Real World Lessons From the Virtual World of Minecraft

Wil Wiles explores the world of Minecraft for deeper meaning—and there's plenty to explore.

The question is not simply personal. As the landscapes found within computer games have become more elaborate, they have become more important, and so has the time we spend within them. Arguably, these virtual places have become as significant as the real environments of the outer world, and they are attracting increasing critical attention as both art and narrative; for instance, in the new magazine Heterotopias, which looks at the “spaces and architecture of virtual worlds,” and does so in unabashedly intellectual terms. 

Wiles's exploration of Minecraft with that as his premise is afforded plenty of space by Places Journal, and his insights are just as expansive as the game itself, touching on society's changing appreciation of landscapes, the history of the utility humans have drawn from landscapes, the creation of places, and how video games and virtual realities complicate all of these forces.