6 ms·

> Give people a blank piece of paper and ask them to “have fun!” A few might get excited and start writing a poem or sketch a masterpiece. But most will be ann

by zimbatm 13y ago

> Give people a blank piece of paper and ask them to “have fun!” A few might get excited and start writing a poem or sketch a masterpiece. But most will be annoyed, grow bored and give up. Here we get explained how minecraft is a failure.

hkyeti 13y ago
Lego is very fun (well I think so), but an app to just play lego isn't going to do as well as a lego app with game mechanic and goals to accomplish. Minecraft has some simple mechanics. You can collect stuff. You craft stuff. You have to survive. That makes it fun to get into. And yes the creativity and community builds on that to achieve some amazing things which amplifies the fun, and at that point you can ignore the survival/goal part of it. It's quite a bit different from a virtual world like Second Life.
- iosnoob 13y ago
  I think also minecraft abstracts the detail, allowing you to use more imagination.
specialist 13y ago
Exactly. Expectation wise virtual reality is like artificial intelligence. Whatever AI solved just became "computation", while the mythical "real AI" was always just past the horizon. During the early years, VR was 3D immersive MMO dungeon (MUD) environment. VR caves and head mounted displays aren't common place. But I'd say in most other ways, the vision for VR has been largely realized. In the mid 90s, I worked on a blacksun (Snowcrash) inspired virtual world kinda thing. We tried to divine a collaboratively built world that would then be used as the scenes to host other games. Not too different from SecondLife. It sucked. At no time did any one come close to conceiving something as simple and awesome as Minecraft.
stratagerm 13y ago
A large proportion of Minecraft players are kids. I've written about this in The Minecraft Generation: A distinct demographic cohort. [1] This will be the first generation of children to grow up with a lot of experience in virtual worlds. [1] http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-minecraft-generation-distinct.html http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-minecraft-generati...
- pekk 13y ago
  Not really, plenty of kids have grown up on WoW or EverQuest or LPMUD or whatever before this, not to mention so many other games. I don't see how Minecraft is revolutionary in this respect.
  - stratagerm 13y ago
    Minecraft isn't "plenty of kids." Minecraft is millions of kids, all playing the same game. Sales are over 26 million on all platforms, 10 million on PC. If 30 percent of PC sales are played by kids, which I think is low, that's 3 million. Plus a lot of kids are playing pirated copies or on other platforms. WoW was popular with kids, but there were never 3 million children playing it. The majority of WoW and EverQuest players have been adults. MMOs, even kids MMOs, are unmodifiable theme parks which don't hold a child's attention for very long. Free Realms, the MMO made by Sony Online Entertainment targeted at kids, had to run TV ads to remind them to play[1]. Meanwhile Mojang has spent zero dollars marketing Minecraft (if you don't count Minecon expenses). Viral spread among children has helped make it the seventh highest selling PC game of all time[2]. MMOs have numerous specialized blogs covering them; the popular MMOs have dozens of blogs devoted specifically to each title. Minecraft has almost no blogs covering it because blogging is an activity done by adults. In contrast, searching YouTube for "minecraft" currently yields "about 70,200,000 results." Instead of reading, most children would rather watch a video and quite a few have mastered making and uploading their own. One top YouTuber specializing in Minecraft makes enough to earn a living off it (he's young and single), and he's still gaining subscribers[3]. Minecraft is different. There's never been a game like it. [1] http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-smedley-on-free-realms-at-gdc.html http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-smedley-on-free-r... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games [3] http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/sethbling http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/sethbling
vacri 13y ago
Minecraft has some very specific goals. Just because there is no overarching goal doesn't mean there are none. "Don't die at night", "don't starve" are two very clear ones that drive you to developing the area. Then you can build things if you're inclined to do so. The people who design and build giant amazing things in Minecraft are analagous to the poets and sketchers in the blank-paper example.

by zimbatm 13y ago

hkyeti 13y ago

Lego is very fun (well I think so), but an app to just play lego isn't going to do as well as a lego app with game mechanic and goals to accomplish. Minecraft has some simple mechanics. You can collect stuff. You craft stuff. You have to survive. That makes it fun to get into. And yes the creativity and community builds on that to achieve some amazing things which amplifies the fun, and at that point you can ignore the survival/goal part of it. It's quite a bit different from a virtual world like Second Life.

iosnoob 13y ago
I think also minecraft abstracts the detail, allowing you to use more imagination.

specialist 13y ago

Exactly. Expectation wise virtual reality is like artificial intelligence. Whatever AI solved just became "computation", while the mythical "real AI" was always just past the horizon. During the early years, VR was 3D immersive MMO dungeon (MUD) environment. VR caves and head mounted displays aren't common place. But I'd say in most other ways, the vision for VR has been largely realized. In the mid 90s, I worked on a blacksun (Snowcrash) inspired virtual world kinda thing. We tried to divine a collaboratively built world that would then be used as the scenes to host other games. Not too different from SecondLife. It sucked. At no time did any one come close to conceiving something as simple and awesome as Minecraft.

stratagerm 13y ago

A large proportion of Minecraft players are kids. I've written about this in The Minecraft Generation: A distinct demographic cohort. [1] This will be the first generation of children to grow up with a lot of experience in virtual worlds. [1] http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-minecraft-generation-distinct.html http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-minecraft-generati...

pekk 13y ago
Not really, plenty of kids have grown up on WoW or EverQuest or LPMUD or whatever before this, not to mention so many other games. I don't see how Minecraft is revolutionary in this respect.
- stratagerm 13y ago
  Minecraft isn't "plenty of kids." Minecraft is millions of kids, all playing the same game. Sales are over 26 million on all platforms, 10 million on PC. If 30 percent of PC sales are played by kids, which I think is low, that's 3 million. Plus a lot of kids are playing pirated copies or on other platforms. WoW was popular with kids, but there were never 3 million children playing it. The majority of WoW and EverQuest players have been adults. MMOs, even kids MMOs, are unmodifiable theme parks which don't hold a child's attention for very long. Free Realms, the MMO made by Sony Online Entertainment targeted at kids, had to run TV ads to remind them to play[1]. Meanwhile Mojang has spent zero dollars marketing Minecraft (if you don't count Minecon expenses). Viral spread among children has helped make it the seventh highest selling PC game of all time[2]. MMOs have numerous specialized blogs covering them; the popular MMOs have dozens of blogs devoted specifically to each title. Minecraft has almost no blogs covering it because blogging is an activity done by adults. In contrast, searching YouTube for "minecraft" currently yields "about 70,200,000 results." Instead of reading, most children would rather watch a video and quite a few have mastered making and uploading their own. One top YouTuber specializing in Minecraft makes enough to earn a living off it (he's young and single), and he's still gaining subscribers[3]. Minecraft is different. There's never been a game like it. [1] http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-smedley-on-free-realms-at-gdc.html http://gamegenus.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-smedley-on-free-r... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games [3] http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/sethbling http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/sethbling

vacri 13y ago

Minecraft has some very specific goals. Just because there is no overarching goal doesn't mean there are none. "Don't die at night", "don't starve" are two very clear ones that drive you to developing the area. Then you can build things if you're inclined to do so. The people who design and build giant amazing things in Minecraft are analagous to the poets and sketchers in the blank-paper example.