Fun in Minecraft Gameplay

There has been a growing demand for and inventions of video games for kids and adults in the current era of computerization. There are various genres, such as sports games, action games, and strategy games, among others in video gaming. The players of these games are intentional, consuming the game's background and aiming for a specific ending, which makes the game more of a pleasure than fun. According to Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004), pleasure is absorbed while fun is distracted. However, Sandbox games incorporate various gameplay elements that give the players a great degree of creativity to complete the task towards a goal within the game. Unlike the other games, the player eventually aims to win or have an intended ending; Sandbox games do not have specific endings or goals. It gives its players more freedom and multiple gameplay experiences. Therefore, these games may generate more fun than other video game genres, as will be further discussed in this essay.

Other innovations, such as Minecraft, have changed the structure and economic model of the games industry. Minecraft is a blocky exploration game and creativity tool that has had a profound influence on people. Infiniminer inspired the sandbox indie video game, and in 2009, it was created by Markus Persson with the original name of Cave Game. The video game stood out among other online games since bearing the concept of creating things, and the game also involves gathering resources to build those structures. Thus, it has grown to be a very addictive game, with over 3.6 million users purchasing the game, and the number of customers is still growing by about a million sales every quarter. With the game's popularity increasing, Minecraft has become the subject of criticism from blogs, critics, and even fans.

Minecraft, a sandbox game, allows players to experience a virtual realm with a first-person angle. According to Riordan & Scarf (2017), it is one of those games where the non-specific goal feature provides the opportunity for players to "immerse themselves in their own narrative, build, create, and explore." Additionally, Minecraft has more intension, and provides more flexibility and creativity and thus seemingly more accessible to the fun. The paper aims at evaluating the fun in Minecraft bases on individual experiences and existing research. It will further highlight the elements that make Minecraft a fun game by conceptualizing fun with literature for a grounded discussion framework. The paper will also highlight the criticism of Minecraft being a fun game by drawing on the concern of significant thoughts and power.

Conceptualization of Fun with Literature

Research shows that the definition of fun is fluid and thus would change depending on moralism. For instance, Wolfenstein (1951) highlights the relationship between fun and morality by drawing back to religious norms and conventions in 1912. The research discusses how infants were seen as a substance that is inherently impulsive and sinful, making their move to be deemed immoral and needing to be curbed. Further, in the 20th century, the perception of infants' actions is no longer deemed sinful but has been transformed into almost complete harmlessness. This indicates that the past's concentrated impulses have disappeared, as explained by Wolfenstein (1951, p.20). Additionally, people's attitudes towards baby play have changed from curbing to encouraging, which allows fun for babies.

According to Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004), fun is transgressive. For instance, various forms of transgression in the workplace incorporate temporary and playful, accepted forms of work behaviour. Conversely, fun subverts work ethics and thus goes against morality. Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004) further discusses the notions of fun and pleasure and acknowledges that the notions of fun and pleasure are closely related. The research bases its discussion on the notion that pleasure is a specific type of enjoyment rather than a superordinate category (Blythe & Hassenzahl, 2004, p.95). On the other hand, fun is a distraction because it is trivial, repetitive, spectacle, and transgressive.

Pleasure is an absorption because it is relevant, progressive, aesthetical, and with commitment. Blythe et al. (2004) suggest that fun is less severe than pleasure regarding the duality of triviality and relevance. Therefore, this means people's enjoyment when practising "High" arts is derived from pleasure and not fun. The fact that art has been defined as "High" implies that the activity of people having enjoyment has already been normalized. This also negates the idea that an activity of distraction with triviality, practising "High" arts, is more of absorption because people intend to affiliate their practice with the cultural context. This ideology's representing features are embedded in the preset cultures such as Opera, ballet, classical music, and poetry, which do not carry cultural connotations of fun but of pleasure (Blythe & Hassenzahl, 2004, p.95).

Additionally, Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004) mention that fun is repetitive as it seeks formulae, while pleasure is progressive because the amount of enjoyment received from pleasure depends on how unexpected the outcomes are. The progressive nature of pleasure involves the notion of deviation from what used to be to another level that is not expected. This makes people seek progression if they want pleasurable enjoyment. The research further explains that fun is repetitive because soap operas, sitcoms, game shows, and hip-hop utilize people's preset formulae to make fun. Unlike pleasure, where people seek progression for more unexpected things, fun seems to have specific unchanged notions. According to Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004), this also applies to computer games whereby there is a physical repetition of hitting a button on keyboards or joypads and incorporates the repetition of virtual actions on the screen as running, jumping, hitting, shooting, and dying.

The existence of fun also shows signs of morality and norms. For instance, it can be regarded as a joke regarding sex, which is initially deemed immoral. When people subvert such a norm, it becomes fun as it shows a sign of frivolity, yet fun is only allowable to a certain extent of immorality. It might not be deemed fun but impolite when it has overly subverted moralism. However, only a certain extent of fun achieved through subverting morality can be acceptable since it conveys a notion of frivolity, transgression, and spontaneity. Hence, fun is distracted, which has significantly less relevance to a pre-existed value. Also, fun relies on shared memory, which requires time and space to construct. Fun is then adherence to the shared narrative of a collaborative group.

Cultural jamming, which is the humiliation of capitalists to marginalized groups, is more likely to be deemed immoral rather than fun. Wettergren (2009) discusses the affiliation of cultural jamming and capitalism. The research indicates that cultural jamming is a form of art that carries bottom-up public opinion (Wettergren, 2009). Moralism occurs when capitalist hierarchy contributes to different inequalities, which then have to be curbed by people to avoid losing their liberty. When inequality is embodied, cultural jamming becomes a part of the discourses of expressing dissatisfaction over inequality. Thus, cultural jamming is deemed fun as it is against the power that is curbing their liberty. However, it may be utterly different when the humiliation is from capitalists to the marginalized group.

Fine & Ugo Corte (2017, p.71) explain fun as an outlawed aspect in the face of intense temporal concentration. It compares it to when dangerous weather is near, an ill animal, or when a skateboarder gets injured. The research also indicates that fun spontaneously occurs through the sediment of expressive social relations. This shows that it is enticing because it cannot be enforced or fully scripted. This perspective also relates to the interpretation of fun in Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004). It is explained that enjoyment from practising inactivity is pleasurable but not fun because people intend to practice rather than spontaneously derive enjoyment.

Fine & Ugo Corte (2017) further discusses the mechanism of collaborative fun. The research suggests that the moment of interpersonal fun requires time and space to happen spontaneously. On the other hand, the fun has to happen spontaneously without planning. In other instances, fun also requires a staged emotional and physical environment (Fine & Ugo Corte, 2017, p.79). However, in both instances, time and physical space can be a base for people to interact, constructing their memorial moment of fun. There is also a shared moment among a group, which can become the "Shared Narrative" explained by Fine & Ugo Corte (2017). These shared responses create a commitment to sociability, and the occasions become meaningful, grounded in the memory of actors, and based on mutual expectations (Fine & Ugo Corte, 2017, p.76). Additionally, a shared narrative's emergences create repeated jokes and stories, along with nicknames and memories (Fine & Ugo Corte, 2017, p.76).

The fun in Minecraft

"Sandbox gaming" refers to a type of game that allows players to perform as free-will characters in the realms of the digital game (Lobel et al., 2017). Some sandbox video games are different from other types of gaming, such as action games, sports games, and simulation games. This type of game intends to win and achieve one or several preset endings. However, other games, such as the Mechanism of Minecraft, have more free-will features when playing.
In Minecraft, two primary modes are provided for the player's gameplay experience. For survival mode, players act like average humans who need to find their resources manually. For creative mode, players can control a character that can play and have unlimited resources. This mode is intended to provide players with a platform for creating their work, while survival mode is intended to provide players with an authentic survival gameplay experience. There is no normalized way of playing Minecraft because players can utilize all the materials around them to build things that they want rather than only intending to achieve the ending or winning. Minecraft also allows multiple players to have different gameplay experiences.

As Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004) indicates, collaborative fun requires time and space to set up an "emotional and physical environments" (p.79) for fun. The gameplay of Minecraft might meet this requirement since the players of the game spend most time playing and sharing experiences. For instance, in my experience, my friends and I would commit a substantial amount of time a day to start playing Minecraft together.

Minecraft is a digital video game without physical space since it operates in a virtual realm. The mouse is used to control moves and create interaction among the players, which eliminates the physical sharing of experiences. It is, however, an emotional experience and thus can be considered fun. Besides, Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004) also indicate that the need for a physical space to create collaborative fun requires emotional occasions and the presence of spontaneous activities. This shows that Minecraft is in the emotional realm, which is different from physical interactions. Minecraft also possesses the aspect of escapism whereby it has the potential of building unexpected experiences. The players thus constantly yearn for more video game experiences and build bonds among themselves. This aspect of Minecraft also allows it to meet the requirements of both time and space for spontaneous activities, which creates fun experiences.

Triviality also appears in a collaborative Minecraft gameplay. When playing Minecraft, the player has specific goals and aims mostly to do architectural work such as housing and constructing infrastructures such as framed farmlands. Therefore, the players cannot be bored while playing the game, but rather, they get distracted from the work that they were aiming to do. In other instances, players engage in random fights and interactions through voice calls. Another activity involves using command code that causes the other player to fall from high places, which causes exciting experiences of laughter. These activities are, however, considered trivial and frivolous since they distract the players from actual work.

Nevertheless, these activities kill boredom and can thus be considered fun activities to engage in. This has also been further explained by Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004), who explained that the concept of triviality is an integral aspect of fun experiences. Additionally, the repetition of activities in Minecraft gameplay further distracts the players.

Additionally, the notion of immorality, which is associated with video games, also creates a fun experience. The aspect of Minecraft that subverts work ethics and thus contrasts moral behaviours makes the experience fun for the players. Based on personal experience, the creation of sex objects and the use of swear words during the Minecraft gameplay created fun experiences as it is deemed as subverting morality.

In terms of the shared narrative, when we were distracted during our gameplay, it seemed that the fun we had was mutually related together. As Fine & Ugo Corte (2017) indicate, "Shared responses create a commitment to sociability. Occasions become meaningful, grounded in the memory of actors and based on reciprocal expectations, not only through affective energy as performed but also through repeated references in talk" (p.76). During the game session we would get distracted and thus started to some random fights, our way, and sound of laughter became similar. Given that laughter represents an "intense emotional state" as described by Fine & Ugo Corte (2017, p.81), it seems that there is a shared way for us to express fun emotion.

Minecraft took my sovereignty of fun

In the above section, it seems that Minecraft is relevant to fun. I have applied my personal experiences in relation to the memory of playing Minecraft with my friends to the literature that discusses what fun is. Indeed, there is some affiliation between fun and collaborative Minecraft gameplay, as we showed signs of distraction in a specific time and space. However, it seems that the fun that is derived from Minecraft gameplay relies on materiality. Moreover, this materiality is quantified. To access fun through Minecraft, I must use a computer. I also need useful broadband to communicate with other players smoothly. What is needed to have fun in Minecraft can be quantified. Unless I have those materialistic devices, I cannot access the fun through Minecraft. This seems to be reasonable enough but would be argued later as losing the autonomy of fun. Minecraft shows that contemporary fun is highly dependent on materiality.

Heidegger suggests that "technology is not equivalent to the essence of technology" (p.310). Rae (2012) then explains his suggestion: "In other words, we cannot simply look to technological objects to delineate what technology is or means. The essence of the computer, for example, is not simply discovered by looking at the components of the computer itself" (p. 310). Rae (2012) interprets the criticism discussed by Heidegger that the metaphysics of science and technology have dominated thoughts due to modernism, "As a world-view, technology shapes how human being pictures and thinks about itself and the world" (p. 2012). Indeed, modernism impacts the contemporary world, driving people's thoughts centralized to the matter of metaphysical materials. Such as the contemporary climate crisis, anti-environmentalists only believe in scientific interpretation that ecology's damage is non-reversible. This is the embodiment of human thoughts dominated by science, a scientific ideology that authorized them to ignore the other possible meanings of being environmentally friendly.

Indeed, the world is full of metaphysics. The technologies allow Minecraft to create a virtual realm from architectural construction that creates concrete spaces for the user to play with. The mechanism of many things requires actual materials to work. These all belong to the impact of modernism, which is what Heidegger criticized in his post-modernism interpretation (Rae, 2012). Nevertheless, religious belief was the dominant narrative before science became what people believed in, as Venn & Featherstone (2006) indicate, a religious tradition before modernism. Still, when religion met modernism, people started to believe in the scientific interpretation of the mechanisms rather than following the norms. Venn & Featherstone (2006) indicate that Descartes brought the idea of modernity, as he says, "The notion of a break with 'tradition' and with the old, central to the modern imaginary, has its exemplary instantiation in Descartes' gesture of tabula rasa, that is, of brushing aside from the table of knowledge the authority of ancient texts" (Venn & Featherstone, 2006, p.460), which Descartes critics the stringent norms and convention from the ancient religious texts, and suggests that a quantified way of thinking is more appropriate. Venn & Featherstone also draw on Habermas indication towards modernity, that "democratic societies new public spaces have emerged for the formation of public opinion about matters concerning the good order of the state; they facilitate the free exchange of information and rational debate and thus help to constitute an informed public capable of making rational choices about issues relating to the group and national interests." (p.450). With Habermas interpretation that space has allowed people to form discourses over the idea of how to make a "rational choices," which the "rational choices" is intended to make the group and national interest, it implies that space also plays a role of accelerating the formation of society thoughts that is centralized to modernization.

With science and technology, the fear of nature, such as natural disasters towards human beings, has been significantly reduced (Magrini, 2012). Human beings no longer have to face the challenges of different kinds of disasters of nature. Instead, humans have been gradually utilizing science and technology to manipulate nature, such as medical care, which has quantified the body's bio-mechanism and does the proper medical treatments. Human beings no longer have to be afraid of typical sicknesses. The nature hierarchy has then occurred, as Rae (2012) indicates, "metaphysics takes humans to be the measure and the centre of beings" (p. 309), which humans are able and even think themselves have the right to manipulate nature in their interest.

Technology-empowered humans, and thus humans started to rely on technology. Maybe, hence, when people want fun, they might start by looking at the materiality that can give them the enjoyment of fun. Even though Minecraft is the sandbox gaming that allows more freedom for their gameplay experiences, fundamentally, it is a commodity from Microsoft. With technology, people can play video games, and thus, they rely on technology to fulfil their demand for fun. Indeed, Minecraft gives players more freedom and, thus, makes them more likely to access fun when the fun is a distraction. However, the notion of Minecraft as fun depends on the comparison to the other genres of games, but not in comparison with other possibilities.

The loss of players' autonomy of fun in Minecraft

The thought that humans think they have the right to manipulate nature occurs in human beings towards nature and within humans. The word "human resources" might linguistically assume that humans can be manipulated by quantifying them by dividing them into different characteristics such as skills, experience, and education. These quantifications will serve the capitalists or the people with power. With these metaphysical, clearly stated abilities, mercantile can sort out their choices for commercial purposes.

Capitalists not only manipulate their staff through the sense of "human resources" but also manipulate consumers. Beckett (2012) interprets the relationship between the mercantile and the consumers, suggesting that the mercantile has taken its sovereignty. This is because the mercantile has quantified consumer habits through its algorithmic system, which has "rendered them into an ordered object of knowledge" (Beckett, 2012, p.10). Beckett (2012) draws on Foucault's suggestions of governmentality to argue that this is the sovereignty of consumers taken by mercantile. In Foucault's work, he used to interpret power as dominative. For example, In the "Panopticon" from Foucault's (1977) Discipline and Punish, Foucault interprets that the power performs from direct domination to prisoners' self-discipline through surveillance. Nevertheless, then, in his late work, power has been understood by Foucault as governance more than domination.

Instead of just the domination of people, the form of power can also develop people's desires. The government shows its ability to fulfil its desire to get people's favour and trust and thus achieve the government's goals. In this way, people would be less likely to see themselves as a curb, but instead, they think the government is beneficial to them and thus support the government. This has mentioned Beckett (2012) states that Foucault argues that "modern societies freedom and power are reconciled through governance; individuals are not disciplined but encouraged to exercise their freedom appropriately" (p. 3) and thus ", Power is exercised indirectly, through the shaping of the Consumption Markets & Culture desires and aspirations of individuals that in turn shape their conduct" (p.4). Given that Foucault suggests that power can occur in a different form, Beckett (2012) drew on this notion to explain the sovereignty of consumer choices is governed by the mercantile. The power from the mercantile to consumers does not directly go from top to down. Still, the mercantile is trying to develop consumers' desires by enhancing the meanings of commodities. The incident is that Tesco, through their algorithmic system, noticed people would suddenly consume more flowers during the summer than usual. After Tesco figured out that people bought this for their teacher to show thankfulness at the end of the summer, Tesco then claimed that they could make sure the supply of flowers while fulfilling customers' needs. Nevertheless, Beckett (2012) exposes that "An alternative interpretation is that Tesco is positioning the provision of flowers for teachers as a norm that they encourage consumers to follow" (Beckett, 2012, p.7). This is somehow an emergence of power through commodities as "In articulating these norms Tesco "frames" consumption; linking the everyday practices of life, expressing thanks to a teacher, with the possibilities of consumption" (Beckett, 2012, p.7).

As a commodification of Microsoft, Minecraft is preset as an ordinary virtual world, with different materials, such as mud, grass, wood, and stone, presented as same-size blocks. Like the linguistic meaning of "Minecraft," this game's mechanism allows people to utilize all the blocks to craft things in their interests. Besides referring to the fact that humans have been in the centre of the world, this notion also seems to imply that Minecraft is a game people must build to have fun. It reminds me that building was the ultimate intention whenever I played Minecraft, alone or with my friends. Finding "resources" to build, making tools to build, and eating to survive so we can keep building. There was not a single time that we committed to getting into the virtual realm of Minecraft just to hang out. Instead, we did collaborative work (dividing the work of finding "resources") every time. As I have argued previously, Minecraft could be fun, in which players can use blocks to build some objects against morality, and thus, it is fun. Yet, this fun requires me to follow the preset mechanism of Minecraft.

Beckett (2012) has drawn on Foucault's interpretation of power to indicate that the mercantile has taken the sovereignty of consumer choices. Although the racks in the shop have a diversity of consumer choices, the desire of consumers to purchase these products may initially be developed by the capitalists. Indeed, the "desire" to play Minecraft can be affiliated with my last memory of playing Minecraft with my friends. This is explained in the above part: we can have space and time to stay together among the Minecraft group and naturally generate fun virtually. This has then become my memory of collaborative fun. Whenever we play Minecraft again, I intend to recall and re-experience my last time memory. Thus, the "desire" here might be constituted by my previous experiences. However, if interpreting in this sense, keep saying the current time of Minecraft playing is due to the previous experience, this may not explain the first time of gameplay. With that in mind, Beckett's (2012) interpretation of the passively developed desire of consumers by the capitalists might give it another angle. Minecraft has no advertisements, but it does have diffusion on YouTube.

Conclusion

This essay first conceptualized fun with literature as the grounded framework for interpreting fun in Minecraft gameplay. It highlights various ideologies about fun based on various researchers. In conclusion, the paper defines fun as the conveyance of the notion of distraction based on research by Blythe & Hassenzahl (2004). Based on historical context, fun is also affiliated with norms and moralism. This is, however, a fluid definition of fun and thus can change with time. The paper also highlights that fun should happen spontaneously without planning. Further, it is made clear that a collaborative, fun time and the materiality of space are needed to create a collective memory. However, the preparation of space and time only provides a chance to have fun but is not guaranteed.

The research also concludes that Minecraft provides a virtual realm for players to spend time in and thus fulfils the conditions for generating fun spontaneously. Based on my gameplay experience with friends, I experienced fun the moment we got bored with building projects. These actions were fun because it showed frivolity and out of the absorption of building work. This also indicated that fun occurs among a group since it creates a shared moment and memories. Therefore, we would consider Minecraft fun because we created shared experiences of spontaneous activities. However, in as much as my Minecraft gameplay showed signs of fun, this essay argues that Minecraft has taken my autonomy of fun. Even though Minecraft is a sandbox game that would otherwise provide more creativity and freedom for the players and thus soother for generating fun, players still cannot have autonomy because the mechanism of Minecraft authorizes the fun. This has then been argued in this essay as an embodiment of modernization that we sincerely rely on materiality to have fun. This notion of overly relying on materiality for fun purposes has been noticed by the mercantile and utilized for commercial purposes. Drawing on Foucault's suggestion that power can be presented as an encouraging form rather than direct domination only, mercantile Microsoft creates the desire to play Minecraft. They created a mechanism and defined the pathway of accessing fun. As discussed in the paper, Minecraft emphasises building and acquiring the resources for building; otherwise, it would create boredom. Although I had fun in my Minecraft game experience, the experience eliminated the chance of surprise and eventually eliminated another possible pathway to the creation of fun at the same time and space.

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