Table Of Content

Understanding Minecraft Also Edited by Nate Garrelts The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: Critical Essays(McFarland, 2006) Digital Gameplay: Essays on the Nexus of Game and Gamer(McFarland, 2005) Understanding Minecraft Essays on Play, Community and Possibilities Edited by Nate Garrelts McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA Understanding Minecraft : essays on play, community and possibilities / edited by Nate Garrelts. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ♾ ISBN 978-0-7864-7974-0 (softcover : acid free paper) ISBN 978-1-4766-1815-9 (ebook) 1. Minecraft (Game) I. Garrelts, Nate, 1976– GV1469.35.M535U73 2014 794.8—dc23 2014033258 BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE © 2014 Nate Garrelts. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover: Digital illustration by Mark Durr Printed in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com For Winton, Wiley, and Herobrine This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Introduction: Why MinecraftMatters Nate Garrelts 1 The Videogame Commons Remakes the Transnational Studio Dennis Redmond 7 Players, Modders and Hackers Peter Christiansen 23 Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play Colin FanningandRebecca Mir 38 Mining Constructivism in the University: The Case of Creative Mode Jeffrey E. Brand, Penny de Byl, Scott J. Knightand James Hooper 57 The Craft of Data Mining: Minecraftand the Constraints of Play Alexandra Jean Tremblay, Jeremy Colangelo and Joseph Alexander Brown 76 Just Steve: Conventions of Gender on the Virtual Frontier Iris Rochelle Bull 88 (Queer) Algorithmic Ecology: The Great Opening Up of Nature to All Mobs Amanda Phillips 106 Look What Just Happened: Communicating Play in Online Communities Michael Thomét 121 A Craft to Call Mine: Creative Appropriation of Minecraftin YouTube Animations Jandy Gu 132 “Someone off the YouTubez”: The Yogscast as Fan Producers Esther MacCallum- Stewart 148 vii viii Table of Contents Videogames in the White Cube Michael St. Clair 160 Fine Arts, Culture and Creativity in Minecraft James MorganandR. Yagiz Mungan 175 Building a Case for the Authenticity vs. Validity Model of Videogame Design Adam L. Brackin 191 Where Game, Play and Art Collide Rémi Cayatte 203 About the Contributors 215 Index 219 Introduction: Why Minecraft Matters Nate Garrelts Having sold more than 48 million1copies across all platforms, Minecraft (Mojang, 2011) is one of the bestselling videogames of all time. While it still has a long way to go in order to top Wii Sports2(Nintendo, 2006)and Tetris3 (1984) in sheer numbers, it has already done something neither of these games will ever do: Minecraft has engaged the popular imagination so profoundly that it has transformed videogame culture. Indeed, there has not been such widespread enthusiasm for a piece of entertainment software since we collec- tively came down with a case of “Pac-Man Fever” when the game Pac-Man was released by Namco in 1980. Like most of my peers, I watched the Pac- Man cartoon on Saturday morning, ate Pac- Man cereal, and slept on a Pac- Man pillow. Strangely enough, I did not own the game and only played it rarely at a friend’s house. Yet Pac-Mancaptured my imagination and the imagination of the world. It was special. While there have been both popular and controversial games since Pac-Man, few have had such a profound cultural impact. What is more spectacular is that Minecrafthas achieved this without fancy graphics or gratuitous violence, and the developer Mojang generously allows users to modify the game and share derivative works—two major rea- sons for the game’s success. The ﬁrst essays in this collection contextualize Minecraftby explaining its origins, describing its relationship to other videogames and toys, and helping us to think about the learning models implicit in its design. Unlike other videogames that are produced by teams of programmers working largely in isolation from their audience, Minecrafthas been shaped collaboratively with the help of the global gaming community. In the ﬁrst chapter of this collection “The Videogame Commons Remakes the Transnational Studio,” Dennis Red- mond discusses the audience driven development of Minecraftinitiated by its creator Markus “Notch” Persson, Minecraft’s relationship to the media industry and content producers, and the game’s ubiquity across multiple platforms. Redmond credits these three facets with the game’s success. Working from a similar premise, Peter Christiansen’s essay “Players, Modders and Hackers” 1