Why Do I Play Minecraft?

Why do I still like playing Minecraft after five years? Let's talk about it!

If you ask me why I’ve played Minecraft for so long, I could go on and on with reason after reason. Minecraft has been impacting my life in many positive ways from the first moment I started playing. Giving me over five years of enjoyment, I have played Minecraft more than any other video game (besides Jagex’s RuneScape which is currently at ten years of playtime). In this article, we will be discussing why Minecraft has given me many wonderful memories, enjoyment, and plenty of play time.

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The Timing

I ended up finding Minecraft when I was at a very strange point in my life. I was fourteen years of age and was looking to experience a new video game. My computer wasn’t great, so I was extremely limited on what I could actually play. I was very quickly getting bored with RuneScape and needed a new video game to play with my friends. As Minecraft was very quickly gaining popularity in my circle of comrades, I was hesitant on playing the game. While Minecraft seemed boring at first glance, I did not intend to buy the it. Being asked hundreds of times to play the game with friends, I finally caved in and purchased it online.

My first time playing the video game, I expected it to have a determined reason or point. While I didn’t expect a story or something along those lines, I expected a driving force to want to play, an incentive. Instead of being given a reason to play, however, I was given a blank slate. I soon found that with nothing given to me to drive my direction, I had to decide and figure out what I was meant to do. While it sounds cliché, my first reaction was to punch trees and go from there.

I began to watch loads of various YouTube videos on Minecraft and immediately got an idea of what I could within the game. After a few days of playing by myself, I found that playing Minecraft with friends could be much more fun than expected. I joined a server with many of my friends and began to have much more fun than I anticipated. Minecraft was no longer a video game that gave me enjoyment on my own.

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A Creative Outlet

From the moment I started having fun, I decided to put plenty of time into the game, finding new ways to express myself within the game’s seemingly infinite walls. Having no boundaries in terms of creative limits, I decided to open up my mind and start experimenting with ideas. Creations that I started believing I could make began filling my worlds, one after another. With an endless world to place and build my ideas from the ground up, I began noticing that I could build bigger and better creations.

My creations went from being extremely simple, unplanned structures to more elaborate designs that were more thought out. Minecraft has given many other players and myself a creative outlet that allows for an enhanced artistic experience when bringing an idea to life. Over the past few years, Minecraft has inspired me to think up new ideas (such as Redstone contraptions) that can not only benefit my world within Minecraft, but can also benefit my artistic need to get an idea created and produced. With each idea that I create, I always attempt to make something more elaborate than the last. Giving myself the challenge to feel fulfilled after making a more intensely designed structure allows for a never dry or boring moment when it comes to Minecraft.

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YouTube

Taylor Harris

Minecraft has also given many new creators a voice in the entertainment industry, especially through YouTube. When many players couldn’t experience high-performance video games on their computer, Minecraft gave creators the opportunity to try their hand at making videos online. I was one of those many creators. I had been making content on YouTube for a few years based on other video games, but I never really tried Let’s Plays. I had did a few live commentaries here and there before Minecraft, but I ended up finding my love for it when playing the game.

I was a very small YouTuber and had decided to put a large majority of my time and effort into my newly found artform of speaking and entertaining. While I once seemed very shy and timid on YouTube, I’ve become much louder and more vocal. Simply recording videos on a game I enjoyed gave me the ability to formulate my thoughts in a much more organized way. I had learned to no longer be as shy as I once was, primarily because of the fact I had been doing Minecraft videos for so long. Speaking to an audience seems to be second nature now, after doing it for so many years on YouTube.

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The Community

Taylor Harris

Not only do I play Minecraft for the enjoyment of the game, I also stick around for the community that is associated with it. I have found no other community within gaming that is as interested in creating, enjoying life, being kind to one another, and much more than Minecraft. While the entertainment aspect of the video game has its ups and downs, overall, the good outweighs the bad every time.

With a community so fixated on creating new and exciting ways to experience Minecraft, there’s been no overarching reason to quit playing. Countless charity events have spawned from a love of Minecraft, giving new players a reason to become interested. Very few communities based upon video games have a strong connection with players in terms of reaching out and doing kind things. Minecraft’s community has inspired many new ways to play, including for educational use, general relaxation, and much more. These creations and ideas would have not been possible without the push the community has given to back their existence. I can not imagine another community of gamers I’d rather be apart of then the Minecraft community.

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The Future of Minecraft

https://mojang.com/2015/07/weve-chosen-a-director-for-the-minecraft-movie/

 I have always been excited for what Minecraft’s future entails in the entertainment industry. With many promises for the video game’s future including the Minecraft: Education Edition, new Minecraft: Story Mode chapters, a Minecraft movie, the Hololens and much more, there is no reason to not be excited. These announcements by both Mojang and Microsoft have continued to excite me with every new piece of information that has been unveiled.

Mojang and Microsoft are not the only developers who have been creating heavily anticipated releases. Many players have began modding Minecraft, allowing for others to experience and enjoy the video game in new, exciting ways. As long as Minecraft has been around, there have been modders for the game. These modders have introduced new ideas that were once not even imagined. As previously mentioned, the Minecraft community has been fixated on creating new ways to experience the video game, thus, mods make sense to create. These modifications to the video game allow players to enjoy Minecraft to their heart’s content, adding and removing the various features that they see fit.

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Relaxation

While I was once extremely stressed in my life, Minecraft comforted me. Being able to explore an extremely large world and do with it as I pleased filled me with bliss. There has been no other video game that compares to what I could feel while just walking around and experiencing the features that Minecraft has to offer. Minecraft, over the years, has offered me plenty of relaxation and opportunity to escape my everyday troubles.

There are many others who experience a need to relax, and gaming is a definite way to do that. Minecraft’s lack of a directing force (in terms of telling a person what to do) gives players the opportunity to understand what they want to accomplish before being expected to do something. Since the release of Minecraft, there has been no wrong way to play the video game. While many will play with the intent of Survival, many wouldn’t dream of turning the feature on. Plenty of players enjoy Creative mode, while others may not enjoy even that. The endless opportunities of styles to play offer relaxation to those of who need it in their daily lives, including myself.

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In Conclusion

Minecraft has given me many years of enjoyment, and I have no intention on quitting the game just yet. With events like Minecon and other new exciting futures awaiting, there’s no better time to be playing. This video game has given inspiration to many including myself to want to create, experiment, and enjoy not only the simpler, but more complicated sides of gaming. With over five years of experiencein playing Minecraft under my belt, I can only hope I’ll eventually get to ten.

While I don’t get to play Minecraft as much as I’d like because of juggling a job and other interests, I always attempt to make time for it. While it is just a video game for some, Minecraft has given me a way to express my ideas, thoughts, opinions and self in the form of a little placeable blocks. This virtual sandbox has given me much more than just the opportunity to play and experience a new adventure through gaming, make videos, make creations, and make myself relaxed. Minecraft has also given me the ability to frequently write about my thoughts on a topic I thoroughly enjoy. Without Minecraft, these words would have never existed in the order that they do, and they would have never been uploaded onto a website for you to read (while hopefully enjoying).

I play Minecraft because it has given me many opportunities for me to find myself creatively, while also stimulating the part of my brain that entices me to challenge myself in new ways that I may not have once imagined. Hopefully Minecraft does the same for you.