Minecraft as a Model of Intrinsic Learning

Designed as a sandbox or open world game, Mojang’s Minecraft offers players with extensive choices in a nonlinear gameplay. Minecraft also provides users with two major modes of play — survival and creative. Players can build environments and constructions, explore, craft, engage in combat, gather resources and maintain health (if in the survival mode).

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Minecraft employs the flow mechanisms of user control, providing feedback, and matching difficulty with the player. Though there is an optional achievement system, Minecraft does not require achieving goals (there are no requirements that the player must accomplish — she has complete freedom in choosing how to play).

Although it lacks goals, Minecraft has been purchased 20 million times across all platforms, has an estimated 40 million users, has had an annual sold-out convention since 2011, and boasts over 2 million members participating in its very active forums. Based on these figures that demonstrate a lively community despite a rather retro graphical style, the gameplay design and game mechanics behind Minecraft are particularly adept at cultivating the intrinsic motivation of its players.

This motivation and the experience of flow that Minecraft produces has also fostered an understanding of electrical engineering in some of its players who choose to interact with the game’s Red Stone feature, or architectural and landscape design. In fact, Cody Sumter of MIT has stated that the creator of Minecraft “hasn’t just built a game — he’s tricked 40 million people into learning”.

Video game teaching advocate Stephen Reid notes that Minecraft also encourages the understanding of physics, population displacement and geography, the growth of life, collaborative learning and even language skills when players (many of whom are children) from many nations interact with each other.

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Minecraft is also letting its users enact real change in the world through its Block by Block project with UN-Habitat to improve a settlement in Nairobi, Kenya through urban planning via Minecraft. Therefore, Minecraft is also helping its players experience positive feedback within the global community.

In fact, many schools have recognized the educational opportunities presented by Minecraft, and there are several projects that have been started to bring modified versions of the game into school to teach concepts such as electrical engineering through MinecraftEDU and Middle School Minecraft, for example.