Minecraft: More Than a Game?
Picture playing in a sandbox when you were little, where you were free to build whatever you wanted. Now picture a simple idea like this turning into one of the most popular video games of all time. Between 2 to 3 million people play Minecraft every day. It’s played in the United States, China, Germany, Brazil, and in many other countries. Minecraft is fun, but some feel that what makes it so popular is that it’s much more than just another video game. Let’s look at some of the reasons why this game is special.
It May Make You More Creative
Minecraft is called a “sandbox game” because its players can create their own world within the game. It’s a bit like when you used your imagination in the sandbox. Minecraft is an open world where you can explore and create anything you can imagine. That’s especially true in the game’s Creative Mode, where nothing can hurt your character and you have everything you need to build freely.
In 2019, a study done at Iowa State University found that playing Minecraft may make players more creative. In the study, 352 students either played Minecraft, watched a TV show, or played a racecar video game. After 40 minutes of screen time, they were asked to do four activities that tested their creativity. Players who had used Minecraft’s Creative Mode scored higher on the tests than the other students. That may be because the Minecraft players were able to use their imaginations in the game. So, it’s possible that being creative in Minecraft transfers to real life. But more studies would need to be done to see if that’s true.
Teachers Love It, Too
“With something as open-ended as Minecraft, I'm a firm believer that you could teach any subject with this game,” says Joel Levin, who is nicknamed “The Minecraft Teacher” because he loves using the game in his class so much. Schools usually don’t want kids to play video games, but Minecraft is different. Teachers are using the game to teach everything from math to history to computer coding. Students often seem to learn better during these lessons because playing Minecraft doesn’t seem like work. Teachers have also found that completing a Minecraft project in a group helps students learn to work together.
In 2016, the company that owns the game launched a special edition just for schools. It has a website where teachers can find lessons to use in their classrooms. For example, one lesson lets kids explore frozen worlds to learn what Earth’s cold habitats are like. Books have also been written about how to learn coding in Minecraft. So, even if a school doesn’t use the game in class, kids can find those kinds of books in a library and learn on their own.
It Can Help Change the World
In Minecraft, players can design and build houses, castles, cities and more. Now some countries are using Minecraft’s in-game building to help people improve where they live in the real world. In 2012, the United Nations and the company that owns Minecraft formed a group called Block by Block. The group runs workshops in communities that want to improve their public spaces by building places such as parks and playgrounds. The workshops use Minecraft to help local kids design what they might like to see in a public space. Then the kids present their ideas to community leaders. It’s a way to give everyone a voice in improving where they live.
Communities can also apply to have Block by Block help pay for and build their projects. That means that a project that started in a kid’s imagination in Minecraft might be built in the real world! So far, Block by Block has run workshops and helped build projects in more than 35 countries.
Players often grow bored by the same game after a while, but Minecraft has been around for 10 years and is still growing. Creativity, in-school learning, and using it in real life make Minecraft different from many other games. Today, you can even find t-shirts, plushies, and other toys based on its most popular characters. Allowing people to create whatever they want in an open world keeps them coming back for more.