The game that asks you to set the goals yourself

You open the world. You take a walk around the base, tidy half a chest, look at the wheat field. After ten minutes you close it.

You weren't bored, and the game hasn't broken. What happened is simpler and less obvious: you hadn't brought any goal, and the game didn't come with one built in either.

Making the goal is work too

We tend to talk about Minecraft's freedom as if it were only a gift. You can do whatever you like, nobody tells you where to go, there are no quests. That's true, and it's the reason the game has been standing for fifteen years.

But that sentence hides a second half. If nobody tells you what to do, someone has to decide it, and that someone is you every time you log in. You have to choose what's worthwhile, imagine it finished, work out whether you have the materials and keep your interest going without anyone reinforcing it along the way.

That's design. It's a small, pleasant job when you arrive with strength to spare, and just a job when you don't.

Two ways of playing

In 1958 the sociologist Roger Caillois proposed a distinction that still explains this better than most of what has been written since. He separated two poles within any game.

He called free improvisation paidia: agitation without rules, the child who runs for the sake of running, the one who stacks things to see how high they go. And he called effort subject to a convention someone set beforehand ludus: the crossword, the time you have to beat, the match with goalposts and a referee.

Caillois didn't consider either one superior. What he did observe is that almost no game lives at a pure extreme. Minecraft is one of the few that truly comes close to paidia entirely, and therein lie both its merit and its bill.

Because ludus has an advantage that is almost never acknowledged: it saves you deciding. When the goal comes already set, the energy you were going to spend choosing stays whole for playing.

Why the beginning always tastes better

This explains something almost everyone has experienced and usually puts down to something else.

The first hours of a world are the best. Not because the game is richer then —it's exactly the other way round, you have nothing— but because the beginning is the only stretch that comes with goals built in. Getting wood. Putting something up before night falls. Heading down for iron. Nobody invented them: the situation imposes them.

They last a few hours. Then the game goes quiet and the task comes back to you.

That's why the cycle of deleting the world and starting another isn't a lack of perseverance, even though it feels like one. It's the quickest way to get the game to take charge of deciding again for a while.

The principle: all freedom charges a decision tax

Step out of the game, because this happens everywhere and is almost never named.

The whole Saturday ahead of you that ends in nothing. The job without a boss that turns out to be more exhausting than the one that had one. The retirement that was harder than anyone expected. In all of them the same structure appears: removing obligations doesn't leave clean freedom, it leaves a space someone has to fill, and that someone becomes the person concerned.

Hence an idea that applies to designing almost anything: freedom isn't the opposite of effort, it's a transfer of effort. You take it away from the rule and give it to the person.

Which is fine as long as the person knows it, and cruel when it's sold to them as rest.

What a place can do

If there were a place that offered structure without turning it into chores —an event with a date, a collective build that needs hands, something that starts and ends—, and where not going carried no penalty, I'd like it to be called KobiiCraft.

There are no daily quests. There are no streaks that break. There's nothing that penalises you for missing a week, because a game that scolds you for not showing up has stopped being a place you feel like coming back to.

And now the honest part: none of this gives you the desire. A well-placed event helps someone who already wanted to log in and didn't know what to do; it does nothing for someone who's exhausted. Promising otherwise would be selling energy, which is exactly what no game hands out.

Sometimes the right answer to a world you don't feel like opening is not to open it. That's playing well too.

Ten minutes

Next time you close the game after ten minutes, try not reading it as your enthusiasm having passed.

Most likely you've arrived at a place that expected you to bring the plans, on a day when you weren't bringing any. That says nothing bad about you or about the game. It says that freedom, when you're tired, weighs.

Frequently asked questions

Why do I get tired of Minecraft if it has no obligations? Precisely because of that. A game that doesn't impose goals on you hands you the job of making them, and that job is real even if it doesn't look like it: you have to decide what's worthwhile, imagine the result and keep your interest going without anyone reinforcing it. When you arrive with energy, that freedom is the game's greatest attraction. When you arrive empty, you find a blank page and close it after ten minutes without being able to explain why.

What's the difference between paidia and ludus? They're the two poles Roger Caillois described in 1958. Paidia is free, improvised play with no goal: the child who runs for the sake of running. Ludus is play subject to rules and an agreed difficulty: the crossword, the record to beat, the match with goalposts. Most games mix both, and ludus has an under-appreciated advantage: it saves you deciding what to play, because the goal is already set.

Why do I always end up starting a new world? Because the beginning is the only stretch of the game that comes with goals built in. Getting wood, putting up a shelter before nightfall and heading down for iron are goals the game imposes without you having to invent them. They last a few hours. When they run out, the job of making goals is yours again, and starting from scratch is the quickest way to get the game to take charge again for a while.

What can a server do to make playing less tiring? Offer structure without imposing obligations. An event with a date, a collective build that needs hands, something with an ending: things that come with a goal set and that you're free not to go to. What doesn't help is turning that into daily chores with streaks and penalties for missing out, because then the game stops being a place you feel like going and becomes one more to-do list.