I was late to the party on this one. So very late to the party, and hopefully it doesn’t reflect too poorly on my gamer cred. I just finally played Minecraft . Perhaps you’ve heard of it? And as I began, I broke apart a few bricks and was rewarded with a few materials; instant gratification. It dawned on me that this could be very addictive. As I kept playing and the words “perhaps we should build a veranda stretching out over the sea,” another realization struck me. This game is a very good thing.
Minecraft , for those who somehow aren’t in the know, is a game where players harvest materials and turn them into architecture. Monuments, statues, houses, castles, fortresses, there really is no limit beyond what you can imagine and how much of an undertaking you’re willing to put up with. To do this, players use voxels, essentially 3D pixels, to construct whatever they want. It’s art, piece by piece. You build things up from the smallest of parts until your vision is realized. Kids love it. Good.
Thinking about where this game would lead people took me back to my younger days. The very reason I became interested in writing fiction was because I wanted to create something that would emotionally resonate with people the way the RPGs I played did with me. The reason my vocabulary and reading skills grew was because of my desire to understand these games I was playing back before voice overs were really a thing. And the reason I got into writing about games was because I wanted to be more involved in the industry and even at a young age, I knew fiction was hard to break into. Art often inspires more art and video games are definitely art.
The musical scores of games also lead others to create. When I was first starting out in college, I was a music major. Many students in my composition classes cited an early interest in video game music. And a good amount of these fellow nerds liked Nobuo Uematsu in particular. He’s the composer largely responsible for the Final Fantasy music that’s captivated gamers for decades. In fact, his music is so popular that there are frequently concerts throughout the United States, large and small, where his music is played. Touring musicians have made a good chunk of their income playing his music in a small ensemble.
Games can lead to coding. They teach planning skills and, in the case of Minecraft, encourage efficiency. The faster you can get resources, the faster you can build new things, after all. This isn’t a waste of time. Gamers will plot out their creations in 2D on graph paper before approaching the 3D, in-game project. Then, they’ll aim for perfection and try to achieve something they find aesthetically pleasing. Also, thanks to the internet, their creations are able to get exposure. Many of the top Youtube gaming channels feature Minecraft related content. News outlets cover the game and the feats players accomplish fairly regularly. There is a reward of exposure for their efforts, and that’s true of gamers of any age. Their ambitions aren’t only realized, but appreciated by others. I see this community as a healthy thing and am inclined to wonder about what benefits it will reap. How many people have gotten into, say, pixel art as a direct result of time spent playing Minecraft? I can’t help but wonder.
Others have seen the value in the gaming, too. There is a version of the game being designed for classrooms that seeks to take Minecraft’s popularity and convert it into an educational experience. As a giant, collaborative, creative tool, it’s hard to argue with the anticipated effects. Creative instructors should be able to take a fun, interesting platform that kids already show interest in and refocus that energy into something undeniably beneficial. It may also, as an unintended byproduct, get more people into gaming.