The minecraft refering to itself as a game is no more definitive than jesus saying he will make you fishers of men. There is a truth in the story that can not be directly told.
The End scriptures also state"
"I will tell the player a story. But not the truth. No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance."
When the game states "It's a game," it is stating simply what it is. Somewhere in reading about zen, I believe is saw a reference that a purpose of zen was to clear the mind to see things for what they are. While life meaning can be derived from looking at a simple flower, it is still nothing less than a flower, is it not? Things can be "definitive" without being "limiting."
If I'm going to be talked down to because I share a different view of a video game, then I will gladly leave this thread and not return to it.
I don't believe I've called you names or anything.
If MC was just a game, and for you it remains, just a game, then the OP has found a new use for it.
You coming in here to restate it's original status as you prefer it does nothing to expand on the OP's new use for it.
So while you have a right to say whatever you want, it's frankly just thread crapping. What good does your view of "it's just a game" do for the topic? If the OP was somehow swayed by your compelling argument, the thread would have died on the second post.
Instead, by ignoring you, more interesting things about Zen have been revealed, and parallels to existing philosophy and the End story have been pointed out.
there are some threads, like this one that are exploring a concept, where dissenting views to the entire topic are disruptive and non-helpful.
As opposed to a thread discussing whether or not the game should include ponies that you can braid their hair or not. In which case, finding out who would like such a thing, or not would be useful to gauge the interest for the devs.
Apologies if anyone has any issue with this thread being rez'ed, but I just stumbled upon it and wanted to reply...
"This game is not zen. It is just a game, nothing more, nothing less."
Yet, that is exactly what zen means (at least to me), a realization that anything you are currently experiencing is "nothing more, nothing less" than simply what is (not good or bad), while we choose to personally make things out of our experiences that seem like they really are. Just like the game, life is "nothing more and nothing less" than simply what is. Anything else is simply a product of thoughts that we choose to apply to it to trick or manipulate ourselves and others to maintain our own egos.
The game therefore, I say, absolutely is zen because it is "just a game, nothing more, nothing less".
This game acts more as an open ended book than a video game. Something that has the play-ability of minecraft allows the player to slow down and speculate on both the virtual and real worlds at the same time. Not many other games have the same rate of play, so this one should be taken differently than other games. It is much like writing your own book but instead of using words as your method of expression, the game is the canvas for the artist to thrive on. Games are games, but some of them strike a chord deeper than most.
When compared to violent FPS games, Minecraft is a godsend that turns the ADD mind of a call of duty addict into a mind that can focus for a longer time on a specific project. So in the end, Minecraft is and always will be more than a game, whereas call of duty, even though the most monetarily successfull, will never ever come close to developing a child's or adult's thinking the way Minecraft does.
This is similar to playing logic-intense chess compared to just a visually stimulating puzzle game. Both are games, which one do you think helps your problem solving more? The visually stimulating game may be more "fun" in that you waste hours playing it but not growing any other skills other than how to mechanically beat that specific puzzle. The logic developed in chess or other heavy-thinking games, versus the flashy, ADD-causing, and downright retarded thinking that COD type games cause is something to understand when analyzing a video game. In the case of Minecraft, we not only learn how to actually play the game, but we learn problem solving skills that are transferable to the real world. Having to think through your next move in chess and how to find and harvest enough resources to survive develop our natural propensity to speculate on the future, a defining feature of modern man.
Simply put, Fast-paced shooters make us dumb and violent shooters, and slow-paced thinkers make us think. Minecraft is more than a game because it has caused positive culture change and gave me hope for video games of the future. Anyone who thinks any game is just a game truely does not understand how any stimulation, good or bad, good video game or bad video game, has an effect on us. The fact that Minecraft causes me to even think about this is proof itself that Minecraft does more than chew up hours of your day.
Think Minecraft is just a game? Play only COD for a week, see how you feel. Probably agitated, on edge, temperamental, and rude would describe you for that week. Then play only Minecraft for a week. You will ask yourself why you ever played call of duty. Minecraft mimics an innate desire to explore and survive. Many other games fail to imitate such real desires but instead fabricate their own for the gamers to fall into. COD is cool because its cool because guns, explosions, and violence. Minecraft is cool because it not just arcade-style killing.
If this post moved anyone, I'd recommend viewing my YouTube channel because I discuss topics like this as well as other stuff.
This game acts more as an open ended book than a video game. Something that has the play-ability of minecraft allows the player to slow down and speculate on both the virtual and real worlds at the same time. Not many other games have the same rate of play, so this one should be taken differently than other games. It is much like writing your own book but instead of using words as your method of expression, the game is the canvas for the artist to thrive on. Games are games, but some of them strike a chord deeper than most.
When compared to violent FPS games, Minecraft is a godsend that turns the ADD mind of a call of duty addict into a mind that can focus for a longer time on a specific project. So in the end, Minecraft is and always will be more than a game, whereas call of duty, even though the most monetarily successfull, will never ever come close to developing a child's or adult's thinking the way Minecraft does.
This is similar to playing logic-intense chess compared to just a visually stimulating puzzle game. Both are games, which one do you think helps your problem solving more? The visually stimulating game may be more "fun" in that you waste hours playing it but not growing any other skills other than how to mechanically beat that specific puzzle. The logic developed in chess or other heavy-thinking games, versus the flashy, ADD-causing, and downright retarded thinking that COD type games cause is something to understand when analyzing a video game. In the case of Minecraft, we not only learn how to actually play the game, but we learn problem solving skills that are transferable to the real world. Having to think through your next move in chess and how to find and harvest enough resources to survive develop our natural propensity to speculate on the future, a defining feature of modern man.
Simply put, Fast-paced shooters make us dumb and violent shooters, and slow-paced thinkers make us think. Minecraft is more than a game because it has caused positive culture change and gave me hope for video games of the future. Anyone who thinks any game is just a game truely does not understand how any stimulation, good or bad, good video game or bad video game, has an effect on us. The fact that Minecraft causes me to even think about this is proof itself that Minecraft does more than chew up hours of your day.
Think Minecraft is just a game? Play only COD for a week, see how you feel. Probably agitated, on edge, temperamental, and rude would describe you for that week. Then play only Minecraft for a week. You will ask yourself why you ever played call of duty. Minecraft mimics an innate desire to explore and survive. Many other games fail to imitate such real desires but instead fabricate their own for the gamers to fall into. COD is cool because its cool because guns, explosions, and violence. Minecraft is cool because it not just arcade-style killing.
If this post moved anyone, I'd recommend viewing my YouTube channel because I discuss topics like this as well as other stuff.
Actually, though you do have a point about productivity with Minecraft to an extent, FPS games can be quite valuable in certain ways. Firstly, they tend to require and thus improve mental reflexes and hand-eye coordination. Secondly, FPS's do not make violent people. They serve as an outlet for people to use to vent their normal aggressive nature which all people have inherently as human beings. It is much like the Metal music genre and metal concerts, which people listen to and attend in order to subdue, reflect, and then let go of their own stress in life artistically.
Objectively, Mindcraft is really just a game. Subjectively, it is a game + whatever you choose to use it for and thus, get from it for yourself. Just like FPS games and music.
Actually, though you do have a point about productivity with Minecraft to an extent, FPS games can be quite valuable in certain ways. Firstly, they tend to require and thus improve mental reflexes and hand-eye coordination. Secondly, FPS's do not make violent people. They serve as an outlet for people to use to vent their normal aggressive nature which all people have inherently as human beings. It is much like the Metal music genre and metal concerts, which people listen to and attend in order to subdue, reflect, and then let go of their own stress in life artistically.
Objectively, Mindcraft is really just a game. Subjectively, it is a game + whatever you choose to use it for and thus, get from it for yourself. Just like FPS games and music.
First off, man is not naturally violent. The research shows that conditioning at the very young ages plays the biggest role in how the person deals with life's frustrations. The "violent nature" of man may only come when he is staving to near extinction. We don't see that in most of our lives but instead we just see frustrations of living in society.
The fact that I am a human with emotions basically ends the possibility for a game to be an objective piece of work, if it is meant to be played by a human, not a robot. In the fact that it is open ended and limitless to the physics of the game basically gives a canvas to a gamer-artist. I totally agree with the fast-paced FPS benefits, its just when the violence is exposed so graphically and so intensely that it becomes an issue. It causes a desensitization to violence; the imagery reduces the response of seeing gruesome things in the real world, and in turn, a reaction to it. The ramifications of this desensitization is a whole other argument but lets bring it back to Minecraft.
Some games, like movies or books or art, can have ill advised effects on certain people. It is the fact that games like minecraft are heavily outweighed by violent ones, leading to a higher likelihood of the games having an ill-advised effect. Minecraft doesn't seem to have any of the same side effects as playing COD except the hours flying by. It's like tanning: you can go to the tanning salon(COD) for a quick and awesome tan. Or you can go outside and get a nice tan. Now both may give you bad skin at some point, but the salon will do it faster and you'll look uglier doing it.
Simply put, I'm more or less hoping the gaming culture starts to sway towards these games and away from those games.
I do enjoy a good discussion, too; instead of shorter responses so thanks for taking the time to respond with legible structure :-D
First off, man is not naturally violent. The research shows that conditioning at the very young ages plays the biggest role in how the person deals with life's frustrations. The "violent nature" of man may only come when he is staving to near extinction. We don't see that in most of our lives but instead we just see frustrations of living in society.
The fact that I am a human with emotions basically ends the possibility for a game to be an objective piece of work, if it is meant to be played by a human, not a robot. In the fact that it is open ended and limitless to the physics of the game basically gives a canvas to a gamer-artist. I totally agree with the fast-paced FPS benefits, its just when the violence is exposed so graphically and so intensely that it becomes an issue. It causes a desensitization to violence; the imagery reduces the response of seeing gruesome things in the real world, and in turn, a reaction to it. The ramifications of this desensitization is a whole other argument but lets bring it back to Minecraft.
Some games, like movies or books or art, can have ill advised effects on certain people. It is the fact that games like minecraft are heavily outweighed by violent ones, leading to a higher likelihood of the games having an ill-advised effect. Minecraft doesn't seem to have any of the same side effects as playing COD except the hours flying by. It's like tanning: you can go to the tanning salon(COD) for a quick and awesome tan. Or you can go outside and get a nice tan. Now both may give you bad skin at some point, but the salon will do it faster and you'll look uglier doing it.
Simply put, I'm more or less hoping the gaming culture starts to sway towards these games and away from those games.
I do enjoy a good discussion, too; instead of shorter responses so thanks for taking the time to respond with legible structure :-D
Well, the word I used was "aggressive", not "violent" which is not quite the same. Humans are also peaceful as well, we are just not exempt from otherwise. If we were, then the world and society would be quite different wouldn't it?
As for a game, subjectivity does not dismiss the objective nature of anything. One cannot exist without the other for one plays upon the other, and is the only way we can experience and know either of them. As for games, the objective natures of them vary from one to another, but it is there as it would have to be in order for us to learn about them and interact with them. First you have a template and then you have what we choose to apply to it. The nature of Minecraft demonstrates this, as a world is randomly generated (a very objective-natured behavior wouldn't you say?) for which we interact and apply our subjective choices upon that "template" that has been generated with our own creative works.
As for the violent nature of games, that is a whole can of worms that probably deserves its own thread, because you have a whole argument to go by between the notion of "where responsibility lies" toward where those "ill-advised effects" take place (ex. mentally ill consumers vs mentally stable consumers, subliminal messaging, parental advisory, etc etc). Though, I also hope that society might evolve to not feel they have to promote and use violence in games just for entertainment/stimulation for various reasons as well.
Well, the word I used was "aggressive", not "violent" which is not quite the same. Humans are also peaceful as well, we are just not exempt from otherwise. If we were, then the world and society would be quite different wouldn't it?
Aggression breeds aggression, violence breeds violence, peace breeds peace. Just because man is capable of peaceful, proper development doesn't mean that it is practiced and instituted. Regardless, the fact that I can take a breath in Minecraft and not die or anything without having to hit pause is a big factor, since when you put down the controller, its basically just a nice screensaver to daydream in front of haha :-D
Apologies if anyone has any issue with this thread being rez'ed, but I just stumbled upon it and wanted to reply...
"This game is not zen. It is just a game, nothing more, nothing less."
Yet, that is exactly what zen means (at least to me), a realization that anything you are currently experiencing is "nothing more, nothing less" than simply what is (not good or bad), while we choose to personally make things out of our experiences that seem like they really are. Just like the game, life is "nothing more and nothing less" than simply what is. Anything else is simply a product of thoughts that we choose to apply to it to trick or manipulate ourselves and others to maintain our own egos.
The game therefore, I say, absolutely is zen because it is "just a game, nothing more, nothing less".
It's been interesting going back to read some of these early posts... my own and those of others who have been around here for some time now. I'm still not totally familiar with zen principles, but I think I agree.
This game acts more as an open ended book than a video game. Something that has the play-ability of minecraft allows the player to slow down and speculate on both the virtual and real worlds at the same time. Not many other games have the same rate of play, so this one should be taken differently than other games. It is much like writing your own book but instead of using words as your method of expression, the game is the canvas for the artist to thrive on. Games are games, but some of them strike a chord deeper than most.
When compared to violent FPS games, Minecraft is a godsend that turns the ADD mind of a call of duty addict into a mind that can focus for a longer time on a specific project. So in the end, Minecraft is and always will be more than a game, whereas call of duty, even though the most monetarily successfull, will never ever come close to developing a child's or adult's thinking the way Minecraft does.
This is similar to playing logic-intense chess compared to just a visually stimulating puzzle game. Both are games, which one do you think helps your problem solving more? The visually stimulating game may be more "fun" in that you waste hours playing it but not growing any other skills other than how to mechanically beat that specific puzzle. The logic developed in chess or other heavy-thinking games, versus the flashy, ADD-causing, and downright retarded thinking that COD type games cause is something to understand when analyzing a video game. In the case of Minecraft, we not only learn how to actually play the game, but we learn problem solving skills that are transferable to the real world. Having to think through your next move in chess and how to find and harvest enough resources to survive develop our natural propensity to speculate on the future, a defining feature of modern man.
Simply put, Fast-paced shooters make us dumb and violent shooters, and slow-paced thinkers make us think. Minecraft is more than a game because it has caused positive culture change and gave me hope for video games of the future. Anyone who thinks any game is just a game truely does not understand how any stimulation, good or bad, good video game or bad video game, has an effect on us. The fact that Minecraft causes me to even think about this is proof itself that Minecraft does more than chew up hours of your day.
Think Minecraft is just a game? Play only COD for a week, see how you feel. Probably agitated, on edge, temperamental, and rude would describe you for that week. Then play only Minecraft for a week. You will ask yourself why you ever played call of duty. Minecraft mimics an innate desire to explore and survive. Many other games fail to imitate such real desires but instead fabricate their own for the gamers to fall into. COD is cool because its cool because guns, explosions, and violence. Minecraft is cool because it not just arcade-style killing.
If this post moved anyone, I'd recommend viewing my YouTube channel because I discuss topics like this as well as other stuff.
There may have been a time when I would have agreed with your stance on FPS games; but my son (an adult and wiser person that I) has since encouraged me to play a few different types of games since I became interested in Minecraft. Many of his "FPS" games do involve some fairly complex puzzle-solving skills and some have very complex story lines. It was easier before playing some of them to just paint them all with the same brush; but not anymore.
There are also dark sides to Minecraft:
I think a risk of Minecraft is that people can tend to go overboard with it... turning it into something far more than the game that it is. It really is "just a game." The world is not real, the items in it are merely pixels. As an form of artistic expression, it seems somewhat limited (although it does have more flexibility that most other video games). Griefing, however, is a serious problem often associated with other forms of bullying. The game save files also do get corrupted from time to time, so it also seems to be somewhat unreliable even without griefing.
Some people, it seems, do get very emotionally distraught was they "lose" their worlds regardless of whether or not it was griefed or suffered some computer glitch... which is not necessarily a healthy reaction.
Don't get me wrong, I think Minecraft is a great video game... but it's still a video game.
ETA: Part of learning in life is about learning how to play and enjoy various games. Games, in an of themselves as "just games" are an important social activity... have been since long before anyone can remember. Recognizing various sorts of video games as "just games" can also help people avoid becoming unduly agitated over what happens inside the game.
When the game states "It's a game," it is stating simply what it is. Somewhere in reading about zen, I believe is saw a reference that a purpose of zen was to clear the mind to see things for what they are. While life meaning can be derived from looking at a simple flower, it is still nothing less than a flower, is it not? Things can be "definitive" without being "limiting."
I don't believe I've called you names or anything.
If MC was just a game, and for you it remains, just a game, then the OP has found a new use for it.
You coming in here to restate it's original status as you prefer it does nothing to expand on the OP's new use for it.
So while you have a right to say whatever you want, it's frankly just thread crapping. What good does your view of "it's just a game" do for the topic? If the OP was somehow swayed by your compelling argument, the thread would have died on the second post.
Instead, by ignoring you, more interesting things about Zen have been revealed, and parallels to existing philosophy and the End story have been pointed out.
there are some threads, like this one that are exploring a concept, where dissenting views to the entire topic are disruptive and non-helpful.
As opposed to a thread discussing whether or not the game should include ponies that you can braid their hair or not. In which case, finding out who would like such a thing, or not would be useful to gauge the interest for the devs.
"This game is not zen. It is just a game, nothing more, nothing less."
Yet, that is exactly what zen means (at least to me), a realization that anything you are currently experiencing is "nothing more, nothing less" than simply what is (not good or bad), while we choose to personally make things out of our experiences that seem like they really are. Just like the game, life is "nothing more and nothing less" than simply what is. Anything else is simply a product of thoughts that we choose to apply to it to trick or manipulate ourselves and others to maintain our own egos.
The game therefore, I say, absolutely is zen because it is "just a game, nothing more, nothing less".
When compared to violent FPS games, Minecraft is a godsend that turns the ADD mind of a call of duty addict into a mind that can focus for a longer time on a specific project. So in the end, Minecraft is and always will be more than a game, whereas call of duty, even though the most monetarily successfull, will never ever come close to developing a child's or adult's thinking the way Minecraft does.
This is similar to playing logic-intense chess compared to just a visually stimulating puzzle game. Both are games, which one do you think helps your problem solving more? The visually stimulating game may be more "fun" in that you waste hours playing it but not growing any other skills other than how to mechanically beat that specific puzzle. The logic developed in chess or other heavy-thinking games, versus the flashy, ADD-causing, and downright retarded thinking that COD type games cause is something to understand when analyzing a video game. In the case of Minecraft, we not only learn how to actually play the game, but we learn problem solving skills that are transferable to the real world. Having to think through your next move in chess and how to find and harvest enough resources to survive develop our natural propensity to speculate on the future, a defining feature of modern man.
Simply put, Fast-paced shooters make us dumb and violent shooters, and slow-paced thinkers make us think. Minecraft is more than a game because it has caused positive culture change and gave me hope for video games of the future. Anyone who thinks any game is just a game truely does not understand how any stimulation, good or bad, good video game or bad video game, has an effect on us. The fact that Minecraft causes me to even think about this is proof itself that Minecraft does more than chew up hours of your day.
Think Minecraft is just a game? Play only COD for a week, see how you feel. Probably agitated, on edge, temperamental, and rude would describe you for that week. Then play only Minecraft for a week. You will ask yourself why you ever played call of duty. Minecraft mimics an innate desire to explore and survive. Many other games fail to imitate such real desires but instead fabricate their own for the gamers to fall into. COD is cool because its cool because guns, explosions, and violence. Minecraft is cool because it not just arcade-style killing.
If this post moved anyone, I'd recommend viewing my YouTube channel because I discuss topics like this as well as other stuff.
Actually, though you do have a point about productivity with Minecraft to an extent, FPS games can be quite valuable in certain ways. Firstly, they tend to require and thus improve mental reflexes and hand-eye coordination. Secondly, FPS's do not make violent people. They serve as an outlet for people to use to vent their normal aggressive nature which all people have inherently as human beings. It is much like the Metal music genre and metal concerts, which people listen to and attend in order to subdue, reflect, and then let go of their own stress in life artistically.
Objectively, Mindcraft is really just a game. Subjectively, it is a game + whatever you choose to use it for and thus, get from it for yourself. Just like FPS games and music.
First off, man is not naturally violent. The research shows that conditioning at the very young ages plays the biggest role in how the person deals with life's frustrations. The "violent nature" of man may only come when he is staving to near extinction. We don't see that in most of our lives but instead we just see frustrations of living in society.
The fact that I am a human with emotions basically ends the possibility for a game to be an objective piece of work, if it is meant to be played by a human, not a robot. In the fact that it is open ended and limitless to the physics of the game basically gives a canvas to a gamer-artist. I totally agree with the fast-paced FPS benefits, its just when the violence is exposed so graphically and so intensely that it becomes an issue. It causes a desensitization to violence; the imagery reduces the response of seeing gruesome things in the real world, and in turn, a reaction to it. The ramifications of this desensitization is a whole other argument but lets bring it back to Minecraft.
Some games, like movies or books or art, can have ill advised effects on certain people. It is the fact that games like minecraft are heavily outweighed by violent ones, leading to a higher likelihood of the games having an ill-advised effect. Minecraft doesn't seem to have any of the same side effects as playing COD except the hours flying by. It's like tanning: you can go to the tanning salon(COD) for a quick and awesome tan. Or you can go outside and get a nice tan. Now both may give you bad skin at some point, but the salon will do it faster and you'll look uglier doing it.
Simply put, I'm more or less hoping the gaming culture starts to sway towards these games and away from those games.
I do enjoy a good discussion, too; instead of shorter responses so thanks for taking the time to respond with legible structure :-D
Well, the word I used was "aggressive", not "violent" which is not quite the same. Humans are also peaceful as well, we are just not exempt from otherwise. If we were, then the world and society would be quite different wouldn't it?
As for a game, subjectivity does not dismiss the objective nature of anything. One cannot exist without the other for one plays upon the other, and is the only way we can experience and know either of them. As for games, the objective natures of them vary from one to another, but it is there as it would have to be in order for us to learn about them and interact with them. First you have a template and then you have what we choose to apply to it. The nature of Minecraft demonstrates this, as a world is randomly generated (a very objective-natured behavior wouldn't you say?) for which we interact and apply our subjective choices upon that "template" that has been generated with our own creative works.
As for the violent nature of games, that is a whole can of worms that probably deserves its own thread, because you have a whole argument to go by between the notion of "where responsibility lies" toward where those "ill-advised effects" take place (ex. mentally ill consumers vs mentally stable consumers, subliminal messaging, parental advisory, etc etc). Though, I also hope that society might evolve to not feel they have to promote and use violence in games just for entertainment/stimulation for various reasons as well.
Aggression breeds aggression, violence breeds violence, peace breeds peace. Just because man is capable of peaceful, proper development doesn't mean that it is practiced and instituted. Regardless, the fact that I can take a breath in Minecraft and not die or anything without having to hit pause is a big factor, since when you put down the controller, its basically just a nice screensaver to daydream in front of haha :-D
It's been interesting going back to read some of these early posts... my own and those of others who have been around here for some time now. I'm still not totally familiar with zen principles, but I think I agree.
There may have been a time when I would have agreed with your stance on FPS games; but my son (an adult and wiser person that I) has since encouraged me to play a few different types of games since I became interested in Minecraft. Many of his "FPS" games do involve some fairly complex puzzle-solving skills and some have very complex story lines. It was easier before playing some of them to just paint them all with the same brush; but not anymore.
There are also dark sides to Minecraft:
I think a risk of Minecraft is that people can tend to go overboard with it... turning it into something far more than the game that it is. It really is "just a game." The world is not real, the items in it are merely pixels. As an form of artistic expression, it seems somewhat limited (although it does have more flexibility that most other video games). Griefing, however, is a serious problem often associated with other forms of bullying. The game save files also do get corrupted from time to time, so it also seems to be somewhat unreliable even without griefing.
Some people, it seems, do get very emotionally distraught was they "lose" their worlds regardless of whether or not it was griefed or suffered some computer glitch... which is not necessarily a healthy reaction.
Don't get me wrong, I think Minecraft is a great video game... but it's still a video game.
ETA: Part of learning in life is about learning how to play and enjoy various games. Games, in an of themselves as "just games" are an important social activity... have been since long before anyone can remember. Recognizing various sorts of video games as "just games" can also help people avoid becoming unduly agitated over what happens inside the game.