Social Sandbox: Minecraft
Minecraft is a sandbox video game developed by Mojang where players are set in a world created through procedural generation.
The game contains two game modes: creative and survival. Regardless of game mode, players on a Minecraft multiplayer server play as that world’s inhabitants. However, the objective of the game can vary, which in turn allow for varying kinds of fun between all the participating players.
Unlike many other popular games that have held up against the test of time, Minecraft has no main goal. Some may argue that slaying the Ender Dragon is the real goal, but not many survivor mode players really care to accomplish that, and creative mode players already have no need to participate in any sort of combat.
So why do people play Minecraft? I believe it is this absence of a main goal that people become more creative in setting their own goals and objectives.
I, myself, love building. For me, it’s fun to pick and choose blocks that aesthetically look pleasing next to one another and create houses and sculptures and the like. For others, they love diving deep into caves and ravines to find the unknown treasures. Some even enjoy their time just exploring, never needing a permanent home and always on the move.
Yet despite all these different preferences, we can all coexist in one Minecraft world and interact with each other as if we were our own tiny community. Players may cooperate with each other and help one another accomplish their goals, or they may compete and fight against each other for their own survival. Either way, if you don’t enjoy playing the game one way, play it a different way and see how you like it.
There’s no “correct way” to play Minecraft.
