My nephew is not only playing Minecraft but most of his Lego are Minecraft lol.
Tbh Minecraft was awesome when I played it a bit 10 years ago. Rain, night, water dripping from ceiling of my mountain carved home. It’s a vibe.
But they play it for other reasons. Not immersion and atmosphere
It just seems like a pure skinnerbox way to kill time, think about the preciousness of childhood and how much of it is being wasted on it, I feel bad enough sometimes how how much of mine was spent in front of the TV.
I do worry the long term impact it'll have on these kids.
Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox. It's about creativity, it's ironic that Lego went from having a big box of random pieces and using your imagination to branded millennium falcon stuff - while Minecraft is essentially virtual lego in the original style. My kids hadn't played in a long time and then saw one youtube video and were off building a massive rollercoaster together with underwater sections and all kinds of crazy shit. Then my son (12) set-up a minecraft server on his raspberry pi. There is no way I think they would be better off playing some single player sub par story based game.
There might be creativity involved, but there's no memorable characters, stories, quotes or lore for them to chew on in the future, it's all ephemeral stuff that will be mostly be forgotten, meanwhile I can recall with vivid clarity the impact Metal Gear Solid had on me, that's the kinda stuff that's gonna stick with you for life, Minecraft kids are not going to have that much ("Hey, remember that time I... chopped wood for the millionth time?")
Storytelling is a very primal, pure aspect of being human, what's the story with Minecraft?
I'm not saying there will be NO memorable experiences that will stick with kids of the game, but I am saying it doesn't compare to way the drama of a good story sticks with you.