Here’s 12 Reasons Why People Like Minecraft
On a global level, Minecraft is one of the most successful and popular games ever created. You’d think that 13 years in the making would hold it back, but it seems like even more people are playing it now than ever before. Since its official release back in 2011, 238 million copies have been sold, and although not all who bought it play it, you can count that at least 150 million people play the game every month.
The revival of Minecraft happened in 2018, but that was four years ago. If you look at it, the average game’s lifespan is two years, so why has Minecraft, a game with far from impressive graphics, succeeded in capturing the attention and keeping it of millions of players? What are the 12 reasons why people like Minecraft so much?
1. Let’s you do anything
I can’t even begin to describe everything that Minecraft lets you do. If you want to slay dragons, you can do it; if you want to get freaked out by the deep dark biome, you can. If you want to build stuff, you can; if you want to destroy stuff, you certainly can. If you want to create your own little world and be the ruler of it, you can do that as well.
There’s almost no limit as to what you can do in Minecraft. The only thing that seems to limit people is their imagination of what is possible. Minecraft is a world that has almost no connection to the real world. Almost everything in Minecraft can be interacted with in different ways, which leads to some fun ideas of what you can do with these things.
2. It’s focused on creativity
The main premise of Minecraft is the ability to build with no limits. You can do it if you want to be like Mother Nature and create your own awesome biomes. If you want to build the neat little house of your dreams, you can also do that. If you want to travel back in time and create ancient castles that used to exist on Earth, you can also do that.
Creating something huge and epic takes a lot of hard work and dedication. The content creators seem to always keep challenging us by pushing limits and showing us what is possible in Minecraft, which can spark creativity for you to make something of your own.
3. Has an open-world map
Even though it’s believed that Minecraft worlds are infinite, this is not true, but it’s almost like Minecraft worlds are infinite because of their sheer size. To paint a picture, one block in Minecraft equals 39.3701 inches or one meter. A Minecraft world spans 30 million blocks in each direction from your starting point.
This would mean that one Minecraft world is five times the earth’s diameter. Many games these days have open-world maps, but all have easily reachable limits. To reach the end of a Minecraft world, you’d have to try hard for perhaps over a year, which basically makes it impossible. Some people have tried and succeeded. If a Minecraft world were completely flat, it would still take 820 hours to reach the end of it.
4. It allows you to show off how smart you are
This point directly correlates to the fact that you can do anything in Minecraft. There is a lot of math and programming involved, and plenty of programmers, engineers, and IT folks are playing the game and making it better. Take Redstone, for example. I’ve played the game a while and don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of it.
People have built actual working computers in Minecraft, they even made playable Minecraft inside Minecraft, and I don’t think an average Joe like me would ever be able to pull that sort of thing off. Even something as ”simple” as making farms in Minecraft can be complicated. You’d have to know a lot about the game mechanics, know everything about the different, extremely techy components of Minecraft, like command blocks, for example, and then assemble everything to make it work. It’s a tedious task, so I’ll keep copying builds for now.
Remember that the people who make these gadgets come up with the ideas themselves. There are no guides, which adds another level of impressive to their builds.
5. There’s a ton of diversity in Minecraft content being put out
If you’re into roleplaying, there’s a channel for you to watch; if you’re into watching carefully crafted and edited Minecraft challenges and stories that follow them, there is a channel for that. If you prefer to watch people build stuff, you can watch that as well, or if you want to learn how to be a better Minecraft player, there is a channel for you.
We are truly lucky to have such a big Minecraft community, and if you’re curious about how big it is, 35000 channels are putting out Minecraft-related content on YouTube. Minecraft-related content exceeded 1 trillion views in 2021, and the number is still growing at an incredible rate. It might just be that Minecraft was saved by YouTubers that saw the game as a potential new creative outlet that lets them do anything they desire.
6. Let’s you play with your friends
You can play online with strangers or create a server that’s made for you and your friends. This was especially important during the lockdown that started in 2019 when people’s lives transferred to the online world. There wasn’t much to do and what better way to hang out with strangers and your friends than in a world that lets you do anything?
You can be a warmonger, burn people’s houses down, play parkour, play out the Olympics, and anything else imaginable within the limits of the game, of course
7. Let’s you mod
Whatever limit the game has, modding fixes those limits. If you wish to have cool new bosses you can fight, you can easily find a mod for it; if you’d prefer better graphics since Minecraft is notorious for having bad graphics, you can fix that too. You can also make existing mobs look different and make or play out custom maps by downloading them on sites like CurseForge and Planet Minecraft.
A word of advice, if you’re going to download something from these sites, check the downloads and comments to be sure there aren’t any viruses on there. There mostly aren’t any, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
8. Has multiple different aspects
I already mentioned this briefly, but some people specialize in different aspects of the game. That’s why you have builders, red stones, PvPers, and speedrunners. If you’re not into the building and don’t want to spend hours, days, and months coming up with your working builds and Redstone contraptions, you can immerse yourself in the world of PvP.
It’s challenging, and you’ll quickly realize how good people actually are in PvP and how challenging it can be to get good at it. As for speedrunning, this is a special Minecraft community that dedicates months to ending the game in as little time as possible. You can do it if you’re up for the challenge and want to be the world record holder.
9. It’s simple but can be challenging
If people can finish the game in less than 9 minutes, surely the game is simple? Yes, and no. You see, people that speedrun have impressive game mechanics like speed bridging. They also have a lot of game knowledge and, lastly, luck. If you want to end Minecraft as an average player, it’ll take a while.
Another point to make is that if you’re not a seasoned Minecraft player, you will have a rough start to your journey since there are no real tutorials unless you watch many YouTube videos about it. It’s interesting seeing new players try to make their way around their first Minecraft world without knowing anything about it, and there are a lot of things to learn, believe me.
10. The laws of physics mostly don’t apply to it
So why is building so fun and seemingly easy in Minecraft? It’s because the laws of physics mostly don’t apply to it. If you place one block on the ground and another block on top of it, break the first one, and the other block will float in the air. This gives you a whole world of possibilities to play with.
If you’re falling to your death from a high place, a bucket of water will come in handy since if you place it on your landing spot just in time, you won’t receive any damage. There are other examples of this, but one thing to note is that sand blocks abide by the laws of physics and can easily kill you, so make sure never to dig straight down or straight up.
11. It’s a learning game
Did you know you can learn with Minecraft? Besides the fact that you won’t learn much about the laws of physics, you can learn a lot with the Education Edition. Minecraft is played in schools, and more than 10000 classrooms are using it already. The data was released in 2016, so the number is likely even bigger than before.
Even if you’re not playing the education edition, you can learn a lot about the materials present on our earth and how plants and animals are in real life. For example, the hardest mob to breed is a panda which makes sense since pandas are almost extinct. On the other hand, Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant in Minecraft because it also grows incredibly fast in the real world.
12. Cool and scary atmosphere and mini-bosses
I remember the first time I went caving. I was mostly unprepared and unpleasantly surprised by the weird and scary sounds coming from various directions. Then, a creeper crept behind me and exploded. I died and learned a valuable lesson, Minecraft is scary. It has a way of building tension and giving you the heebie-jeebies in the most unsuspecting ways possible.
There are lots of mini-bosses and hostile mobs out to get you, but perhaps the one I like the most is the Warden. The Warden is shrouded in mystery and can be found in the deep dark biomes. Doesn’t that sound scary enough? If you awaken the Warden, you best be sneaky because you’re not killing it anytime soon.
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