What makes a game a game? For some games it’s a specific mechanic such as reversing time. For other’s it’s the community within the game. Almost every modern game series nowadays has their very own community. These communities offer up a play where people playing a specific game can begin discussions, connect with each other, and (at times) produce content. The community produced content comes in the form of fan art, gameplay modifications (mods), lore, and much much more. Based on my gaming experience and opinion, no other game has more user generated content than the simple block building game Minecraft.

User generated content is often defined as “In-game material and resources created by players rather than developers” (Newman 277). This content usually comes in the form of mods (modifications) to a specific game. One example of a mod that eventually became its own game was a World of Warcraft III mod that eventually became the popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Defense of the Ancients (DOTA). Modding is also seen extensively in the popular block survival game Minecraft. Examples of such mods include the Portal Gun Mod by IChun which brings portal guns into Minecraft. Another example is Thaumcraft which brings magic into the game. The list of mods in Minecraft is extensive and there even exists modpacks that bundle mods into an easy to download file and can radically change gameplay. However, modding isn’t what makes Minecraft unique. What makes Minecraft unique is it allows players to become the content generator.

James Newman in his passage “Minecraft: User-Generated Content” states that “to play Minecraft is to become a content generator” (Newman 278). As a long time Minecraft player, I agree to his statement. Being a sandbox game, Minecraft gives players the ability to create whatever they want in the game as well as make up whatever narrative they want. Ever since the game’s release, Minecrafters (Minecraft players) have created some amazing builds that range from a simple townhouse to a replica of King’s Landing. I myself have spent years building up a Minecraft world with my friends on our free time. Although there was no specific purpose of story to the created world, over time we created our own narratives and game lore. At the beginning of our project, we each took a specific area of the world and made plans to create our own kingdoms. For one of my friends, he decided to make a grand castle with a huge airship. For me, I created an elvish city in the middle of an enchanted forest. Not only were each of our build’s unique, they all had their very own narrative to them. In this way, Minecraft essentially became “a platform for storytelling and game-making” (Newman 278).

User generated content is an important aspect to any game. As we’ve seen from sandbox games such as Minecraft, user generated content can become the game. Allowing players to build their own game and express themselves creatively isn’t a unique idea. However, no one game shows the importance of this simple idea than Minecraft itself.

Work Cited:
Huntemann, N. (2019). How to play video games. NYU Press.