People's ability to create in Minecraft is amazing.
Case in point: someone built a Quad-Core computer that runs inside the game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbO0tqH8f5I)
Case in point: someone built a Quad-Core computer that runs inside the game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbO0tqH8f5I)
People naturally formed their own laws, governments, societies, and over the years the balance of power went from a fractal multipolar world to a massive "red vs. blue" cold war with minimal conflict. Quite interesting really. Not to mention the massive international infrastructure works, including rails, bridges, tunnels, massive towns, and lag-inducing automated farms.
I do wonder if it has to do with game making tools such as Unity becoming so much more prevalent. I'm guessing most people have just migrated to making their own indie games instead of making mods for other games which is much harder to monetize and scale.
Although I guess there's a resurgence of game creator games. Dreams [0] and Crayta [1] specifically. Very reminiscence of Gmod and the like.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rezzjJ4NtK0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTo8TiOoABk
The choice of Java for Minecraft really matters. Java's if-it-compiles-it-probably-runs approach means third rate programmers can easily put something together that doesn't crash the game mysteriously every five seconds. Java's strong OO background is well-suited to modifying a game too, and particularly to allowing mods to be compatible with each other.
Constraint is often helpful in art. Few of us have the grand vision (and sufficient free time) to build a sprawling Total Conversion that radically overhauls gameplay, visual style and so on. So if you're thinking smaller then something like Super Mario Maker 2 looks pretty good. Can you put in weeks to make something as fresh as the Mario "ROM hacks" made with Lunar Magic (software to modify Mario) which Nintendo won't admit inspired SMM? No. But you can spend a few hours arranging pre-existing components to make something pretty interesting within Nintendo's agreed constraints. Or you can spend five minutes adding every possible boss character to a single screen fight like a two year old finger painting. Whatever you want.
The end result is that Minecraft was easily moddable without Mojang needing to officially support them in any way.
These kinds of large-scale projects never cease to amaze me.