Since its launch in 2009, the online game Minecraft, which permits gamers to discover a fantastical universe made from bricks and blocks, has turn into a world phenomenon.
With greater than 300 million copies bought in 15 years, it’s the best-selling sport in historical past and the cubic silhouettes of its characters have turn into necessities of popular culture.
Many customers have been in a position to push Minecraft past its easy gaming situation, utilizing it in academic or architectural tasks, to kind communities or battle censorship.
AFP met 4 of them to ask them what Minecraft has modified of their lives and their tasks.
. La streameuse
In South Korea, Yang Ji-Yeong has turn into one of the distinguished figures on the gaming scene in a decade, attracting a number of million spectators to her Minecraft video games on numerous streaming platforms, together with YouTube.
“I feel the best asset of Minecraft is that it gives whole freedom. There are not any actual guidelines or aims, the participant is free to play as they need,” explains the 34-year-old participant, higher recognized below the nickname “Yangdding”.
Due to the success of her movies, she will be able to now commit herself full time to this exercise which, she says, all the time opens new horizons for her.
“I used to be just lately invited to a international server and was stunned to study that I may play, work together and talk with customers from everywhere in the world with out sharing the identical language or tradition,” she says .
. The subway fan
“Minecraft is sort of a second life,” says Raphaël Mesbah, 20 years outdated. This Frenchman, a medical pupil, launched into a pharaonic mission on the finish of 2022: rebuilding, line by line, the Paris metro.
This railway historical past fanatic found the sport from the Mojang studio “round 5 – 6 years in the past”: “It is my favourite sport and I all the time find yourself coming again to it.”
To help him, he introduced collectively a group of gamers by way of the homosexual courting utility Grindr. Profiting from its geolocation performance, he created a profile that he travels all through France and on which customers can discover the tackle of his server.
“Some solely got here as soon as, others come again,” notes the younger man, who has counted greater than 250 guests to his building web site. “It’s a easy and cheap sport, many individuals of my technology have already got an account on it.”
. The digital library
“All on-line platforms are channels that permit censorship to be circumvented,” says Vincent Berthier, know-how supervisor at RSF. “And Minecraft, which has huge firepower, nonetheless flies below the radar.”
It took three months for the groups from BlocWorks, a artistic studio associate of RSF, to erect this imposing constructing within the neoclassical model.
In keeping with figures offered by RSF, practically 25 million gamers from 160 international locations have linked to it since its creation.
. The trainer
When Graham Warden, 32, grew to become a trainer within the US state of Texas, he discovered that Minecraft was “omnipresent” in his college students’ lives.
The Dallas-area resident says the sport’s construction is a useful gizmo for studying and problem-solving as a result of gamers “suppose in a different way” when manipulating objects and environments in Minecraft and may accomplish that. issues you possibly can’t do in actual life.
Autistic, he additionally talks about how the sport helped him speak in confidence to others.
“I met a bunch who created a group on Minecraft. As bizarre because it sounds, a repetitive job like in-game mining can present the monotony wanted to encourage dialog.”
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