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Minecraft Wins Gaming Arts Award
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that Minecraft has won a new arts award for games, beating the likes of Portal 2 and Ilomilo. The prize was announced at the finale of the GameCity videogame culture festival in Nottingham. From the article: 'Minecraft does involve traditional staples of gaming, including night-roaming monsters and the chance to fight multiplayer battles online. However, it was ultimately selected on the basis of its mood and ability to encourage gamers to become creative. "It's the broadest definition of art that you can have," said Mr. Hall.'"
I'm all for games where you build something. The hack-n-slash games have grown tedius by now (after decades, it had to happen.)
But from the title I expected to be digging a pit, exploring a seam, drilling for something.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That'ssssss a very nice reward you have there. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it. ssssssss......
Shouldn't the award be given to the people that play the game and create those goldy levels?
Are actual sandboxes also art? Shit, are we artistically doomed to walk in the shadow of beaches?
I could maybe (lot of maybes) accept player creations as art, but this is too far of a stretch.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
I think Portal 2 is a much better game, but for every hour I've spent in it, I've spent 20 in Minecraft.
This is mis-placed credit, though. The recent changes to Minecraft have been uninteresting and poorly implemented. The real value is in the mods created by the user community. Without them, I would have quit playing a long time ago!
Free unix account: freeshell.org
For people not in the UK who don't know what that is...it's like showing off your new liquid Nitrogen GPU cooling system and your grandma saying "Oh that's nice dear, it's like the one the nurses put in the home last year".
Isn't Minecraft inspired by Terraria? Why didn't that game win instead of the clone? Just because people think 3D = cool?
Bleh.
Shameless Minecraft-related plug: I'm the author of Millénaire, a Minecraft mod that ads NPC villages of multiple cultures that collect resources, extend their villages, trade with the player, and since recently give quests to the player. Have a look, it gives new aims to Minecraft. http://millenaire.org/
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""It's the broadest definition of art that you can have," said Mr. Hall.'"
^^
Did anyone else read this and think ".. but Minecraft isn't a game; It's a virtual box of Lego!"
Why would Ilomilo even be in consideration for ANY sort of award? It does nothing original and what it does is mediocre by modern puzzle game standards.
Am I missing something, here?
(Appropriately, my captcha is "yawner".)
I've barely even scratched the surface on building in the game, but there are a ton of neat builds on Youtube. And then this never stops being funny. Watching the youtube videos are almost as much fun as playing the game.
Unlike traditional MMOs where you have no effect on the world you play in, you build your own world in Minecraft. It's a lot more fun that way.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
To get something 80% complete takes 20% of the time. The last 20% takes the other 80%.
Or, once something is 80% done, there's only 80% left to do.
So, Minecraft as a loose tech demo is fun and relatively easy. Fleshing it out to the point of being a full-featured game takes a long time and a lot of work.
- Jasen.
But Ebert said videogames can never be art. And he has no jaw so he must be right.
This game is telling a story without saying one word. It's a game about us, human beings, having to adapt to this hostile world that we don't really understand. It's about trying to control it, to forge it in a way that makes life is easier. It's about making a shelter for the night, about finding food and ultimately cultivating land (because it's much more practical). It's also about resources and ways of getting them. It's about making tools and weapons, about curiosity and exploration. Minecraft is really about the history of the human race, and it is told without a single line of dialog. To me anyway, this game is a piece of art.
I absolutely love Minecraft. It's one of those games that is thoroughly entertaining to my play style and also thoroughly entertaining to everyone else's pay style at the same time. Like to explore? Do it. Like to build? Do it. Like to craft? Do it. Like to kill stuff? Do it.
I will say that the direction of the last few patches has been a little weird. The addition of all the RPG elements that Notch has slowly integrated into the game really skew the focus. The achievement system is a weird addition also. There will also be a boss you can fight in a later patch. Odd.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Not everyone was convinced of Minecraft's merits at first. The composer, Nitin Sawhney, who was also on the panel, was critical of its soundtrack.
Really? The subtle, subdued nature of Minecraft's soundtrack perfectly matches it's visual aesthetic: silence interrupted by brief punctuations of tension.
You find yourself deep underground, alone but for a single torch lighting a dim hallway, and suddenly out of the silence erupts a sharp note of dischord? You will shit your pants.
now I have to go home and install a new mod for my kids.
And minecraft needs a built in way for adding mods that doesn't depend on the users opening files.
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Congratulations, MInecraft! i enjoyed playing the game. May you continue to provide great games in the future.