Minecraft's massive, blocky success, explained
writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they're considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars.
The biggest movie in the world right now sends its characters on a journey through a building-block world full of zombies, talking pigs, and magical artifacts. A Minecraft Movie has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters around the globe since it opened last weekend, not only outperforming expectations by double but smashing them like a bunch of pixelated wooden blocks in the videogame it's based on. The film, with its PG rating, was aimed at tween boys, and they have responded in droves, filling theaters and turning viewings into cacophonous interactive events.
This huge audience, and audience reaction, underscores the fact that Minecraft is the most popular game in history — and it's not even close. The game's 200 million active players, mostly young men and boys, log in daily to virtually 'mine' blocks and build creations of their own making, either with friends or solo; it's sometimes compared to a tricked-out digital version of Legos. Still more Minecraft fans don't play at all but rather interact with the game by watching other people play in YouTube vlogs or Twitch livestreams. Players can explore and create in the game's essentially infinite landscape, as well as go on traditional gaming quests to defeat enemies.
Since Minecraft was first released in 2009, it's become a staple of both gaming and YouTube culture, spawning a massive community of fans and an entire cottage industry of influencers who've built their careers playing it. It's no surprise that its jump to the big screen has been a smash, relying on the Gen Z players who grew up on the game.
So why do people love it so much? What's with all the literal blockheads? How do you even play Minecraft? Let's find out.
The huge, simple, fun, and free world of Minecraft
Minecraft is the brainchild of Swedish developer Markus Persson, who launched the game to instant success; its two 2009 test releases drew in thousands, then millions of players. Gamers were compelled by its unique design: rudimentary blocky visuals that manifested in a simplistic landscape of objects like boxy trees and chunky rocks, and characters with big square heads. They found endless possibilities from being able to shape the world however they wanted.
Where most other popular games of the aughts were focused on battle or strategy, Minecraft was about worldbuilding, quite literally. You could construct the landscape to your heart's content. You didn't need to know anything about gaming either — you just enter the scene and start digging. This helped attract an especially young fanbase, kids who weren't too far removed from playing with actual Legos.
Before the official version even launched in 2011, Minecraft had already garnered 16 million players and spawned not one but two fan conventions. Gamers flocked to construct anything and everything, from intricate detailed rooms to entire massive cities and even a replica of Earth. The game also features other ways of playing — mainly adventure quests — and includes a variety of creatures, animals, and characters to make things more interesting. But the ultimate goal, as Polygon writer and Minecraft expert Cass Marshall explained to Vox, is 'to build cool stuff.'
Cosplayers at the first Minecon in 2010. Fandom/Wiki
One of the key aspects of Minecraft's staying power and continued growth — allowing it to remain interesting to existing fans while bringing in new ones too — is that it's extremely easy to modify, and there are millions upon millions of mods to be had. Sites like Curseforge and Modrinth let players browse hundreds of thousands of mods to upgrade or alter the way they play the game.
Crucially, the vast majority of these mods are free, making Minecraft one of the most accessible games around. Anyone can get started, and hooked players are able to keep upping their game. You can pursue your own aesthetic, try your hand at city planning, or form communities of players and work on an even bigger project with your friends. 'I personally like mining and digging tunnels,' Marshall said, describing the 'tock-tock-tock' sound of the pick that brings them so much joy. Most players, they said, 'have their world where they have their own soothing hobbies.'
Indeed, players have praised it as a mental health aid. It's pro-social, too: Researchers have touted Minecraft's potential as a social engagement and community-building tool. Plus, the game has been around for so long that it's evolved a nostalgic appeal for older players, while also being a fully native franchise for Gen Z — a game they grew up with.
It all adds up to a mega-franchise whose community has taken on an identity outside of the game. In 2014, Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, exiting the company he founded just in time to avoid associating Minecraft with the anti-trans, sexist views he soon began expressing. By that point, Minecraft had a whole other life on early YouTube, spawning endless networks of 'Let's Play' game vloggers who filmed themselves playing the game. Known as Minecraft YouTube, this community created its own fandom separate from that of the game, while also boosting the game's visibility.
These Minecraft video creators also easily found success on streaming platforms like Twitch, which allow fans to watch their favorite gamers play in real time. Ashray Urs, founder of streaming platform Streamlabs, told Vox that over 3 million players had streamed Minecraft content 'tens of millions of times' since the site launched in 2014, and that the company's data shows Minecraft remains one of the most consistently streamed games on Twitch and YouTube Gaming.
'It started with the game, but the real cultural influence came from the communities these creators fostered around their gameplay and interaction with the IP,' Urs said of the game's status as an incredibly popular intellectual property. 'When someone says they're a 'fan' of Minecraft, they might be fans of the game, but they could also be fans of the creators who elevated its popularity, or the transformative fanworks that emerged from the game's near-limitless constructive mechanics.'
That energy built and built for over a decade — until it came spilling out (literally in some cases) at A Minecraft Movie.
Gen Z grew up with Minecraft — and vice versa
One big reason for A Minecraft Movie's success is the power of memes. Perhaps you've heard Gen Z loves memes? A Minecraft Movie spawned memes from fans starting the moment the first trailer dropped in November. While many in the fandom were initially skeptical, gamers later realized how much of the movie seemed to be fan service aimed at diehard players. Like the audience for Barbie, fans were eager to see new life injected into a beloved childhood product. And when the movie opened, they were ready to unleash their pent-up excitement.
There's inherent power and fun in a big online movement coalescing offline, and Minecraft has always been a game that encourages social connection. The chance to congregate around a movie whose lore they were already steeped in may have given Gen Z boys, whose social lives were turned upside down by the pandemic, a novel communal opportunity. Videos of the intense interactive crowds quickly went viral once the film opened, which made going to the movie something of a meme in and of itself.
One of the biggest memes to come from A Minecraft Movie is 'chicken jockey,' in which a zombie kid rides a chicken (something that happens in the actual game too, if quite rarely). Clips of the fan reaction to this standout moment — teens standing, hoisting one another on shoulders, yelling out the line, often accompanied by popcorn throwing and at least one actual chicken — have appeared on TikTok, and received a lot of discussion from somewhat bewildered adult onlookers. The in-theater uproar has several things in common with the GentleMinions trend of 2022, where groups of young men attended screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru in full suits and ties. Yet again, male Gen Z fans of a family-friendly franchise showed up to the theater in full interactive mode. As with the Minions film, those viewers are the ones driving the box office turnout and embracing the film as a community event.
The geek culture appeal of both Minecraft stars Jack Black and Jason Momoa probably shouldn't be overlooked as a factor of the movie's success, either; both actors have long resumes of fandom-friendly content (like Black's villainous turn in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the previous reigning video game movie, or Momoa's Aquaman), and both seem to have fully embraced the spirit of Minecraft as meme.
Then there's the actual film, in which our heroes are Minecraft players who find themselves transported from the real world into the game world, here called the Overworld. To escape, Black's creator Steve, Momoa's cynical and competitive Garrett, and audience stand-in kid Henry (Sebastian Hansen) go on a Wizard of Oz-like quest, dodging various mobs of zombies, bees, and llamas along the way.
It's all very wholesome for a movie that's spawned such raucous audience participation. As Polygon's Tasha Robinson puts it, 'Garrett learns how to be vulnerable and drop his swaggering pretense of superiority. Steve learns to accept other humans as friends. Henry learns that some people actually like it when he crafts stuff.' Like The LEGO Movie, another massive hit based on the very kid's game that Minecraft is often compared to, the narrative offers a deconstruction of what it means to be a Minecraft player. That said, it's a bit hard to hear the moral that real life is better than virtual reality over the sound of children screeching and hurling movie concessions into the void.
The film, now the most profitable game movie in history, has set the property on yet another upward trajectory; just as YouTube opened up a whole new avenue for Minecraft-related content and fandom, Hollywood will too. Just don't expect this shift to change the fundamental nature of the game beloved by so many millions of people. 'I'd imagine we'll be getting more movies, maybe an animated show, more spin-offs — but Minecraft itself remains eternal,' Marshall said.
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