Minecraft depends largely on the creativity and imagination of the player, unlike a lot of newer generation games that are designed for a culture that's used to being spoon-fed everything, with no effort required. Those with a bit of an artistic flair and some initiative will probably "get into it", while a lot of the more "action oriented" players will simply never relate or see any point to it.
There's probably some overlap between Minecraft's fanbase and that of DF and MW, but less-so with OB, and potentially very little with Skyrim.
Being another long-time gamer who's done some programming (some of that back in the ancient days of "punch cards"), and grown up with video games from their inception (I still recall the original "Pong" arcade machines, which were actually driven by motors and gears, not a CPU), I can "look past" the graphics to the unerlying gameplay, although "shiny" is certainly nice in its own right. I gave up on Legos decades ago, and now build historical, sci-fi, and fantasy architecture using plaster Hirst Arts blocks (and have a diverse collection of HA molds), which are paintable, a bit more versatile, cheap to make after the initial investment, and look a lot more realistic than Legos, but are similar in basic principle. What's not to like about stacking blocks?
The TES series has increasingly gone to more and more action-driven play, with less and less need for decisions on the part of the player, and sharply decreased difficulty in everything but combat and occasional "mini-games". Minecraft is a return to a "good basic game", although with primitive graphics, which simply holds no interest for the "adrenaline rush" junkie crowd that wants to run around slaying monsters and dispatching bandits in high-resolution detail, with the maximum amount of blood and gore that can fit on the screen.
It's not that Minecraft is trying to "overtake" TES, it's that TES is wandering off of its own accord into some other direction that many people won't follow. Minecraft, surprisingly, proves the point that "mass marketing" does NOT need to mean a "dumber" and more brutal game, and that you can draw a large fanbase without cutting-edge graphics or realistic combat. My question about Bethesda's obvious attempt at "mass marketing" is more along the lines of :
Is TES attempting to overtake Minecraft, Tetris, and other famous "parlor" games as "popular entertainment"? If so, it's failing. Just about all of my co-workers have heard of Minecraft; I'm not too sure if any of them would remember the names "Daggerfall, Morrowind, or Oblivion.
:thumbsup:
» Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:07 am 
