it's so popular is because it has a much more open-ended play space than almost all other child-friendly games, giving them the opportunities to set their own goals and practice structuring their own time without the finality of having an outside party set the win conditions (such as trophies/achievements). Sure, there are some of those things in the background, but it's an opportunity for kids to exercise executive creativity.

ioma8 2y ago
I would say exercise autonomy. As autonomy is strong evidence-based inner motivator. Also competence - still increasing their skills. More about self-determination theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory
astrobe_ 2y ago
Yes, and it isn't for every player. Funny story time: I bring online sometime a Luanti [1] server to playtest the game I made in a multiplayer context. One time someone joined and after a few minutes visiting, they asked "So, what is the goal?". I wasn't expecting that. MC may be popular, but one doesn't join a Luanti game server by accident, and most of them are MC- or at least MMORPG-like. Still, although there's no set goals like in other games, this style of game has to have "affordances" for goals. Even the building activity in MC is not "free", as monsters are there to get in the way of the players' projects. I also think that the social aspect is crucial, in the sense that having fun building things doesn't last, because one eventually runs out of ideas. Showing to others what you have achieved is an important part of it. Does art exist without an audience ? [2] I think it is interesting to note that the fact that MC's world is fully editable by players is what drove the choice for the voxel technology, which was the only one allowing it with a normal PC at the time. [1] https://www.luanti.org/ https://www.luanti.org/ [2] https://thehoya.com/opinion/eye-of-the-beholder/ https://thehoya.com/opinion/eye-of-the-beholder/
- newsclues 2y ago
  Like a literal sandbox. It’s simple but with creativity and imagination it’s endlessly entertaining and you unconsciously learn. But not everyone likes to play in the sand but those that do, really do!
  - AstralStorm 2y ago
    Not quite endlessly (unless you mod it to heck), but it does go deep.
  - astrobe_ 2y ago
    Yes, and on the makers' side, you learn a lot too, trying to find uses for materials. I often wandered in Wikipedia for geology, mineralogy, flora, alloys - for those I even ended up in professional websites. I learned about the Soda pulping for paper and cotton seed oil (which is not common in my country).
nottorp 2y ago
Minecraft is the Lego game that the Lego company wasn't competent enough to make. The old Legos. Where you got a bunch of bricks with no plans and the only limit was your imagination (and the quantity of bricks). Of course children like it, just like they liked the original Legos. And by the way, why children only? I'm playing on a semi-private (need to apply and be accepted by admins) 18+ builder's server on and off. There are such things.
- squigz 2y ago
  I'm not willing to call the Lego company incompetent for not wanting to attempt something that many companies would fail at horribly. If we had a truly creative Lego game release when Minecraft was first starting out, I would not expect it to be very good, let alone as great as Minecraft is.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    I remember reading somewhere that they did release some online Lego game that allowed building once, but they shut it down because they couldn't delete all the dicks in time. To be snarky, if you want an environment without dicks you should play on an adults only server. When we play, we're too busy building huge elaborate buildings and terraforming large portions of the landscape to build measly dicks.
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      The thing Minecraft did alright was to not actually try and host their own servers, thus not being responsible for what people did in-game online. But also, MC is simple enough that "a dick" is five blocks in a particular organization... and it quickly becomes boring, not to mention uncreative. Building dicks isn't as fun as Everything Else in the game.
      - throwaway89201 2y ago
        This is not how "responsible" works for companies like Lego and Disney. They consider everything around their brand to be 'theirs'. An interesting story in that area [1] is the one time that Disney did try to build something resembling chat into a game of theirs (spoiler: it didn't go well). [1] http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-toontowns-speedchat-or-blockchattm-from-disney-finally-arrives/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...

ioma8 2y ago

I would say exercise autonomy. As autonomy is strong evidence-based inner motivator. Also competence - still increasing their skills. More about self-determination theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory

astrobe_ 2y ago

Yes, and it isn't for every player. Funny story time: I bring online sometime a Luanti [1] server to playtest the game I made in a multiplayer context. One time someone joined and after a few minutes visiting, they asked "So, what is the goal?". I wasn't expecting that. MC may be popular, but one doesn't join a Luanti game server by accident, and most of them are MC- or at least MMORPG-like. Still, although there's no set goals like in other games, this style of game has to have "affordances" for goals. Even the building activity in MC is not "free", as monsters are there to get in the way of the players' projects. I also think that the social aspect is crucial, in the sense that having fun building things doesn't last, because one eventually runs out of ideas. Showing to others what you have achieved is an important part of it. Does art exist without an audience ? [2] I think it is interesting to note that the fact that MC's world is fully editable by players is what drove the choice for the voxel technology, which was the only one allowing it with a normal PC at the time. [1] https://www.luanti.org/ https://www.luanti.org/ [2] https://thehoya.com/opinion/eye-of-the-beholder/ https://thehoya.com/opinion/eye-of-the-beholder/

newsclues 2y ago
Like a literal sandbox. It’s simple but with creativity and imagination it’s endlessly entertaining and you unconsciously learn. But not everyone likes to play in the sand but those that do, really do!
- AstralStorm 2y ago
  Not quite endlessly (unless you mod it to heck), but it does go deep.
- astrobe_ 2y ago
  Yes, and on the makers' side, you learn a lot too, trying to find uses for materials. I often wandered in Wikipedia for geology, mineralogy, flora, alloys - for those I even ended up in professional websites. I learned about the Soda pulping for paper and cotton seed oil (which is not common in my country).

nottorp 2y ago

Minecraft is the Lego game that the Lego company wasn't competent enough to make. The old Legos. Where you got a bunch of bricks with no plans and the only limit was your imagination (and the quantity of bricks). Of course children like it, just like they liked the original Legos. And by the way, why children only? I'm playing on a semi-private (need to apply and be accepted by admins) 18+ builder's server on and off. There are such things.

squigz 2y ago
I'm not willing to call the Lego company incompetent for not wanting to attempt something that many companies would fail at horribly. If we had a truly creative Lego game release when Minecraft was first starting out, I would not expect it to be very good, let alone as great as Minecraft is.
- nottorp 2y ago
  I remember reading somewhere that they did release some online Lego game that allowed building once, but they shut it down because they couldn't delete all the dicks in time. To be snarky, if you want an environment without dicks you should play on an adults only server. When we play, we're too busy building huge elaborate buildings and terraforming large portions of the landscape to build measly dicks.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    The thing Minecraft did alright was to not actually try and host their own servers, thus not being responsible for what people did in-game online. But also, MC is simple enough that "a dick" is five blocks in a particular organization... and it quickly becomes boring, not to mention uncreative. Building dicks isn't as fun as Everything Else in the game.
    - throwaway89201 2y ago
      This is not how "responsible" works for companies like Lego and Disney. They consider everything around their brand to be 'theirs'. An interesting story in that area [1] is the one time that Disney did try to build something resembling chat into a game of theirs (spoiler: it didn't go well). [1] http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-toontowns-speedchat-or-blockchattm-from-disney-finally-arrives/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...