by Kyle Carpenter
I’ve stopped playing Minecraft . I don’t mean this as a criticism; I think it’s a fantastic game/sandbox/creative tool, and I hold a lot of affection for it. The news that it sold over a million copies on XBLA in under a week doesn’t surprise me at all, and it serves a testament against the kind of critical backlash held towards the game in the more cynical corners of the internet.
I played the game intensely over the summer of 2010 – at least, intensely by my standards. I probably only played about 8 hours a week, but I still kept coming back to add a few blocks to a structure here, remove a few there, and spelunk. Many would define this as the whole of the Minecraft experience, but what I think most miss that there was another aspect to the game: the development itself.
Minecraft is a stunning precedent for independent game developers. It’s a game that made Notch, its sole developer, a multi-millionaire before anyone really knew what was happening or what to do about it. There have been a number of copycats in Minecraft’s wake, simulating its blocky aesthetic, its open-ended approach to “world-building,” crafting, and interaction. However, what these copycats can’t duplicate is the most unprecedented part of Minecraft’s success: that it sold millions of copies as an alpha build, an unfinished game.
Looking back, it seems to me that part of the appeal of Minecraft in alpha was not knowing the final form it would take. It would be difficult to measure the effect of Notch’s “secret Friday updates” on the success of the game, but they certainly generated a huge degree of expectation, speculation and excitement: it was generally understood somehow among those playing Minecraft that every week Notch would implement new features – some minor, some major – that would essentially reinvent the game.
Minecraft was, for a time, the fastest growing club on Earth. Playing the game meant you were part of a phenomenon, a mammoth schoolyard where players traded tricks, tips, and rumours. I remember with particular fondness the implementation of redstone, the game’s version of copper wiring, which allowed for some of the . I remember lurking in the Something Awful forums, reading their impressive thread on the subject, as people first discovered the material, and then began to speculate on how it could be used. This process of discovery was as crucial to the game as any in-game exploration and expansion. The joys of finding something new are palpable in the game itself – but they were maybe even more dramatic in the context of the game’s reception. I had just as much fun reading about the game as I did playing it.
I think that’s why I stopped playing: this sense of discovery was exhausted. By the time the game left beta and was released as version 1.0, the major features of the game had been completely mapped out. Some development would continue, but the sense that at any moment there could be a “game changer” had largely disappeared. The game had been released, for better or for worse – and I can’t help but remember with some amusement the consternation of reviewers tasked with attaching a grade to Minecraft’s final version . How do you judge a monolith? How do you judge a phenomenon?
For many, Minecraft is the epitome of “play” over “narrative,” the perfect example of how players don’t need a script in order to feel a sense of progression or have fun. What is elided in this assumption, however, is the fact that there were indeed narrative elements to Minecraft: the unlikely millionaire, the sense of belonging to “the club,” and the continual sense of discovery and expansion where one was always on the cusp of something new. When I look back at my time with the game, I realize that it this “story” that I found the most compelling – for a brief moment, I was part of an enormous social effort to explore a new frontier that could, at any point, change completely. The cultural context provided the best narrative I could ask for.
Minecraft isn’t the only game to follow this pattern of development: Counterstrike is one of the best historical examples, and a similar community has recently grown around Day Z , the zombie mod for Arma II: Combined Operations. Minecraft is really notable in that it managed to turn a profit as a product during its development, rather than after. Still, I think the game’s cultural context demands we ask some crucial questions: where does a game end? What are the bounds of narrative? And, most importantly, as the medium of games develops in tandem with markets, distribution models, and consumer patterns, what significance will Minecraft’s development hold looking back? If anything, this question marks Minecraft’s final frontier, and I’m just as excited about being part of this story looking back as I was looking forward.
You know, maybe I’ll boot up Minecraft tonight. I bet a lot’s changed while I’ve been gone.
Further Reading: “How I Helped Destroy Star Wars Galaxies” (Medium Difficulty)
“Wounds of the Shepard: Trauma and Affective Bonds in Mass Effect” (Medium Difficulty)
