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I still don't understand the appeal, which is obviously my problem, because there is certainly appeal. I've given the game some time, and I consider myself quit

I still don't understand the appeal, which is obviously my problem, because there is certainly appeal. I've given the game some time, and I consider myself quite an avid gamer, but I just don't find it all that fun, interesting or entertaining. Can someone explain why this thing exploded how it did?

WaynesWorld 14y ago
Capricious gods. No, the game is actually quite fun. Is really easy to create something new from scratch. The same way that as a kid one used to love playing with Legos. On the other hand, what is the appeal of Facebook? Is just a glorified chat room.
mattmanser 14y ago
It lets you build stuff using your own imagination. A fully destructable/reshapeable world. I must admit after building my 3rd castle the novelty wore off, but I can understand why so many people love it. It's lego for adults.
- fredley 14y ago
  I'd got a bit tired of the vanilla game, but now I'm completely hooked on FTB, a modpack along the lines of Tekkit. The replayability through mods is one of the things driving the success of the game.
- Swizec 14y ago
  I think that's the main reason I personally can't get into the game. As a programmer, my life revolves around creating stuff out of basic building blocks. Anything I can imagine. With the added benefit that people actually pay me to do this stuff. Score!
allenp 14y ago
Out of curiosity do you like other sandbox games like simcity or dwarf fortress?
- dclowd9901 14y ago
  Because you asked, yes, I love Sim City and The Sims series; haven't really given dwarf fortress much time.
  - allenp 14y ago
    Thanks! I've never played minecraft, I was just wondering if maybe the distinction is between sandbox and simulation? I'm probably getting the terms wrong but the games do seem very different in their goals and how they engage the player.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Perspective. Simulation games tend to be top-down and focus on controlling large swaths of things from an abstract point of contact. Sandbox games tend to be perspective-based and focus on controlling some single person or group of persons from an intimate point of contact. Or, more pithily: In a simulation game, you pan; in a sandbox game, you walk.
Pyrodogg 14y ago
I'm sure the social aspect is what hooks a number of people, myself included. I run a small whitelisted server for friends and family. It's fun to survive, create and build things by your own and orders of magnitude more fun with friends. I'm regularly on with at least one other person. We always on mumble while playing so we can chat. Go out and explore together ,etc. Another thing that got me hooked is mods, specifically Minecraft Forge and the mods that are built on top of it. It's added so many new dimensions of gameplay. Edit: To add there are also whole mini-games being build within vanilla Minecraft. SethBling is one map making genius. You can play his Super Smash Bros. style PvP map. Or try Vech's series of Complete the Monument style adventure/puzzle maps. The many Let's Play Minecraft series on YouTube that should also be mentioned: Etho, BdoubleO100, Generikb, Direwolf20, KurtjMac, Guude and many more. Some of these have been YouTube partners for a while, Working at it full-time and producing ~30 minutes of content every day.
rschmitty 14y ago
I was in your boat, adult Legos is what it amounted to me. There have been some very impressive worlds created by communities with hundreds and hundreds of man hours, but still it just wasn't "my thing" This however is a blast: http://www.aceofspades.com/ http://www.aceofspades.com/ Perhaps I'm just evil, but I take more joy in destroying my opponents and their castles :)
- DanBC 14y ago
  It's fine that you don't like Minecraft. > Perhaps I'm just evil, but I take more joy in destroying my opponents and their castles This is possible on the right server! Some of them welcome PVP and griefing.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Somehow this seems obligatory http://i.imgur.com/p2axb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/p2axb.jpg
yesimahuman 14y ago
At its core, it has an intensely addicting game loop where you mine for minerals and always feel like you are one block away from finding diamonds. Beyond that, the world is very immersive and lets you create elaborate homes and environments (think HGTV for gamers). Now with more multiplayer features and it's fast becoming the "Counterstrike server" that all groups of gamer friends have. We just set up a minecraft server for our startup, and it's awesome.
- alttab 14y ago
  Setting up a minecraft server when you are trying to build a buisness seems like a big risk
  - yesimahuman 14y ago
    Really? Not having fun with your team seems like an even bigger risk. Plus, what's the point of working your ass off and not enjoying your life? Not something I'm interested in.
    - CodeCube 14y ago
      Here Here! Our team used to play age of empires from time to time ... it really helps make for a good experience when you are friends with your co-workers. I know that's not always realistic, but I can say it's preferred.
    - alttab 14y ago
      Minecraft can suck hours away without even trying. That's all I'm saying. Foosball or ping pong fill that same void.
      - yesimahuman 14y ago
        Oh, that's 100% true. But there is free time after work and we all grew up as gamers, so that's what we love to do in our free time.
  - 14y ago
afterburner 14y ago
I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's the tedium of construction plus the annoyance of checking the Minecraft wiki all the time that prevented this from grabbing me. The survival/exploration aspects might be bigger hits for me if it weren't for those drawbacks. (And I still like Lego.)
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  True, the UI could certainly use improvement. Having a way to easily search your stuff and also view the recipes in-game would make it much more pleasant.
  - Pyrodogg 14y ago
    The in-game discovery of item recipes is something that's definitely lacking for new players. There's a great mod that fixes this, Not Enough Items (NEI). It adds a nice in-game gui that lists all of the items, what their recipes are and also what recipes they're used in.
  - stordoff 14y ago
    You may like the crafting UI in the Minecraft version: http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2011/11/0d9d9173d1a1d9a7d7c9cd7f87e54ef8.jpg http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2011/11/0d9d9173d1a1...
- jff 14y ago
  The thing that bothered me most was the eternal groveling for resources when I'm trying to build something huge and awesome. Oh boy, my pickaxe broke, time to go spend another hour finding enough iron to make another.
  - eurleif 14y ago
    Isn't that why creative mode exists?
    - jff 14y ago
soup10 14y ago
It's the antithesis of the tightly scripted goal based game. Players are tired of the 'do this' , 'now go do this', 'now go do this' type games. Even so called 'sandbox games' like grand theft auto/skyrim, have highly scripted/predefined gameplay. Where a game like minecraft or scribblenauts, or crayon physics deluxe, says: Here's an engine with really fun toys, go play with them. Interestingly enough, that's all you really need to have a good game, million dollar cinematics optional.
- samspot 14y ago
  I would argue that it isn't that the players are tired of the goal based games, but that a majority of gamers really like building stuff and playing around. Personally, I'm one of the goal oriented ones, so it is hard for me to really get into minecraft. I usually set goals, try to achieve them, and move on to another game. I did get my money's worth with minecraft though. I honestly think it would be better to not be so goal-oriented in my gaming, but I just can't let it go. I miss being a kid.
  - teamonkey 14y ago
    Actually it's a minority of gamers who like to create. The majority are goal based. Even games like Little Big Planet, which are all about creation, the number of players who actually create are relatively small, most people just play. Minecraft's strength is that it appeals to both creators and non-creators.
    - samspot 14y ago
      How do you know that they aren't just creating but not sharing? Even I do that, goal-based as I am. I just don't spend as much time on it.
      - teamonkey 14y ago
        Good point. Although internally MediaMolecule (and Sony) will probably have very accurate stats on this via telemetry, you can get a rough idea by looking at what percentage of players have achieved which trophies. http://exophase.com/game/littlebigplanet/trophies/ http://exophase.com/game/littlebigplanet/trophies/ In a game such as Little Big Planet, where it could be argued that the whole point is creating levels, less than 50% have got the "Creator" trophy, but most players have the trophies you get when you complete ready-made levels. You can repeat the exercise with other creative games on console. Here's Minecraft XBLA (unfortunately the achievements chosen for this title are less enlightening). http://exophase.com/game/minecraft-xbox-360/achievements/ http://exophase.com/game/minecraft-xbox-360/achievements/ It's true that tracking sites like Exophase and Raptr only track achievements from people who sign up. These sites cater to players who really care about achievements, so the results would be skewed in that direction (and which I would say is the opposite direction to creativity, which has intrinsic fun).
rogerallen 14y ago
Don't any of you have kids? This is like crack cocaine for middle-school boys. Creating houses, weapons, hunting monsters, creating traps, exploring scary places...etc, etc, etc.
- gbhn 14y ago
  I do, and yes, every boy I know loves to play Minecraft. I'm sure there'll be a next thing, but it's really cool to see them get so much enjoyment out of an awesome game.
msg 14y ago
I've been to the well many times on Minecraft. On the family multiplayer server, I made sky houses out of giant mushrooms and bone dust. I made a hockey arena in the snow. I laid roads out of gravel (wood for bridges) that stretch for days of in-game time. There are waystations that you reach just as night is falling. We made a monster trap that drops tons of resources next to a powered railroad track, so you can get in a cart, whiz by monsters, after which they burn in lava, then their byproducts fall down a waterfall. I made an underwater dome out of glass. My son loves this game and we play it together. But there is also a special beauty when playing alone. You are marooned on a planet the size of earth. You have the power to keep yourself safe by your own efforts. You can explore vast caves to find treasure. You can light areas with torches to create zones of safety. You can grow crops and breed animals to feed yourself. You can look at the sunset through windows at your beach house, then go to bed. This is all with the tragic realization that virtually no one will appreciate your efforts (and in the game), so whatever experience or meaning you derive from it is for you alone. The world is by turns bleak, elegiac, beautiful. Lately I've been playing hardcore mode, which gives you only one life to live and deletes the world when you die. It is easy to starve, so the first few days are scrambling just to get to a subsistent existence. It's hard even for veterans, and it turns up all that tragic stuff to 11. There is in-game programming that people have used to make adders and ROMs and clocks. There are notes that you can use to make music (my doorbells play Raiders of the Lost Ark). You can make secret doors that open with pistons. And that's all in the base game! Modders have had an endless field day with this game. It's now a game that contains other games, contains multitudes.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  Best description of Minecraft I've ever read. Watching a beautiful scene unfold, alone, the urge to share the experience; knowing your structures won't be worth anything but still doing it for fun or to share with friends; it's something very unique. Few games generate the same kind of emotional attachment that minecraft does.
- AJ007 14y ago
  Minecraft is the closest I've gotten to my beginning days of gaming -- which was all about building things (SimCity, SimFarm, Civilization) and exploring (Moria, MUDs, and the joy of discovering easter eggs in any number of games.) Commercial video game studios produce what are effectively interactive movies. Building and exploration take a back seat if they exist at all. I hardly game anymore, but I have high hopes for 0x10c.
lucian1900 14y ago
It's basically Lego, but you can walk around in your creations, also with other people. Basically what every kid has ever wanted.
Osmium 14y ago
I'm like you, in that it doesn't appeal to me, but I think it's largely due to how much free time you have (or how much free time you make for yourself) – I can see how teenage-me would've loved it, but it seems too pointless to an adult me. I think it comes down to the question: is the end result of creating your own world worth the time investment you put into it? When I game these days it usually has to have a good narrative so I can get something from it, rather than something open-ended and "pointless" like Minecraft or an MMORPG. Even the social elements of an MMORPG doesn't seem worth it, given the time-sink of all the level grinding and learning arcane key combinations and the like...
- alexanderh 14y ago
  Its all about multiplayer and the social aspects. If you're playing a single player world, sure it can lose its appeal pretty quickly. But sharing your creations with your friends... walking them through something you just built... or going on adventures for specific resources together is soooooo much fun. Everyone on voice chat via Mumble, with the Minecraft Wiki open on a second monitor.... Thats what minecraft is all about. I think a large part of its appeal has todo with it working so well in conjunction with other things. Like wiki softawre, and voice chat software, etc. Combine all these together and you really do have something special and infinitely entertaining.
teamonkey 14y ago
It basically broadsides all the major player personality types as well as being a textbook case for psychological flow. For those who want to create, it offers virtually uninhibited creation. The world is a box of lego for you to play with. For those who want to explore, it offers infinite exploration, but there is no pressure to explore if you don't want to. For those who want to socialize, it offers multiplayer (and pets as allies), or you can enjoy the solitude. For those who want to kill or fight there are monsters, and for those who don't there is an option to switch them off. For those who want to collect, there are rare minerals. If you don't want to collect or build or grind, cheats are accepted by the creators and the community as a valid way to play. In terms of flow, the day-night cycle changes the play context often. In standard play it offers a sense of pressure (for those who want it), while ensuring that the player never becomes too overwhelmed for too long, or becomes bored by a lack of action. The desirability of items that you can craft in the game is usually proportional to their usefulness, but also requires proportionally more effort to obtain. Crucially, most of the tools and items are non-essential or it's easy to craft basic versions that will make do. The free-form nature of the game and lack of extrinsic rewards makes it perfect for self-directed goals, which are essential for flow. Its blocky art style is based on programmer art and technical limitations but has a functional purpose and carries a certain style. It's stylistic, not so cartoony as to put off adults, but so unrealistic that the zombies, spiders and skeletons are not scary enough to put off children (or the even the arachnophobic). In terms of accessibility or usability it's awful. Crafting is virtually impossible without the wiki open, for example. Not even the basic mechanics are explained. There's no in-game help. There must be a significant number of people who have played the game only once because of that. Still, if you manage to persevere for an hour or so, you'll have a solid grasp of the concepts of the game. The difficulty is mostly self-directed, as per flow theory. My question is, was all this deliberate? Does Notch have an calculating eye for game design, is it instinctual, or did he manage to hit on an excellent formula by chance? Can he repeat it?
methodin 14y ago
Legos.
- moron4hire 14y ago
  legos are in finite supply and don't shoot back
sehugg 14y ago
When I was a kid we had fun drawing 2D pictures on our computer with 16 colors at 40x24 resolution. I think Minecraft is this experience but in 3D, at a much higher resolution, and in a dynamic world with your friends (it also functions as the de facto standard BBS for kids).
JabavuAdams 14y ago
Lego MMO done right.
trotsky 14y ago
It never really grabbed me though i'm no way a critic, but watching from early on I think the phenomenon owes a lot to factors beyond the gameplay itself. Sentiment against big budget games with poor gameplay had risen dramatically which was opening a bigger market for indie games where simple graphics were a badge of honor. Many of these titles lacked strong replay or the ability to play with friends. Releasing in such early alpha (for money) built a highly engaged fan base (as most closed alphas tend to be) and yet set expectations rather low. Notch's clear passion and close relationship with the community along with frequent updates did a lot to build a strong community that essentially became invested in his success at a personal level. The simplicity of the game also created a situation where seeing how much could be done with so little became a big part of the appeal or at least what grabbed outsider's attention. The result of all of that was a genuine grass roots movement that snowballed into an unstoppable promotion machine. It's not to take away from the game or his skills at all, I have a ton of respect for him and what he built. But I think it's very unlikely Minecraft would have been much more than a blip if it had been released as a finished product by faceless game studio.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
It's more of a toy than a game, per se. The thing is, it's set up to generate great moments of gaming fun, but in a different way than a more scripted game is. In a scripted game an NPC might give you a quest to go to some particular place and do a particular thing. In minecraft you create your own quests based on your own needs and desires. For example, you might decide that you want to create potions, for this you need netherwart, which you can only get from the nether realm, but to get to the nether realm you need obsidian, which can only be mined using diamond tools, so you start off by deciding to get diamond tools and mining some obsidian. To achieve that you may have to travel far distances, explore deep caverns, fight off hordes of monsters, and narrowly survive many threats. And along the way you are likely to have an experience that is just as exciting and just as memorable as any scripted quest. Also, getting lost is a big deal in minecraft, which makes it a bit unlike many other games. Ending up several days walk from your home with no idea where you are and with night closing in and monsters soon to be everywhere is something you don't get in most games. You are far more in control of your fate in minecraft which makes your successes that much sweeter and your failures that much more painful. It's not for everyone, and there's a good argument that the game is too easy once you've mastered it (although there's always hardcore permadeath mode) but there's no denying that there's a lot of fundamentally good gaming in there for people who enjoy the style of play.
Bockit 14y ago
I can't explain why it exploded but I have an observation I've pieced together watching a few of my friends play after some leave and some stick around. Generally, if you don't have an idea for a project, for example, making a tree house, the game can get quite boring if setting up automatic resource gathering stuff isn't your thing.
Zephyrial 14y ago
Many good points made here; the one thing I think everyone missed is how exhilarating and SCARY MineCraft can be. If you have been spelunking in a labyrinthine cave system for (in-game) days and racked up a huge bag of loot, every monster around the corner (or over your shoulder) is alarming in a very real way. Getting killed doesn't just mean a manufactured in-game penalty ("go back to last save point") it means the possibility of literally losing everything you've just been working for and discovering.

WaynesWorld 14y ago

Capricious gods. No, the game is actually quite fun. Is really easy to create something new from scratch. The same way that as a kid one used to love playing with Legos. On the other hand, what is the appeal of Facebook? Is just a glorified chat room.

mattmanser 14y ago

It lets you build stuff using your own imagination. A fully destructable/reshapeable world. I must admit after building my 3rd castle the novelty wore off, but I can understand why so many people love it. It's lego for adults.

fredley 14y ago
I'd got a bit tired of the vanilla game, but now I'm completely hooked on FTB, a modpack along the lines of Tekkit. The replayability through mods is one of the things driving the success of the game.
Swizec 14y ago
I think that's the main reason I personally can't get into the game. As a programmer, my life revolves around creating stuff out of basic building blocks. Anything I can imagine. With the added benefit that people actually pay me to do this stuff. Score!

allenp 14y ago

Out of curiosity do you like other sandbox games like simcity or dwarf fortress?

dclowd9901 14y ago
Because you asked, yes, I love Sim City and The Sims series; haven't really given dwarf fortress much time.
- allenp 14y ago
  Thanks! I've never played minecraft, I was just wondering if maybe the distinction is between sandbox and simulation? I'm probably getting the terms wrong but the games do seem very different in their goals and how they engage the player.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Perspective. Simulation games tend to be top-down and focus on controlling large swaths of things from an abstract point of contact. Sandbox games tend to be perspective-based and focus on controlling some single person or group of persons from an intimate point of contact. Or, more pithily: In a simulation game, you pan; in a sandbox game, you walk.

Pyrodogg 14y ago

I'm sure the social aspect is what hooks a number of people, myself included. I run a small whitelisted server for friends and family. It's fun to survive, create and build things by your own and orders of magnitude more fun with friends. I'm regularly on with at least one other person. We always on mumble while playing so we can chat. Go out and explore together ,etc. Another thing that got me hooked is mods, specifically Minecraft Forge and the mods that are built on top of it. It's added so many new dimensions of gameplay. Edit: To add there are also whole mini-games being build within vanilla Minecraft. SethBling is one map making genius. You can play his Super Smash Bros. style PvP map. Or try Vech's series of Complete the Monument style adventure/puzzle maps. The many Let's Play Minecraft series on YouTube that should also be mentioned: Etho, BdoubleO100, Generikb, Direwolf20, KurtjMac, Guude and many more. Some of these have been YouTube partners for a while, Working at it full-time and producing ~30 minutes of content every day.

rschmitty 14y ago

I was in your boat, adult Legos is what it amounted to me. There have been some very impressive worlds created by communities with hundreds and hundreds of man hours, but still it just wasn't "my thing" This however is a blast: http://www.aceofspades.com/ http://www.aceofspades.com/ Perhaps I'm just evil, but I take more joy in destroying my opponents and their castles :)

DanBC 14y ago
It's fine that you don't like Minecraft. > Perhaps I'm just evil, but I take more joy in destroying my opponents and their castles This is possible on the right server! Some of them welcome PVP and griefing.
- sp332 14y ago
  Somehow this seems obligatory http://i.imgur.com/p2axb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/p2axb.jpg

yesimahuman 14y ago

At its core, it has an intensely addicting game loop where you mine for minerals and always feel like you are one block away from finding diamonds. Beyond that, the world is very immersive and lets you create elaborate homes and environments (think HGTV for gamers). Now with more multiplayer features and it's fast becoming the "Counterstrike server" that all groups of gamer friends have. We just set up a minecraft server for our startup, and it's awesome.

alttab 14y ago
Setting up a minecraft server when you are trying to build a buisness seems like a big risk
- yesimahuman 14y ago
  Really? Not having fun with your team seems like an even bigger risk. Plus, what's the point of working your ass off and not enjoying your life? Not something I'm interested in.
  - CodeCube 14y ago
    Here Here! Our team used to play age of empires from time to time ... it really helps make for a good experience when you are friends with your co-workers. I know that's not always realistic, but I can say it's preferred.
  - alttab 14y ago
    Minecraft can suck hours away without even trying. That's all I'm saying. Foosball or ping pong fill that same void.
    - yesimahuman 14y ago
      Oh, that's 100% true. But there is free time after work and we all grew up as gamers, so that's what we love to do in our free time.
- 14y ago

afterburner 14y ago

I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's the tedium of construction plus the annoyance of checking the Minecraft wiki all the time that prevented this from grabbing me. The survival/exploration aspects might be bigger hits for me if it weren't for those drawbacks. (And I still like Lego.)

jiggy2011 14y ago
True, the UI could certainly use improvement. Having a way to easily search your stuff and also view the recipes in-game would make it much more pleasant.
- Pyrodogg 14y ago
  The in-game discovery of item recipes is something that's definitely lacking for new players. There's a great mod that fixes this, Not Enough Items (NEI). It adds a nice in-game gui that lists all of the items, what their recipes are and also what recipes they're used in.
- stordoff 14y ago
  You may like the crafting UI in the Minecraft version: http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2011/11/0d9d9173d1a1d9a7d7c9cd7f87e54ef8.jpg http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2011/11/0d9d9173d1a1...
jff 14y ago
The thing that bothered me most was the eternal groveling for resources when I'm trying to build something huge and awesome. Oh boy, my pickaxe broke, time to go spend another hour finding enough iron to make another.
- eurleif 14y ago
  Isn't that why creative mode exists?
  - jff 14y ago

soup10 14y ago

It's the antithesis of the tightly scripted goal based game. Players are tired of the 'do this' , 'now go do this', 'now go do this' type games. Even so called 'sandbox games' like grand theft auto/skyrim, have highly scripted/predefined gameplay. Where a game like minecraft or scribblenauts, or crayon physics deluxe, says: Here's an engine with really fun toys, go play with them. Interestingly enough, that's all you really need to have a good game, million dollar cinematics optional.

samspot 14y ago
I would argue that it isn't that the players are tired of the goal based games, but that a majority of gamers really like building stuff and playing around. Personally, I'm one of the goal oriented ones, so it is hard for me to really get into minecraft. I usually set goals, try to achieve them, and move on to another game. I did get my money's worth with minecraft though. I honestly think it would be better to not be so goal-oriented in my gaming, but I just can't let it go. I miss being a kid.
- teamonkey 14y ago
  Actually it's a minority of gamers who like to create. The majority are goal based. Even games like Little Big Planet, which are all about creation, the number of players who actually create are relatively small, most people just play. Minecraft's strength is that it appeals to both creators and non-creators.
  - samspot 14y ago
    How do you know that they aren't just creating but not sharing? Even I do that, goal-based as I am. I just don't spend as much time on it.
    - teamonkey 14y ago
      Good point. Although internally MediaMolecule (and Sony) will probably have very accurate stats on this via telemetry, you can get a rough idea by looking at what percentage of players have achieved which trophies. http://exophase.com/game/littlebigplanet/trophies/ http://exophase.com/game/littlebigplanet/trophies/ In a game such as Little Big Planet, where it could be argued that the whole point is creating levels, less than 50% have got the "Creator" trophy, but most players have the trophies you get when you complete ready-made levels. You can repeat the exercise with other creative games on console. Here's Minecraft XBLA (unfortunately the achievements chosen for this title are less enlightening). http://exophase.com/game/minecraft-xbox-360/achievements/ http://exophase.com/game/minecraft-xbox-360/achievements/ It's true that tracking sites like Exophase and Raptr only track achievements from people who sign up. These sites cater to players who really care about achievements, so the results would be skewed in that direction (and which I would say is the opposite direction to creativity, which has intrinsic fun).

rogerallen 14y ago

Don't any of you have kids? This is like crack cocaine for middle-school boys. Creating houses, weapons, hunting monsters, creating traps, exploring scary places...etc, etc, etc.

gbhn 14y ago
I do, and yes, every boy I know loves to play Minecraft. I'm sure there'll be a next thing, but it's really cool to see them get so much enjoyment out of an awesome game.

msg 14y ago

I've been to the well many times on Minecraft. On the family multiplayer server, I made sky houses out of giant mushrooms and bone dust. I made a hockey arena in the snow. I laid roads out of gravel (wood for bridges) that stretch for days of in-game time. There are waystations that you reach just as night is falling. We made a monster trap that drops tons of resources next to a powered railroad track, so you can get in a cart, whiz by monsters, after which they burn in lava, then their byproducts fall down a waterfall. I made an underwater dome out of glass. My son loves this game and we play it together. But there is also a special beauty when playing alone. You are marooned on a planet the size of earth. You have the power to keep yourself safe by your own efforts. You can explore vast caves to find treasure. You can light areas with torches to create zones of safety. You can grow crops and breed animals to feed yourself. You can look at the sunset through windows at your beach house, then go to bed. This is all with the tragic realization that virtually no one will appreciate your efforts (and in the game), so whatever experience or meaning you derive from it is for you alone. The world is by turns bleak, elegiac, beautiful. Lately I've been playing hardcore mode, which gives you only one life to live and deletes the world when you die. It is easy to starve, so the first few days are scrambling just to get to a subsistent existence. It's hard even for veterans, and it turns up all that tragic stuff to 11. There is in-game programming that people have used to make adders and ROMs and clocks. There are notes that you can use to make music (my doorbells play Raiders of the Lost Ark). You can make secret doors that open with pistons. And that's all in the base game! Modders have had an endless field day with this game. It's now a game that contains other games, contains multitudes.

ricardobeat 14y ago
Best description of Minecraft I've ever read. Watching a beautiful scene unfold, alone, the urge to share the experience; knowing your structures won't be worth anything but still doing it for fun or to share with friends; it's something very unique. Few games generate the same kind of emotional attachment that minecraft does.
AJ007 14y ago
Minecraft is the closest I've gotten to my beginning days of gaming -- which was all about building things (SimCity, SimFarm, Civilization) and exploring (Moria, MUDs, and the joy of discovering easter eggs in any number of games.) Commercial video game studios produce what are effectively interactive movies. Building and exploration take a back seat if they exist at all. I hardly game anymore, but I have high hopes for 0x10c.

lucian1900 14y ago

It's basically Lego, but you can walk around in your creations, also with other people. Basically what every kid has ever wanted.

Osmium 14y ago

I'm like you, in that it doesn't appeal to me, but I think it's largely due to how much free time you have (or how much free time you make for yourself) – I can see how teenage-me would've loved it, but it seems too pointless to an adult me. I think it comes down to the question: is the end result of creating your own world worth the time investment you put into it? When I game these days it usually has to have a good narrative so I can get something from it, rather than something open-ended and "pointless" like Minecraft or an MMORPG. Even the social elements of an MMORPG doesn't seem worth it, given the time-sink of all the level grinding and learning arcane key combinations and the like...

alexanderh 14y ago
Its all about multiplayer and the social aspects. If you're playing a single player world, sure it can lose its appeal pretty quickly. But sharing your creations with your friends... walking them through something you just built... or going on adventures for specific resources together is soooooo much fun. Everyone on voice chat via Mumble, with the Minecraft Wiki open on a second monitor.... Thats what minecraft is all about. I think a large part of its appeal has todo with it working so well in conjunction with other things. Like wiki softawre, and voice chat software, etc. Combine all these together and you really do have something special and infinitely entertaining.

teamonkey 14y ago

It basically broadsides all the major player personality types as well as being a textbook case for psychological flow. For those who want to create, it offers virtually uninhibited creation. The world is a box of lego for you to play with. For those who want to explore, it offers infinite exploration, but there is no pressure to explore if you don't want to. For those who want to socialize, it offers multiplayer (and pets as allies), or you can enjoy the solitude. For those who want to kill or fight there are monsters, and for those who don't there is an option to switch them off. For those who want to collect, there are rare minerals. If you don't want to collect or build or grind, cheats are accepted by the creators and the community as a valid way to play. In terms of flow, the day-night cycle changes the play context often. In standard play it offers a sense of pressure (for those who want it), while ensuring that the player never becomes too overwhelmed for too long, or becomes bored by a lack of action. The desirability of items that you can craft in the game is usually proportional to their usefulness, but also requires proportionally more effort to obtain. Crucially, most of the tools and items are non-essential or it's easy to craft basic versions that will make do. The free-form nature of the game and lack of extrinsic rewards makes it perfect for self-directed goals, which are essential for flow. Its blocky art style is based on programmer art and technical limitations but has a functional purpose and carries a certain style. It's stylistic, not so cartoony as to put off adults, but so unrealistic that the zombies, spiders and skeletons are not scary enough to put off children (or the even the arachnophobic). In terms of accessibility or usability it's awful. Crafting is virtually impossible without the wiki open, for example. Not even the basic mechanics are explained. There's no in-game help. There must be a significant number of people who have played the game only once because of that. Still, if you manage to persevere for an hour or so, you'll have a solid grasp of the concepts of the game. The difficulty is mostly self-directed, as per flow theory. My question is, was all this deliberate? Does Notch have an calculating eye for game design, is it instinctual, or did he manage to hit on an excellent formula by chance? Can he repeat it?

methodin 14y ago

Legos.

moron4hire 14y ago
legos are in finite supply and don't shoot back

sehugg 14y ago

When I was a kid we had fun drawing 2D pictures on our computer with 16 colors at 40x24 resolution. I think Minecraft is this experience but in 3D, at a much higher resolution, and in a dynamic world with your friends (it also functions as the de facto standard BBS for kids).

JabavuAdams 14y ago

Lego MMO done right.

trotsky 14y ago

It never really grabbed me though i'm no way a critic, but watching from early on I think the phenomenon owes a lot to factors beyond the gameplay itself. Sentiment against big budget games with poor gameplay had risen dramatically which was opening a bigger market for indie games where simple graphics were a badge of honor. Many of these titles lacked strong replay or the ability to play with friends. Releasing in such early alpha (for money) built a highly engaged fan base (as most closed alphas tend to be) and yet set expectations rather low. Notch's clear passion and close relationship with the community along with frequent updates did a lot to build a strong community that essentially became invested in his success at a personal level. The simplicity of the game also created a situation where seeing how much could be done with so little became a big part of the appeal or at least what grabbed outsider's attention. The result of all of that was a genuine grass roots movement that snowballed into an unstoppable promotion machine. It's not to take away from the game or his skills at all, I have a ton of respect for him and what he built. But I think it's very unlikely Minecraft would have been much more than a blip if it had been released as a finished product by faceless game studio.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

It's more of a toy than a game, per se. The thing is, it's set up to generate great moments of gaming fun, but in a different way than a more scripted game is. In a scripted game an NPC might give you a quest to go to some particular place and do a particular thing. In minecraft you create your own quests based on your own needs and desires. For example, you might decide that you want to create potions, for this you need netherwart, which you can only get from the nether realm, but to get to the nether realm you need obsidian, which can only be mined using diamond tools, so you start off by deciding to get diamond tools and mining some obsidian. To achieve that you may have to travel far distances, explore deep caverns, fight off hordes of monsters, and narrowly survive many threats. And along the way you are likely to have an experience that is just as exciting and just as memorable as any scripted quest. Also, getting lost is a big deal in minecraft, which makes it a bit unlike many other games. Ending up several days walk from your home with no idea where you are and with night closing in and monsters soon to be everywhere is something you don't get in most games. You are far more in control of your fate in minecraft which makes your successes that much sweeter and your failures that much more painful. It's not for everyone, and there's a good argument that the game is too easy once you've mastered it (although there's always hardcore permadeath mode) but there's no denying that there's a lot of fundamentally good gaming in there for people who enjoy the style of play.

Bockit 14y ago

I can't explain why it exploded but I have an observation I've pieced together watching a few of my friends play after some leave and some stick around. Generally, if you don't have an idea for a project, for example, making a tree house, the game can get quite boring if setting up automatic resource gathering stuff isn't your thing.

Zephyrial 14y ago

Many good points made here; the one thing I think everyone missed is how exhilarating and SCARY MineCraft can be. If you have been spelunking in a labyrinthine cave system for (in-game) days and racked up a huge bag of loot, every monster around the corner (or over your shoulder) is alarming in a very real way. Getting killed doesn't just mean a manufactured in-game penalty ("go back to last save point") it means the possibility of literally losing everything you've just been working for and discovering.