The Psychology of Minecraft

Upon first starting up Minecraft, the Internet's latest viral game, you are placed in a randomly generated world. Everything is made of giant blocks. You can see vaguely blocky mountains in the distance. The world stretches off in every direction, as far as you can see your computer can render. And you're armed, though perhaps "armed" is the wrong word, as you appear to be the only person in this vast, pixelated world. with nothing but your wits and a (blocky) fist. So, naturally, you start punching trees.

Hours later, you look up and realize it's 3:00 AM. You have spent most of your day building a fortress, wandering through dark caverns looking for rare minerals (going through hundreds of pickaxes in the process), grilling pork, rigging elaborate traps and generally refusing to do anything productive. Oh, and you've been killed by exploding zombies at least twice...but that coal isn't going to mine itself.

Such is life in the world of Minecraft.

There are two ways to look at Minecraft. On one hand, it's a game based on human creativity and ingenuity. On the other hand, it's a game based on the basic human need to shape the world to our will. This darker side becomes apparent when you realize that the beautiful, lush world you started in has, after a week or so, turned into a "cobblestone jungle," every last natural element destroyed...or, when you realize you don't have any trees left. (This is a lot more common than you would think. Wood is absolutely critical in almost every aspect of Minecraft, thus creating a compulsive desire to seek out and cut down trees.) Whatever the reason, the normal response is to build a boat and to sail to a place you haven't destroyed yet...maybe you'll do a better job next time.

The other dark side of Minecraft shows itself when you take the game online. Notch, Minecraft's developer, added online play fairly recently, and servers sprang up in no time. Every server contains a separate world, free for anyone to jump in and build.

Or, at least, that was the idea. Now, Minecraft online play is openly hostile towards new players. Most servers are blocked off with a "whitelist," meaning that you have to apply before you're allowed into the server. Others have constructed indestructible holding cells for new players, a way for the moderators (think of them as the police) to keep an eye on new citizens. Still others have constructed elaborate systems to prevent new players from affecting the world in any way. Those few servers that are open and unrestricted are plagued by "griefers," named for the emotions they inspire in fellow players. Covering buildings in sand, flooding cities with lava, or simply blowing up everything they see, these players are responsible for the electronic gated communities that characterize Minecraft.

I'd like to chalk that up to the anonymity of the Internet. No matter what they're called, malicious Internet users have been around for as long as the Internet itself. But maybe it's something more. Maybe the chaos of open online play reflects something about human nature. Maybe destruction comes easier than creation.

I won't dwell on it for too long. I've got iron to mine.