It had been several months since I had decided I wanted to play Minecraft. At first, I dismissed it as a fad and a simple game, without any direction. In short, I found it disinteresting. But, several Youtube videos later, I was hooked.
I realized that Minecraft was a dream come true for me: infinite legos. Legos were always one of my favorite childhood toys, and Minecraft promised to deliver Lego-esque creativity with blocks along with roleplaying and survival elements, essentially allowing me to roleplay through my creations, another childhood dream.
Several days ago, I finally downloaded the demo for Minecraft, and was not disappointed. I quickly picked up on the basic skills and crafting formulas, and soon had a functional settlement. I started to expand it, building up with stone and creating more complex structures during the day. At night, I mined deeper and deeper, collecting iron, gold, and coal to add to my stores.
But then, after several Minecraft days, near the end of the allotted demo time, I began to lose interest. Perhaps I felt lost without a lack of direction, maybe I didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything of note except build a tall tower, or maybe I just thought that other games presented more immediate gratification than Minecraft.
At this point, instead of trying to power through this lull in interest, I knew immediately what I had to do. Uninstall Minecraft. Before you protest that I didn’t give the game a fair chance, here is my reasoning. To me, Minecraft is a landmark game, both in its massive popularity and its unique creativity and open world. Unlike many games, a gamer must create their own experience in Minecraft. The experience I created was not enough for me, and I’ve decided that I don’t want to ruin Minecraft’s importance and undeniable ingenuity with my own less than satisfactory experiences, effectively immortalizing the game in my memory in a positive light.
So, I stopped playing Minecraft. When I stopped playing, I had loved most of my time with it. Minecraft is a great game, and I uninstalled it to keep thinking about it in that way.
Originally posted on leviathyn.com