Why Do You Play Minecraft?

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

If you ask me why we’ve played Minecraft for so long, we could go on and on with reason after reason. Minecraft has been impacting our lives in many positive ways from the first moment we started playing. Giving us over five years of enjoyment, we 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 us many wonderful memories, enjoyment, and plenty of play time.

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The Timing

Minecraft screenshot

 Lifewire

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

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

We began to watch loads of various YouTube videos on Minecraft and immediately got an idea of what we could do within the game. After a few days of playing alone, we found that playing Minecraft with friends could be much more fun than expected. We joined a server with many of our friends and began to have much more fun than anticipated. Minecraft was no longer a video game that gave us enjoyment all alone.

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A Creative Outlet

MInecraft screenshot

 Lifewire

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

Our creations went from being extremely simple, unplanned structures to more elaborate designs that were more thought out. Minecraft has given many players a creative outlet that allows for an enhanced artistic experience when bringing an idea to life. Over the past few years, Minecraft has inspired us to think up new ideas (such as Redstone contraptions) that can not only benefit our world within Minecraft, but can also benefit our artistic need to get an idea created and produced. With each idea that we create, we always attempt to make something more elaborate than the last. Giving ourselves 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

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. We were one of those many creators. We had been making content on YouTube for a few years based on other video games, but we never really tried Let’s Plays. We had a few live commentaries here and there before Minecraft, but we found our love for it when playing the game.

We were a very small YouTuber and had decided to put a large majority of our time and effort into our newly found artform of speaking and entertaining. While we once seemed very shy and timid on YouTube, We’ve become much louder and more vocal. Simply recording videos on a game we enjoyed gave us the ability to formulate our thoughts in a much more organized way. We had learned to no longer be as shy as we once were, primarily because of the fact we 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

Minecraft screenshot

Lifewire

Not only do we play Minecraft for the enjoyment of the game, we also stick around for the community that is associated with it. We 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. We can not imagine another community of gamers we’d rather be a part of than the Minecraft community.

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The Future of Minecraft

Minecon London

 Lifewire

We 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 begun modding Minecraft, allowing 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 we were once extremely stressed in life, Minecraft comforted us. Being able to explore an extremely large world and do with it as we pleased filled us with bliss. There has been no other video game that compares to what we 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 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 who need it in their daily lives, including us.

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In Conclusion

Minecraft has given us many years of enjoyment, and we have no intention of 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 experience in playing Minecraft, we can only hope we’ll eventually get to ten.

While we don’t get to play Minecraft as much as we’d like because of juggling a job and other interests, we always attempt to make time for it. While it is just a video game for some, Minecraft has given us a way to express our ideas, thoughts, opinions, and self in the form of 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 our thoughts on a topic we 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).

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

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