This is the script for my video, “You’re Playing Minecraft Wrong.” Uploaded January 29, 2025

Please forgive any spelling or grammatical mistakes that may occur in this script as I originally wrote this for my own eyes and did a minimal amount of spelling and grammatical correction.

The script may not be completely accurate to what I say in the video as I often improvise as i’m reading the script in the recording stages of video production.

For other creators,

This script is subject to copyright and I’m mainly including this as a free resource for inspiration- I love it when people take inspiration off my videos and I’m very lenient on plagiarism. I often take inspiration from other creators and honestly don’t mind if you take heavy inspiration from my scripts.

INTRO

*Say it really softly

Minecraft,

Essentially, it's a sandbox game, a a game game that really has no “correct” way of playing it, it's a game that has no boundaries, no limits, where there's no one telling you what you can and cannot do- and the idea that you could somehow be playing minecraft “wrong” in any way is simply ridiculous., I might as well just click off this video now because its just gonna be some random dude ranting about how I’m somehow playing minecraft wrong for the next 30 or so minutes of my time… These are probably some of the thoughts you had whilst looking at the title and thumbnail of this video, just the worn out idea that there is some sort of “correct” and “incorrect” way to play the game. And I'm here to tell you that this is not going to be what this video is about for the most part. In fact, this video is about something much deeper, something much worse in essence, this video covers a topic that has really never been covered in this way before, something that has profoundly ruined minecraft for most of its player base and that YOU are probably contributing to, something that is widespread that it now has a whole Niche on youtube dedicated to it and consistently gets millions of views, something that no one truly understands and has been slipping right under our noses for the entire 15 years that minecraft has existed, this is  {WHY YOU'RE PLAYING MINECRAFT WRONG}

{musical fade in}

1 Over the last few years there has been sort of an emerging trend within the Minecraft community- especially amongst those who have been playing Minecraft for a long amount of time, a sort of feeling of disdain for modern Minecraft. A disliking to every single new feature, song, idea and update that the devs have brought to minecraft over the last few years, and most people, myself included, seem to believe that things were just better the way they used to be, believe that old minecraft was somehow better than what we have today… and why is that, why do people believe this- why has this become such a widely talked about topic here on YouTube? This has been a huge question for a really long time… But nobody can seem to agree on one answer of “why does old minecraft seem better to some people” and why is “just going and playing older versions of the game” just not the same? Is it because old minecraft and its culture was objectively better? Is it because of some update or feature that the devs have added? Or is it because we’ve been simply just looking at minecraft the wrong way over the past few years, have we forgotten what it truly is, what it means to play it and why it's so fun, or is it not that deep and is just something genuinely wrong with the game itself? Well, to even begin to answer this correctly, and make this video entertaining, as well as  differentiate it from the seemingly endless amount of slop that's been pumped out on this topic, and give you a good, non-clickbaity answer to the title of this video, we need to go back to an experience that most, if not all of us share., the first playthrough of minecraft.

{small cutscene}

FIRST PLAYTHROUGH OF MINECRAFT

2 It is a crisp fall morning, 2013, and you are about to play this sort of new game called “minecraft”, and so you sit down, turn on your x box, computer, or whatever other device, and create your first ever world… As you load into the game you are met with about a trillion new pieces of sensory information, new sights, new sounds, and a new feel for this vast, colorful, and open world. As you walk around you begin to get a feel of the basic rules of this world, you begin to learn that some blocks you can break faster than others, some blocks you are able to craft into useful tools and items and that there is even a health and hunger system in this game…, And overall, the first few hours of play time are extremely fun, it is exhilarating to have the opportunity to explore what is really a whole new world… As time passes, you also begin to notice that there are many challenges and tasks that there are to do in this game with all of them having their own unique rewards- but overall, the main highlight of these new experiences is that you appreciate them, and the game itself for what it is, nothing is taken too seriously, as your main priority in these early stages of playing the game is to simply just to have fun and not think too much of your circumstances, just walk around your world, and learn what's going. on…, everything is interesting in this new world and you take it in as the thing that it's supposed to be, fun. Minecraft is objectively supposed to be fun above all else. In time, you may build a house, get a dog, and maybe even make it to the nether before you ultimately end up quitting this world after what could be a few weeks to a few months... Now let's fast forward a few more months, and in time, you will eventually go back to minecraft but this time, you have a few new goals in mind, you have now further educated yourself on the mechanics of this game and now know pretty well how to “correctly” play it. And so you load up yet another world your intentions are naturally gonna be different than the first time, rather than pure enjoyment, you intend to play this game for the challenges that it presents whilst still learning a lot, and enjoying your time, and this time, as your would loads into view, you are not hit with barely any new pieces of sensory information, you look at this landscape and think- there it is, everything, right there, just the way I remember it, and just the way it should be. As you begin playing you quickly get your first few diamonds as obtaining basic resources has now become a sort of trivial task for you. You now much better understand the progression curve of this game and how to decently master it. And so, you quickly get to the nether and… eventually end up beating the game,... “this is still fun… I enjoy these tasks as they are and find them greatly rewarding… but I've done just about everything there is to do, within reason, and I don't find a simple challenge as rewarding as I used to”… and as so, you still eventually end up taking a break or even quitting minecraft for a little bit, to focus on whatever thing is more interesting to you at this time... OK, now let's fast forward a few years this time- and assuming that you have consistently played the game over this time, you are now a very experienced minecraft player, you have now beaten the game countless times and know just about everything there is to know. To you, minecraft has now just become a logarithmic game of chess with every action building to some sort of arbitrary grand goal that you’ve set for yourself, and even despite your skills, minecraft has now become a little boring to you at this point beyond the thrill of a challenge, in which most of your challenges at this point, are quickly diminishing as by now, you are highly skilled, you've done just about everything you can reasonably accomplish in the time you’ve given yourself, what else is there to do? This game is practically infinite in nature but I simply don't know what to do, it's not about the game having bad pacing or incorrect progression. I do have all the maxed out armor, my base is huge, and any other advancement I could make at this point will just be useless… But even then, I can't really blame the game itself, it's accomplishing its task the way that it was designed to do so, and how could I possibly complain about the game “being too easy” when I could easily just start a new world or throw my stuff away… What is going on here? This is now the point where most players will often experience something that has been called the “2 week minecraft phase” a sort of burnout that most seasoned minecraft players will experience after they’ve accomplished all their goals or have just been playing for a really, really long amount of time. This can simply be described as the annual 2 week period where you get really invested in minecraft, everything is for some reason interesting again, now playing minecraft is almost addictively fun, there is just so much to do now, that game is the same but I am for some reason enightend!… for about two weeks… until minecraft once again gets boring for you, and goes back to the state of being just a boring farming simulator. You wish it could stay this interesting forever, you wish you could always have that feeling of irrational, unconditional bliss whilst playing it, by now you’ve probably looked at at least a  few of the MANY videos at this point on “how to make minecraft interesting again” or “the two week minecraft phase” but it never really fixes it for you in the long term- and one little side note, i'm not hating on this content at all, but the objective truth is that the advice given in most of these videos is heavily based on the actual gameplay of minecraft or is just giving you megaprojects to accomplish, without addressing what actually makes the game boring, because by this point for most players, minecraft is genuinely unattractive and the idea of the first time playing minecraft is now a long lost, maybe even forgotten memory… But you can still recall the feeling of it, it's not the same as suddenly being interested in minecraft for a few weeks, as you know how freeing it was to learn about your surroundings and genuinely be interested in what's going on regardless of what mood you’re in or how much you already know about the environment, and in most of these “minecraft” phases- one of and maybe even the only reason why it was fun in the first place was because it was predominantly played with friends… but most people’s first experiences with minecraft were, infact, not played with friends… again, It's almost as if the game itself was simply just better back then, I mean, it makes sense- there were a lot less features back then and everything was just… better,... or was it? I mean, the new stuff they’ve been adding, some of it’s okay, but has it really ruined the game? All the same fundamentals are still there, it's still the vast, open, free game I used to know… Used to, know? No, back then I never really knew that game like I do now, everything was a mystery to me back then, “what happens when I put these things together in a crafting table?” “What happens when I place this block over air?” Now I know the outcome of all these actions, I know much more about minecraft! But really, I now know Minecraft much less than I used to, and it's stupid to simply conclude this with “minecraft was better because we knew less features back then”… and I don't even know why I occasionally enjoy it anymore. At this point, minecraft is now but a husk of its former self, just a boring farming simulator at this point and I don't know why... Could it be nostalgia?... no…  I know that nostalgia plays a role, but things were definitely different back then. I mean, what even is nostalgia? What makes the idea of minecraft and the experiences associated with it inherently more nostalgic than something like brushing your teeth or doing the dishes, what could possibly make things so boring now and yet, so interesting back then?!

3 I know I've said this three times but is it because of all this?, or is it really because that spark minecraft once had has since been lost in a slurry of challenges, megaprojects and pointless, repetitive goals, its because the original ideals and foundations that made minecraft what it is today have ultimately been forgotten, and what we have now is just a lowly imitation of what we used to have. Nobody can seem to agree on this, not even me, with myself… So to answer this question without just bringing up more questions and repeating myself, once and for all, perhaps we need to actually see how minecraft was back then and why it was different, we need to see if this argument has ANY merit at all, perhaps we need to go back to {the creation of minecraft}

THE CREATION OF MINECRAFT

4 To truly make sense of this now burning question we need to go all the way back to the year of 2009, where the original creator of minecraft, a man named markus persson or “notch" is developing an indie sandbox game which he called “cave game”. Some noticeable features of this rough draft of a game was that this 3D engine, not really even a game yet, was extremely simple, there wasn't any obvious progression in the game, it was simply just a 3D environment where you could build, mine and walk around. A true “sandbox” game- now this doesn't provide much value to this argument, so let's fast forward just a couple months, by this time Notch and his ever growing team around him have now added things like new mobs, new blocks, and even a simple progression system to what he re-named as “minecraft”., and by this time the game  actually began to become genuinely fun as more and more people began to actually play it, with minecraft reaching over 500,000 sales by the end of 2010. As the years went on, Minecraft would progressively add more and more features, updates, and just further nuance the game as Mojang's team, the player base and the game itself would only grow larger in numbers, with minecraft experiencing a sort of “peak” at around 2013. And one thing to quickly note, Minecraft is still just an extremely simple voxel engine at this point, and there are only a few differences between this version of minecraft and its creation… Really, on the surface, this shouldn't be fun to most people. This is strange as there were genuinely “fun” or complex games coming out in this era that provided things like lore, stories and interactive gameplay that had clear purpose and to it, and yet, minecraft was still on top. Again that brings up the question of “Why?” And the answer is very simple., yet kind of complicated as with all questions like this one. But to put it short, my theory behind minecrafts success besides the existence of youtube, is that as humans we are many things,... first, we are naturally curious, and we objectively like to learn things, although we may not necessarily like school, being taught, or even the process of learning itself, we like to gather information on whatever is interesting to us, as it is inherently advantageous to know as much as possible about our world and immediate environment… Along with this, we are also naturally pessimistic- we often over prioritize the challenges and problems in life over things that are going well, and as an example for this, almost everywhere, and even here on youtube you will often see a lot more bad news than good, videos that shine a bad light on a subject very often get more views than videos that shine a good light on it, because we naturally prioritize bad news, when the economy is bad, we know about it, when there's a war… we know about it. And even outside of objectively bad information or experiences, we often find challenges to be very stimulating and even fun, especially if they don't bear any real, tangible consequences to our real world or our physical being, if things don't go our way. Along with this, we are all, in some way, naturally creative, believe it or not our brains generally like coming up with new concepts based on information gathered from old ones, even if you don't think of yourself as a particularly ‘creative’ person, it is still fun to make something up that is specific to you, and even though it may not be original, it's still yours… As for minecrafts success on youtube, I can attribute it solely to, I dont even know… I dont even know why you guys sit through my videos at this point, but anyway  These three aspects of basic human nature are my answer for how minecraft was even fun in the first place and why it continues to be extremely successful, Minecraft presents a lot of new information to us on our first time playing it, many of us feel like we're actually learning something whilst playing it, along with this, Minecraft also has many genuinely fun challenges, on your first night you have to gather resources, explore, and build a shelter to even keep yourself away from outside threats, and even beyond the early stages of the game, there will almost always be new challenges presented to you. And finally, Minecraft, above all, presents us with creative opportunities like no other game. Minecraft is an effectively infinite canvas of thoughts, ideas and emotions just waiting to be painted on. Everything is designed in a way where it lets our imagination run wild, free, and with no bounds. And I honestly think that all of these things combined have greatly contributed to minecrafts success. So why is it just in the past few years that it's just not the same to some people?, you could say that as an experienced player I know more general knowledge and it's just less interesting- but I already told you that that idea is dumb. But even then, I often find myself gravitating towards old minecraft and still despising what it has become, and I honestly think that this can best be explained with… {The Flanderization of minecraft}

The Flanderization of minecraft

5 In recent years a new term has popped up in the TV show/ cartoon community and it is a term referred to as Flanderization- this term is defined as the process through which a single element of a character’s personality, often an originally mild element, is inflated in importance over the course of a work until it becomes the characters primary defining trait., with the name being derived the character, ned flanders who was originally a well developed, complex character that has since been stripped down to just a few defining elements in recent years, likely through his character being passed through a multitude of different, writers, directors and producers over the years he has existed.,   and instead of applying this to a specific character or franchise, I'm trying to make the argument that this can be applied to minecraft itself, (hear me out), as originally, as you already know, the game of mine craft started out as basically a 3d engine, with it being developed by a very small group of people, a group of people that had a clear vision for the game, understood why people played it, and what they wanted it to become, but over time, and as minecraft just grew bigger and bigger, mojang- the company that created minecraft eventually had to hire more creative minds to work on the project, with the most significant change in leadership being notch leaving the game in 2014, selling all rights to minecraft and his 71% share in mojang over to Microsoft, it was soon after this that minecraft would change for good. After only just a couple years Microsoft would begin to make a number of questionable changes to minecraft, and its brand, such as creating many new spin offs, a completely new version of minecraft with in-game monetization, as well as many ideas and features that some say, just did not match the original vision persson had for the brand or were just filler so that they could say minecraft is still getting updated. This is the era where the miserable “minecraft isn't fun anymore” bluds would begin to pop up.- It was over this period of time, around the mid 2010s to today that the overall playstyle, and the way we look at the game was seemingly becoming more robotic, there were just so many features and sometimes lack there of that were being added that were often criticized by the minecraft community- people began to talk about how things like minecrafts progression changes and its overall, fleeting  difficulty were just aiding in minecraft becoming more of a farming simulator whilst simultaneously becoming less and less authentic, most noticeably with microsoft eventually cutting ties with the man that created minecraft's original soundtrack, a composition that is often directly attributed to the feeling of warmth the minecraft experience gives the player. In the background Microsoft also began to replace a large portion of minecraft's creative team, bringing a new team whose values largely did not match the values notch and associates originally had for the game, this was shown especially inside minecrafts spin offs which mostly consisted of complete failures, after minecraft legends it became clear that just taking characters or concepts from minecraft and slapping them on a generic AR or adventure game is a dumb idea, people dont play minecraft because it has blocks and steve, most of us play it because of the reasons that I have already outlined. These spin offs are a clear and fundamental misunderstanding of what kind of game minecraft actually is, (inflating mild or unimportant elements of a work over time), of course during this era (2019-2021) minecraft was having sort of a revival- but that was largely related to external factors or nostalgia. And besides spin offs, a large portion of the stuff that's been added in the last couple years has mostly just been filler material to put in for the purposes of marketing a new update… mojang would much rather sell bee plushies or talk about minecraft legends than make attempts to refine the core fundamentals that sparked the game's success… All of these failures are a result of not understanding why minecraft was even fun in the first place and why it peaked in 2013. 

6 A lot of the things related to this topic… have been covered before… many times… and I don't really think that's it- that's part of it, but that's not the whole answer, if you want an answer to a question that is rooted in emotion and ill lucid experiences then an answer that is based in pure fundamental “features” and “mechanics”, or the ownership of the game simply won't suffice, minecraft was fun 10 years ago, and it's just as or maybe even a little less fun now,  because just as many people often bring things up like minecraft becoming more “corporate”, or not adding the right features, there are also many people that enjoy the new feel that minecraft has taken on recently. Not everyone thinks it s boring. It is clear that the problem simply isn't Mojang or Microsoft, again, you can just go and play the older versions of the game. I think that the only reason that this argument has even gained so much success is the fact that it sounds good on paper and it's much easier to present it in a way where your 8 year old brother will watch it and go exaaaactlyyyyy, and proceed to send the video to you, literally whilst you’re watching other video talking about how that exact video is stupid…

THE REAL PROBLEMS

7 I'm going to begin this section by being completely honest. If you didn't notice, I've already alluded to the answer of this question multiple times., The problem is you. You simply don't know how to enjoy things anymore.. This might seem obvious but it's really not, especially in a game like minecraft where doing the same thing over and over again, obviously becomes stale… really fast. You see, when we really don't know what to do- or anything better to do than what's been presented in front of us, we usually just default to the status quo, we do what everybody else is doing because well... “It's working for them, why can't it work for me?” And we see this everywhere, in every aspect of life there is always a standard way of doing things, and I'm not saying this is objectively bad- usually the generally agreed upon ideal is correct, i'm not telling you to go and perform heart surgery on people, but “be creative” and do it your own way” as there are ways you “should” be doing a lot of things… But when applying it to a game like minecraft, the game where the best answer I can give you on “how to play it” is to do what you want, the generally agreed upon play strategy is usually not the best when it comes to maximizing enjoyment… Nobody really knows how to be creative in their worlds these days, we are usually too caught up in thought when minecraft is really best enjoyed in a sort of chaotic and unpredictable way. Strangely, a way in which you don't think that much, think so little of what you're doing that collecting endless wheat is somehow interesting to you… And any answer I can think of that is simultaneously convincing, understandable and under 30 minutes long will ultimately probably not be good enough for you, I’ve really… just brought up more questions for you…, but here's what I can say…

HOW TO ENJOY MINECRAFT AGAIN

8 It is after what could have possibly been years, you finally decide to play minecraft the right way, the way it was intended to be played… not by the developers, not by the community, not even by me… but by you, the way whererest your mind is free and you are given the ultimate opportunity to be creative without purpose… You begin by loading up this… long forgotten game called minecraft, creating a new world which you decide to call, “the right way.” As your world loads up, rather than making a bunch of plans of what you want to do, rather than overthinking where you are going to put your base, how fast you're going to progress,... you remain silent, and as your canvas loads into view. Patient. Upon the sight of the surrounding terrain, you are hit with a strange, but almost beautiful feeling of serenity as this is the beginning of the beginning. Everything is ahead of you at this point… but you pay no mind to that, you are living in the now... When given the opportunity, you do not go looking for a base that is far away, in some perfect location you’ve envisioned for yourself, as this grass is the greenest, this place is perfect just the way it is, there is no need to leave- no need to make things perfect as many things are best enjoyed in an imperfect manor.  You explore your surroundings, forever curious. As you approach this how it should be, new, and fun above all else... After what is, the perfect amount of time, you do eventually scrap together a few bits of wood and build your first house in the middle of a lake. Not too spectacular, but just enough. You are not concerned with the most efficient farms, how your building looks, or how to shape the terrain, as this is a time of rest, and you best not quarrel with meaningless problems… Ultimately, the best strategy in this still world is to be as harmless, but diligent… And through this, you take any further progression of the game very carefully, you logically prepare for any outcome and are content with your circumstances. In this world, everything is in its time. 

As you play, there will ultimately be many highs, times of success, times where you feel like you are winning over this inevitable, harsh, and brutal reality.

As is, there will also be many lows, times where you lose progress or stray from your set tack., but do not be demotivated with loss, don't let something as little as a minor hiccup divert you from having fun, as it is better to be a sad winner than a sad loser, in this forgiving world. 

You will often find times where you get ahead of yourself, you bite off a little more than you can chew and eventually end up losing. This will remind you that it is best to approach things with caution, prepare for every circumstance to a certain extent, no matter how seemingly unlikely…

You find beauty in things that aren't objectively beautiful, this world is made of blocks, cubes with a 16x16 pixel texture painted onto them, not objectively attractive to the eye, but despite this, there is great fulfillment in finding a different, often more optimistic meaning out of this world.

In this world, you feel lost, without purpose or direction, you will feel as if your just spiraling out of control, going down a winding road at 100 miles an hour with no set destination besides where the road decides to take you… which is good, the path will make itself, as all you have to do is walk along it in the world of minecraft.

In this world you will feel lonely, especially if you are playing by yourself. This landscape is so quiet… there's really no one else here. But you accept your situation and embrace being alone as a good thing, as long as it's in moderation.

Ultimately, you will find joy without merit, peace in times of conflict, and order within the inescapable chaos. Things will happen without meaning, without purpose, this isn't a movie, there's no plot to this, just whatever you decide to do, or whatever is presented to you. Everything is almost random, a well assorted mess of random structures and pieces of terrain that go on into what is effectively infinity.

As is, this waltz will come to an inevitable end, there will soon be a time where you are not playing, where things are no longer interesting, or a time where you simply… don't exist, there will soon be a time that you cannot measure, a time that you cannot possibly predict or account for. But you pay no mind to this, as you have accepted it long ago, it is the bittersweet ending to things that you have always been looking for, but don't necessarily want, acceptance of things of past, things of present, and things of future, in this world you are Sisyphus, perpetually rolling your little rock up the hill, ultimately for it to come crashing back down to the bottom, seemingly resetting your progress. But even then there's no other thing to do, so you must, and might as well… just do this, until you cannot do so anymore. This Is in most ways, sad… and yet.. You are happy..

OUTRO

To end off I give you this, Minecraft is a very subjective experience and I cannot give you an answer on how to play it. But most people are approaching it wrong. People overthink things and often overthink things even more when trying to stop overthinking things- Minecraft is best enjoyed and best played in a floaty short of way, and it is ultimately up to you to interpret it as you wish- That's mainly evident in this video's structure- I presented you with ideas of why this could be happening or how to possibly fix it that are rooted in the actual gameplay of minecraft but It is the gameplay of minecraft that's the problem… It's you, and you will eventually find minecraft boring at some point. As it is an objective truth that things change,. Every single fun, interesting, and horrible experience that will happen to you will eventually come to an end, there will be times where you are there, as well as the infinite amount of time that you will not be there… As is with minecraft, this world is not made for you, as you are just passing through… and when things do eventually and inevitably come to end, when you stop finding this place interesting, stop finding simple enjoyment out of what you are presented with and eventually do… quit,... do not be sad that it's over, simply sit. And be content. because it happened.