Source (intention) — original note, preserved verbatim. Synthesis in Why games.

Minecraft Is Not A Game

Minecraft is not a game, it’s a thing you play games with.
Minecraft is a timeless game - video
I think the magic of Minecraft lies in enabling whatever playstyle you want
The meaning of any word depends on the context in which it is inserted.
- This resonates with Yuri’s explanation of why he doesn’t like Duolingo (it teaches isolated words, without context application)
Plato’s metaphysics: everything already exists in the intelligible world, we just haven’t discovered it in the sensible world yet
Every change in a language comes from the bottom up (from the population to grammar dictionaries)
My analysis/research style is strongly prescriptivist → I take each word of a question, break it down, research the meaning/concept of each one to then start inferring.
A video game with good design will present a game and encourage you to use all the mechanics built into its simulation.
Players tend to use the simplest solution to a challenge and stick with it > hard rule or hard objective to break that strategy
The meta: a base game that is easy/manageable, but uses its story or depth of mechanics to encourage players to complete challenges that seem almost impossible, requiring a creative solution from them. (example: pacifist-style runs or limited engineering challenges)

Minecraft Is A Timeless Game!

What makes Minecraft so big: love for the game and freedom to create
- You can create anything and play however you want
The most important block in Minecraft: redstone
- It adds a layer of complexity that can be used by newer players and infinitely expands creation for more engaged players
- This, for a product/software, is essential: being simple and efficient for the standard user and having tools to expand usage for the engaged user.
Mods play the role, in my opinion, most important in the fact that the game is still alive today.
- There are mods for everything and, if one doesn’t exist, you can create it
- This reminds me of the open source software philosophy I discussed with Yuri