rps

01–29–25

I still see it clearly: the geometric, wooden mansion carved gently into the hillside, nestled comfortably into the grassy earth like a dog slumbering in it’s bed. Beyond the unassuming front door and unnecessarily spiraling entryway lies a sun-drenched foyer where yellow daylight streams in through floor-to-ceiling windows. A red carpet parts a canyon of armor stands, each bearing enchanted helmets, breastplates and swords. A curious flock of cats scatter around my feet as I gaze out over a swaying valley that stretches endlessly to the left, and to the right, a small river drives a stark boundary between the lush grass and a snowy-white tundra. Across this digital landscape sit two contrasting neighbors: a foreboding dark wood estate in the grass, and a quaint white iron bakery perfectly disguised in the snow, it’s location betrayed only by wispy chimney smoke.

The house I'm standing in is Lucy's, crafted with her natural eye for structure and color - a skill that I could never quite match. My own creation loomed in the grassy distance: less a home and more an empty stadium, with monsters spawning in its furthest shadows opposite to the tiny bedroom I'd carved into one corner. The bakery is owned and operated by a pig we had trapped and name-tagged: dooming him to an immortal existence behind the counter, just one block away from escape. Although once we added my brother to the server, this bakery served many purposes for the sake of narrative adventure: a bank to rob, a prison to break, and a hospital to recover in - healing from the antics of whatever epic adventure we were returning from.

We wrote stories everywhere in this world: up and down the plains and deep into the layers of snow. We wrote scrawling stories all across the walls of the giant auditorium that I lazily deigned the “grand room” rather than finishing my vision to fill it with glorious hallways and bedrooms. I'm not sure why this particular world stands out among countless others - like the massive horse ranch called “Beacon Hill” that my friend Heather and I built when the horse update first released, or the survival world where Jacob and I repeatedly lost our spawn point, spending hours on split-screen wandering through foreign biomes to find home.

These digital worlds feel startlingly real to me now, saturated with emotion and nostalgia. Minecraft massively altered my childhood - I was addicted to unfolding these little universes, caring deeply for my digital pets and devastated when creepers destroyed my creations. Each world became a cryogenic chamber for a younger version of myself, with the game's iconic soundtrack as the key. Even now that I rarely play, these memories surface as sonic legends whenever C418's score finds my ear.

What's beautiful is how universal this experience is within my generation; we each claimed our corner of the Minecraft universe, knowing no two world seeds were alike. When multiplayer arrived, we transformed from solitary builders into architects of digital kingdoms. While parents remained largely unaware, their children ruled servers of hundreds, mastered parkour courses, and dominated PvP arenas. Minecraft's simple framework became our generation's canvas for boundless creativity.

The game sparked countless passions: engineers emerged through redstone mechanics, artists created massive pixel masterpieces, and interior designers crafted livable spaces within the constraints of a blocky existence. As collaborative servers flourished, we experimented with governance and society-building, re-inventing the wheel of how humans organize their co-existence. But perhaps most significantly, Minecraft revolutionized entertainment itself - the breakthrough from this tangental universe into our very real economy.

From it’s release to today, Minecraft has become a billion-dollar entertainment industry. I believe it’s the first example of how, through financial success, digital universes have begun to manifest in the real world - giving birth to the new job title of “professional player.” The high degree of financial success possible within this career path as an entertainer has brought about a host of sub-industries.

For example Alpine1 is a real-life architect - degree and everything. He studied architecture because of his childhood love for building Minecraft cities, but upon graduating, he realized that this hobby was actually a viable career. He’s now a full-time Minecraft urban developer who builds incredible worlds for his customers: most often Minecraft Youtubers who require fantastic sets to film their videos.

Minecraft may have been the pioneer of immersive game-play that has lore, celebrity, tradition, and culture that’s observed by millions of players - but it’s certainly not the last. New digital worlds continue to open up, allowing us to develop niche creative industries that often enable us to “work from home.” I’ve heard many express fear that this digital evolution pushes us further from each other and deeper into our own little universes, but I don’t think that’s true.


Every game. Every industry. Every path that ingenuitive humans trip and stumble onto - we eventually pause to look back and bring others with us. Any game that achieves popularity will release multiplayer because humans want to play together. Any two players that spend enough time together online will desire to meetup in real life, because humans want to be together. We build digital platforms and then gather at conventions for them. We send sonic signals through space and then relate to each other what we were feeling, what we were building, when we first heard “Minecraft” by C418.

Sometimes I too look back cynically and wonder what practical skills I could’ve developed with the time I spent playing and watching Minecraft, but I know that I’ll never really regret it. Because Minecraft was the crucial catalyst for my hunger for creation, a universe that I could escape into. And most importantly, it gave me a time-capsuled library of worlds that hold varied periods of my life. It allowed me to travel back into spaces that I once joyfully shared with people that are no longer here.

Because at the end of the day, that’s all Minecraft really is: another silly way for silly little humans to express their undeniable creative spirit.

Another silly way for silly humans discover how much they love and need each other.