well, at its core, it's Goal-less. That's its genius.
You're just there. Bored. You don't know what to do. So, if
you're in creative mode. You pick up a block. You set it down.
Brilliant, now what? You stick another one on it. Next thing
you, you've got a house that you live in, a pet dog, whatever.
Or, you're in survival. You're plopped down in a forest.
Everything's fine and dandy. You punch a tree. Hey you've got
wood. You do stuff with it.
Then creatures come to attack you. You gotta fight. You gotta
learn.
But - the game isn't self-contained. You NEED to go out of the
game to learn how to do stuff. You _can't_ do it all within
game, like most games.
They even have a hard-core mode. Good for dealing with Death.
You get one life. If you die, the world is deleted and that's
that.
My nephew's grandfather passed away recently. Since then, my
nephew started playing hard-core mode, surviving for many
minecraft days and weeks, accomplishing much, building hotels
and houses and mining and getting all sorts of things... and
then dying. Sometimes it's a stupid death.
