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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Minecraft Tournaments And Why They Exist

By Jennie Sandoval


Video games are often thought of as something with a definite, explicit goal to reach. It might be something as small as matching symbols or as large as saving the world, but there seems to always be an ending to work towards. Minecraft takes a different path by not having these types of goals, which is why Minecraft tournaments may seem like a strange concept to many people.

Literally the only things that you will find in Minecraft are blocks. They may be arranged into any number of different combinations, and may make up an amazing variety of things, but they are all blocks. This is a huge departure from many other modern video games, which often focus on their graphics being extremely detailed and realistic.

There is no specific objective given to a player when beginning a game. You are simply presented with a landscape constructed of blocks and set free among them to do whatever you like. By experimenting, you soon find that the blocks can be broken and collected, then used to build entirely new structures, like houses, work benches, tools, railways, and much more.

The absence of any sort of defined goals remains consistent through the whole course of play. The game never tells you where to go or what to do, and it never provides any numbers that state how well or how poorly you are doing. You must set your own goals and gauge your own success.

This does not seem to fit very well with the concept of a tournament. If there is no metric built in by which a player may be judged against others, then coming up with a way to rank them could be quite difficult. Fans of the game, however, work around this limitation by making up their own rules, as the game encourages from the beginning.

Because Minecraft has no official ending, players cannot race towards that. However, they can race towards mutually agreed-upon milestones, which is a popular way to structure tournaments. Goals chosen by the players can be quite demanding, and provide a challenging way for competitors to test their skill as individuals or teams.

A typical goal of such a tournament might be to challenge competitors to find gold or diamonds, both rare types of blocks in the game, before any of the others. They would thus be challenged to use all of the strategy and skills at their disposal to beat out everyone else trying to do the same thing. Of course, there is still some luck involved, but the best players are able to use the situation to their advantage.

Even though it might not conform to what many people might think of as a normal video game, Minecraft still has a fascinating premise and a degree of freedom that is largely unmatched. The fact that fans have managed to make Minecraft tournaments as popular as they are despite an inherent competitive structure speaks volumes about their dedication. Not many games have this type of popularity, and it is sure to continue to entrance players for many years to come.




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