Minecraft’s Legacy
How a simple block game inspired millions
Photo by Alexander Kovalev from Pexels
The year is 2012. You just got home from school and rush to the family computer, clicking as soon as you see Stampylongnose’s new Lovely World Minecraft video. Or maybe you click on the game’s grass block logo, firing up your friend’s server, ready for hours of building and mining. Today’s the day you defeat the Ender Dragon. Regardless of how you spend that time, life is simple. Life is good.
But this scenario could be set in 2021 as well–well, maybe substitute a few things. The family computer for the 8th-grade laptop, Stampy for Dream or Wilbur Soot. Point is: Minecraft is popular again. But why? Why has it come back, or better yet, did it never even fade? This answer lies with the players.
Minecraft has experienced over a decade of playership since its official release in 2011. Over 200 million downloads puts the game in league with Tetris and GTA V as one of the best-selling games ever, according to Statista.com. Its user base is pretty varied too; as long as you have a computer and a Mojang account, you’re set to play. You can even play on mobile with Minecraft: Pocket Edition. But the inclusion goes far beyond the video game itself.
Since we grew up in the mid-2000s, all of us have watched at least one Minecraft let’s play video; there were plenty to choose from. YouTubers like SkyDoesMinecraft, Stampylongnose, even icons like Pewdiepie all got their big break playing the iconic block game, spurring into action what is now known as the Golden Age of Minecraft.
But times changed. Walmart, once they sold out of foam diamond swords, stopped restocking. The YouTube trending page was again flooded with unboxing videos and soap-cutting compilations. Minecraft faded from the public eye and it seemed as though only the weirdo kids kept playing. But that’s not what happened at all.
You see, the Minecraft craze of the 2010s was more a showy, money-grab from unsuspecting kids than a devoted love of the game. Content creators made big bucks, back in the days of YouTube’s insane views-to-payout ratio, and were more devoted to creating clickable videos rather than bettering the community. It was a time of lone growth, lone success.
Then, everything changed again–as it often does–when a small Youtuber going by the name of jschlatt, released “A Tribute to Minecraft.”
Amassing nearly 5 million views on YouTube, this video was the slow burn start to a new era of the game. An era where old players, hailing from the Xbox360 and Skyblock days, met new players, discovering the freedom a simple little block world could bring.
Minecraft didn’t fade. It stayed the same.
That peaceful joy brought to so many has never changed. The soundtrack by C418, so iconic in its peacefulness, still plays softly in the background when you load up a world. The sun, colored in red and orange and purple pixels, captures players’ attention every ten minutes when it rises and sets. Jschlatt puts this simple happiness perfectly:
“Well for me,” he narrates, “Minecraft is not knowing how to play Minecraft. It’s generating that first world and thinking to yourself, “What next?” It’s standing at the foot of a massive ravine. Minecraft is that dirt hut you build on the first night.”
It’s a simple game, full of freedom, and that’s exactly the allure. In the game, you can be whoever you want to be: an ancient king, feared warrior, or world traveler. And in the age of COVID-19, this ability to travel an infinite world is irresistible.
Quarantine brought all the old players back and introduced new ones to the game. Nothing has been the same since. Dream, now sitting at 19.5 million subscribers, is the fastest growing YouTube channel in the site’s history, all due to the popularity of his Minecraft Manhunt series. His videos rarely got above a few hundred views six months before the lockdown was enacted. But, in March of 2020, his views skyrocketed to 15 million views per video, according to SocialBlade.com.
He and his friends started the DreamSMP, a popular Minecraft server, and began pumping out videos. Then came the rise of Twitch streaming, introducing Minecraft YouTubers like TommyInnit, Tubbo, and Ranboo to the public eye. The community grew, and so did its players.
As SJHS student Sophia Pavese explains, it’s all about the freedom to act like a kid again.
“I still play because I love building and using my creativity to make whatever I want. There are no boundaries and I can create limitless things,” Pavese, 12, said.
It’s that simple joy that brings us all back, and in doing so, closer together. It’s is a community of not only players, but artists, singers, animators, and writers.
It’s a community of people, united by a pixel, sandbox world, and the memories created within. It’s simple, and that’s what makes it beautiful.
The year is 2021, and the world seems okay again. We may still have to deal with COVID-19, our lives may be crazier than ever, but when we get home from a long day at school and load up that game, the world seems okay. Life is good again.