In the summer of 2013, I was beginning my third year as a secondary-school student at a specialist autism provision in Newport. As we welcomed a new cohort of students, I was tasked with every thirteen-year old’s worst nightmare – get to know the new kids.
Luckily, one student had chosen to decorate his desk with a picture of a blockish creature with green skin and a black, pixelated frown – and suddenly I knew exactly what I would say.
“Do you like Minecraft?”
Released in 2011, Minecraft has sold over 400 million copies worldwide. The block-based ‘sandbox’ game allows players to build whatever they like utilising a variety of cubes, slabs, stairs and more – and it’s no surprise that it’s developed one of the largest online communities out there. Even fifteen years after its initial release, the game sees around 300’000 new players daily and has amassed over 1 trillion views on YouTube.
For many young-people, Minecraft is a game steeped in nostalgia that continues to grip the imagination of its players. But for the autism community, it provides a complex platform for structural exploration, social development and creative expression.
Writing about their experiences with the game, one player said,
“Growing up, it was a regulation tool as much as it was a game. My relationship to it has changed many times since then, but the core of that relationship is respite.”
Individuals with autism frequently describe a need for structure. Daily routines help many to navigate their day-to-day lives, whilst hobbies that involve repetition or predictable outcomes become valuable tools for both emotional regulation and social interaction.
“When we share a common restriction and a drive to create in spite of it, we can very easily find common ground that might be lost in a more frantic environment.”
To the autism community, the social value of digital collaboration has been evident since the early twentieth-century. Hugo Gernsback – who biographers state it is “reasonable to assume” might’ve eventually been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome – pioneered commercially available radio sets and founded both the amateur ‘Ham’ radio community and the first science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories, which featured complex discussions on scientific theory beside stories of misunderstood mutants pursued by normal society. To a community of young-people who had not yet been given a name, both would eventually provide invaluable platforms to connect over shared interests and a feeling of being apart from the increasingly hostile world around them.
With it’s block-based building mechanics and multiplayer capacity, Minecraft provides a haven of collaborative exploration where players can choose to play alone or as part of a growing global community. The potential for roleplay allows children on the spectrum to practice social engagement in a safe and creative ‘pretend’ environment – whilst a growing online community of adult players continue to utilise the platform as an artistic medium.
“Anyone can pick up the game and play it with friends without needing to commit to building a community because the community is already everywhere, waiting for the ideal anonymised versions of its future players to take root.”
