Everybody’s heard of Minecraft, or at least most people have. If you happen to be one of the few who haven’t, that’s pretty surprising considering it’s widely regarded as the best-selling game of all time.
Minecraft is a relatively simple game that — despite receiving nearly 16 years of updates since its May 2009 release — has stayed largely the same over time. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Minecraft never became popular because of its complexity.
At its core, the game gives you two main ways to play. In survival mode, you gather resources, fight off monsters and turn its block-based world into a place to call home. In creative mode, you can ignore all of that and just build whatever you want.
I first started playing Minecraft at a very young age, young enough that I couldn’t even tell you when it was, as I truly don’t remember.
The earliest I can clearly remember was during early elementary school.
Back then, I spent most of my time building in creative mode. I also spent a good portion of my time online watching Minecraft videos, usually from YouTubers like Stampylonghead, iBallisticSquid and DanTDM.
As I got a little older and moved up through elementary school, I continued playing in creative mode but started focusing on building more complex things and following tutorials.
I distinctly remember making a lot of cars and the modern-style houses that people seemed to be obsessed with at the time.
I tried playing survival mode here and there but never really got into it, instead treating it more as a side mode.
Eventually, like with many games, my interest in Minecraft began to slowly decline as I got closer to middle school. The announcement of Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, when I was in fifth grade, didn’t help either.
I became obsessed with Fortnite from that point on, and Minecraft quickly became an afterthought, something I only played occasionally or messed around with when friends wanted to.
I continued playing Fortnite for years and still play it from time to time today, although the same thing seems to be happening with Fortnite that once happened with Minecraft.
I say once happened with Minecraft because it didn’t stay that way forever.
I’m not exactly sure what changed. Maybe it was my declining interest in Fortnite, or just general boredom with other games. While I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I got back into Minecraft, I do very fondly remember going through a big phase in late 2022, and I’ve been trying to consistently play it since then.
You’re probably wondering what I mean by “trying to play,” so let me explain. Back during that time in late 2022, when I got back into Minecraft, a good friend of mine and I had one of those “two-week Minecraft phases,” where we started a survival world together that ended up lasting closer to two months.
I enjoyed that phase so much that in early 2023, I started regularly playing Minecraft’s survival mode, eventually creating a world of my own after my friend moved on. I stuck with that world for a while, but I quickly realized a problem.
Minecraft survival just isn’t as fun without someone else to play it with.
Because of that, I would quickly get bored playing by myself and move on from that world after less than a month. After that, I became relatively uninterested in playing Minecraft again, at least until late 2024.
I don’t quite remember what prompted us to start playing again, but that same friend from 2022, along with another friend and I decided to make a new Minecraft world together in late 2024.
This time, we played on a realm and it ended up lasting about a month, but much of the last couple of weeks felt more like an obligation than actual enjoyment; I was mostly just trying to get my money’s worth after paying for it. After that month was over, I once again moved on from playing Minecraft for a while.
While my interest briefly returned about a month later with the release of the PS5 version of Minecraft in late 2024, it truly came back with the Vibrant Visuals update in June of last year. After exploring a few worlds with that update, the friend from 2022, another friend and I decided to start yet another realm.
This ended up being our longest-lasting realm, with my friends moving on just after the three-month mark, lasting slightly into my first semester here at UW-Eau Claire.
Since then, my interest in Minecraft hasn’t really gone away. I’ve tried to get those same friends to play again on two separate occasions, but neither attempt lasted very long.
We tried a slightly modded realm a few weeks after that last one, but it only lasted about a week. Then, just a few months ago in December, we started another normal survival realm. It lasted a week or two, but I was really the only one consistently playing.
So that’s my problem with Minecraft. I can’t really blame my friends, they just don’t enjoy the game as much as I do. But despite how much I love the game and have for years, I still “hate” the fact that Minecraft just isn’t that fun to play when no one you know wants to play it with you.
Whitford can be reached at [email protected].
