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.'"

Comments

NPC village mod (trade, quests, building...)

[Kinniken]

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/

Re:Sandbox game is art?

[mrxak]

If the game were just an endless flat space and you could build on top of it, you might have a point, but the worlds it randomly generates are truly beautiful in their own right. I've spent hours just running around looking at the terrain.

It's Also Pretty Damn Creepy

[Greyfox]

For all that it's all blocky and lego-like, it's also one of the creepiest games I've played. There's always some undead thing or other creeping up on you. I get jumpy in the game just from the sound of my own footsteps or the furnace cooking something. I'll be all like "ACK A SKELETON! Oh wait it was just the furnace..."

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.

Telling a story without saying one word

[yanos]

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.