I know many of you guys are rolling your eyes just from reading the title thinking “What a nerd”, but for me and many of my fellow gamers out there, Minecraft was a significant part of our childhood. In a way, it helped craft me (haha, pun intended) into the person that I am today.
Between 2011-2015, Minecraft dominated the video gaming industry and almost everyone I knew either played the game or heard of the game. It was a game captivated millions and millions of young children and even some adults. I didn’t even hear about the game until a childhood friend of mine introduced it to me. All of the different blocks coming together to form a whole world that was untouched by our parents and teachers intrigued me. So I would always go over to my friend’s house and play the game. There were 2 modes, survival and creative. Survival Mode consisted of a health bar and a hunger bar, where you had to feed yourself and fend off against monsters constantly in order to survive; you could explore as much of the world as you wanted or build whatever you wanted. Creative mode was very similar to Survival mode but without the health bar and hunger bar, and unlimited access to all the resources and blocks in the game.
It wasn’t long until I convinced my parents to buy the game so I could play it more often. Obviously, my parents were skeptical about it knowing that I had a huge addiction to it, which was why they restricted my playing time. Nonetheless, I was still able to play it more often and I was glad that I got the game.
As often as I could, I would play Minecraft either by myself or with my friends. I enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of fighting off monsters. I enjoyed the creative challenge of building cool-looking houses or bases to show off to my friends. I think that the best thing about Minecraft was the creative challenges that came with it. It was up to you to build whatever you wanted. For many kids like me at the time, it was our way of artistically expressing ourselves. The blocks were the paint colors, the generated world was the canvas.
When I wasn’t playing Minecraft, I was watching people on Youtube play it. A lot of parents, including my own, were confused on why kids such as myself enjoyed watching other people play. It was entertaining to watch other people facing the same challenges that you did and maybe playing the game differently than you did. I watched people build incredible structures, create amazing contraptions, and beautiful landscapes with it. People even created Minecraft parodies of popular songs at the time.
Playing online was just as fun, you could play with your friends or random strangers, and together you could build or destroy things. Some of my fondest memories were playing with my friends online. We were kids just being kids.
Some schools even started using Minecraft as a way of teaching computer science.
As I got older, more of my time was taken away and I played less and less. My interest and love for the game started to wane as older kid stuff like crushes and social media started to take priority. Simply put, I grew out of the game like many other kids that were my age. As the years went on the popularity of the game dipped and people moved on to other video games.
Not too long ago, Fortnite became the most popular video game in the world. Celebrities, athletes and people of all sorts were playing it. Streamers like Ninja, Pokimane, and Tfue were raking in millions of dollars just from streaming their game-play. Nowadays, the game is just a shadow of what it once was. I thought that Fortnite was a fun game to play with your friends, but it wasn’t exactly fulfilling. It was nowhere near as fulfilling as Minecraft was.
As I mentioned earlier, Minecraft was a game where kids could have fun playing with friends or by themselves and express themselves creatively. I highly recommend that you guys get the game. I know that you may have out grown the game or you may feel like it’s a waste of your money. Trust me, this game will challenge you creatively in ways that our current society doesn’t. It is also a lot of fun especially if you are a big fan of video games.
Thanks for reading!
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23572742
https://www.techradar.com/news/the-history-of-minecraft
Honestly Minecraft has been the greatest outlet for me to develop my creative side since I was just a smol boi. I first got the game in elementary school thanks to my dad, who seemed hell-bent on preventing me from entering this world, constantly denying my wishes for half a year or so, before suddenly surprising me with the unexpected gift of a Minecraft PC download code on my birthday. He didn’t even say a word, but when I came back from school on my birthday, it was just sitting there on my desk! But anecdotes aside, your post has really brought back some great memories. Last summer, I opened the game for the first time in a long while, and instantly the nostalgia and wonderment of exploring such a familiar world hit me. They’ve added so much content since I last played, and your post has really inspired me to go back and explore all this new world has to offer!
Minecraft is literally one of the best games in the whole world. I’m literally 18 years old and still scream at the TV whenever a creeper is behind me. I remember playing it when I was in middle school and it kind of faded, which you talked about. I didn’t play for a good while after middle school, but one of my friends had it on his PS4 and suddenly I was gaming for hours when I went over to his house (and yes that person is Solomon and yes we spent hours finding diamonds in really scary caves. I refused to make torches so I made Solomon do it.) Anyway, I loved that you wrote about your own experience with Minecraft and how you grew up with it because your blog was so relateable and awesome. I also think it’s a great way to get creative and use that creativity to build these absolutely insane worlds (and houses of course). I didn’t know schools were using it to teach computer science, so I found that very interesting. Overall I think you did a great job on the blog and I enjoyed reading it a lot!! I thought you did a great job connecting your childhood and present with the topic and how you made the blog super relateable. I really want to find some diamonds now!!
Minecraft is so cool. I never got to play it, but watching people play it on Youtube was fun enough for me. I hear nothing but good things from people who play the game. Personally, I like playing Tetris – according to Wikipedia, it’s the number 2 best selling video game in the world – only losing to Minecraft at the number one spot! If anything shows how popular Minecraft is, that fact is it.