I have to admit the popularity of Minecraft caught me by surprise. I first saw Minecraft when I was repairing a computer in my shop and ran into a video clip of the game. This was in 2011. I had never heard of the game at this point and didn’t know what I was looking at. What I saw was a blocky person walking around in a blocky land. It looked like an 8-bit game from the late seventies on a giant scale. I snorted in contempt. Since then the universe has shown me how much it cares for my opinion. With over 238 million copies sold and 140 million monthly active users (as of 2021) Minecraft has become a digital gaming phenomenon. I have taken a second look at Minecraft since I formed my first opinion. I have even spent many hours playing it. Now I see that with its beauty, creativity, and logic the game is impressive in many ways. There is one thing that still keeps me from being totally enamored with it—the loneliness.
If there is one word to describe Minecraft it is ‘creativity.’ When I was a kid, good parents gave their kids Erector sets, Lincoln Logs, or Legos to engage their minds and develop creativity. Minecraft is the digital version of these. Minecraft is all about building things. To build things you need resources. You go out and gather the raw materials from the land, you turn those materials into things you can create with, and finally, you design your creation and build it. You can only understand what’s possible to build in Minecraft by seeing examples of what has been done. There are people making millions of dollars on YouTube showing what they’ve built, what others have built, or giving advice on building techniques. The world of Minecraft is that amazing.
One other thing that impresses me with Minecraft is how beautiful its worlds can be. The blocky nature of Minecraft, at first, makes me think of pixelization. Pixelization makes me think of the early 8-bit platformers that were ugly graphically even if they were fun. Of course, the blocks in Minecraft aren’t the big pixels they remind me of and they don’t limit the beauty of the Minecraft world. In Minecraft the worlds are created randomly and as far as I know no two are exactly alike. You may find yourself wandering through forests of oak trees, hacking your way through a rich jungle, or slogging through a swamp. The biomes are quite convincing and immersive. Then there is the weather. You’ll have bright sunny days that turn darker when the clouds come in bringing the rain. Once, when this happened, I was in my Minecraft house. I looked out the window to see darkened sky and the rain slashing down and felt the somber feeling I often feel in real life. On another Minecraft day I was out working and was stunned by the beauty of snow suddenly starting to fall. I stood for several minutes and watched as it fell on my home in my little valley. It was peaceful.
Despite what I have just described to you about creativity and beauty, and even though I would highly recommend Minecraft to any parent for their children, I myself have stopped playing this game solo. I just can’t deal with the loneliness. This isn’t the loneliness of playing a game by myself. Pretty much all the games I play are individual play but loneliness isn’t a factor . . . except in Minecraft. The game is unique in that it creates a big world just for you. You could walk for days, in real time, and never come to the end of your world. And this isn’t a world that repeats itself over and over. No, you are always walking through different landscapes with unique points of interest. It’s truly amazing. So, what, then, is the problem?
You are truly alone.
The last time I played solo this loneliness hit me so hard I felt a little depressed. I had worked hard and built a nice home on a hilltop with a tower. Next, I built a little hunting cottage down in the valley. It was then that I experienced an existential crisis. The question occurred to me, “Why am I doing this?” I felt a sense of meaninglessness. There was nobody else in my entire, limitless world who cared what I was doing. I did what a person has to do when he has an existential crisis–I tried to shove it aside and move on. I decided to practice my navigation skills to see if I could go on an exploratory journey and still find my way back. That was a mistake.
I wandered into a frozen forest (beautiful) and across a frozen lake. I found a derelict portal that suggested that someone had been here long before me, but I knew that wasn’t true. The game had just randomly placed it there. I wasn’t fooled. I wandered farther when my heart lightened. Built on the frozen edges of a deep canyon was a village . . . with people! I ran over to investigate. There were small homes and bigger lodges. Bright torches were burning adding a warm feeling to the place. Villagers wandered about doing . . . well, doing nothing. They just wandered about. I ran up to one. He turned and faced me and said, “Mmmm.” It was then I saw it—he was mindless, nameless, soulless. All of them were. They were basically cardboard cutouts to help you pretend the real thing is there. They were Tom Hanks’ volleyball ‘Wilson’ in Castaway. They were mocking my loneliness. The world was so big and there was no hope of ever meeting another living soul.
I realized then that this was as good as it was going to get in this world. There would be no meaningful companionship, no fulfilling reason for living. In other games, all of which I play alone, I don’t feel lonely. I spent some time wondering why that was.
It didn’t take long to find the answer, and the answer is simple—they have a storyline. Storyline makes all the difference. I’m playing Pyre right now. As I play I get to know the characters–get to know their stories—and I begin to love them. My actions directly affect these ‘people’ and it matters to me. In Ori and the Will of the Wisps I made the world a better place when I was successful. The story guiding my actions was meaningful and touching. In Minecraft, with all its beauty and creative potential, there is no story. For me, that rips the heart right out of it. If it wasn’t such a big world perhaps I wouldn’t feel the absence of others and their stories so keenly. But I can’t seem to get past it.
Luckily for Minecraft this is my own personal problem. I think all the other millions of players find fulfillment by getting lost in the creativity. They find purpose in the challenge of making the creations in their minds come to life. I support this wholeheartedly and applaud. I stand by my recommendation of Minecraft to all parents, and not just for their children. This game is amazing. Create a world and start building and exploring. While you are doing so perhaps you’ll find me wandering in some lonely forest looking for a story. In that unlikely event I’d take it as a great kindness if you would stop and tell me yours.
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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:
