Over the course of 2020, confined within the walls of their homes, people naturally sought safer means to enrich their lives and spend time with friends. Multiplayer video games, of course, are one of the easiest ways to fulfill these needs. 

Of course, the video game industry, in general, profited quite a bit from the pandemic. Some new games, notably Cyberpunk 2077, flopped, but 2020 brought popularity to nonviolent social simulation games such as Stardew Valley (a 2016 8-bit style farming simulator) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (fatefully released in March 2020). What is more interesting, though, is the renaissance a particular 2009 game went through over the course of last year.

Minecraft has been around for almost 12 years and is the best-selling video game of all times at a whopping 200 million copies sold. It is a sandbox-style game with a world consisting of blocks that players and interact with, combining them and creating in-game objects. 

Being family-friendly, Minecraft has a reputation as a game dominated by children, which turns many new adult players away. However, for many modern young adults, Minecraft is also a childhood hobby suddenly revisited this past year. But given an array of other video game options, why Minecraft?

According to Rachel Watts of pcgamer.com, “the block-building sandbox kicked off 2020 with the game's biggest update to date: The Nether.” This added an entirely new layer, literally and figuratively, to the game experience. In addition to the usual mining and crafting activities, the players could now explore the underworld with new enemies to fight, new resources to collect, and new secrets to discover.

In addition to this, Watts emphasizes the growing popularity of Minecraft: Education Edition in schools, allowing kids to learn about architecture and programming through a favorite video game. This is not the only education Minecraft has provided in 2020, though; The Uncensored Library, a project by Reporters without Borders providing access to banned journalistic texts through Minecraft, has also sparked public interest toward the game last year.

Another important factor is the increase in Minecraft content. For instance, one can look at a Minecraft improvisational roleplay commonly known as Dream SMP, Dream being a Minecraft content creator, and SMP standing for “survival multiplayer” game mode. It has brought more popularity not only to the creators involved (such as Twitch and YouTube creators WilburSoot, tommyinnit, PhilzaMinecraft, and many more) but to the game itself. 

Madeline Messa of the Daily Collegian points out: “The family-friendly survival sandbox is a safe bet for content creators on video platforms. Minecraft was the king of YouTube in its heyday, so it is no surprise that it is reclaiming its crown. Advertisers are keener to sponsor videos of a pixelated character building a dirt hut than they are to endorse a gory M-rated shooter.”

Finally, for many adult players, there is a nostalgic aspect to it. The influx of Minecraft content on Twitch and YouTube combined with new in-game updates have provided a perfect reason to revisit a favorite childhood game.