Celebrating 15 years of Minecraft
May 28, 2024 – [[read-time]] minute read
Minecraft is more than a game. Over the last 15 years, it’s grown into a generational phenomenon with more than 1.5 trillion views on YouTube1. To celebrate the anniversary of one of the most-watched games in YouTube history, we’ve created a new Shorts effect that drops you into a pixel-perfect Minecraft Spring world.
But before you walk beneath the cherry blossoms or bite into a slice of birthday cake, it’s worth asking: what is Minecraft, really? Is it a survival game, a role-playing game, a tinkerer’s toybox, a place to yell at your friends for digging straight down?
The game’s real strength may be its openness and adaptability to any play style.
In the hands of Creators, it’s become a boundless stage for storytelling — one whose development is inextricably linked to YouTube itself.
In the hands of Creators, [Minecraft has] become a boundless stage for storytelling — one whose development is inextricably linked to YouTube itself.
The earliest 2009 Minecraft videos were about building. (In the first public upload, a game developer builds a dirt stairway and hops off, creating the first Minecraft drop in the process.) But soon it wasn’t just about building blocky starter houses and starships; it was about building communities, group narratives, and entire worlds.
Now that YouTube hosts 15 years of memories, nostalgia has become a central trend within Minecraft content. The game’s core audience spans generations, and every group has their own cultural landmarks within the vast landscape of Minecraft Creators and series. The only thing every player has in common is a tendency to get misty-eyed when they hear C418’s “Sweden” start up again.
Everyone loves revisiting the “Golden Age” of Minecraft content, but no one seems to be able to agree about when it was.
Really, it’s whenever the player first discovered their favorite Creators and got lost in the worlds they built. (Fun thing to try: Search “Minecraft before:2010” to see really early videos, or replace the year in the search query to revisit your own golden age.)
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Some players return to the epic-length Let’s Plays: the buddy comedy “Shadow of Israfel” (2010-12), the all-ages adventure “Stampy’s Lovely World” (2012-2023), or Etho’s technical LP, which has aired since 2011. Others dive back into the locations from their favorite series or make pilgrimages to the sites of ancient trolls and hoaxes, which are now fondly remembered pranks.
More recent viewers often rewind to the start of a group SMP (“survival multiplayer” server) to rewatch a season from different Creator POVs. Servers like Hermitcraft, where 20+ brilliant players collaborate, have become so much more than the sum of their prank wars, mega-bases, and lore.
Along the way, Minecraft players developed their own culture and rules. Many players learned the same wisdom from whoever taught them to craft their first pickaxe, and you hear similar words in videos from last year and posts from 13 years ago: Never leave a floating tree standing. Always carry a bucket. As soon as you place a crafting table next to a furnace, it’s home.
Creators continue to explore the game’s frontiers:
- Could the early builders of 2010 ever have imagined speed-bridging Bed Wars players, SkyBlock survivors, and parkour head hitters?
- Who would have guessed that hardcore playthroughs would spawn “100 Days” videos that spread throughout gaming?
- Could anyone have predicted the chaotic fun of multiplayer experiments like Third Life?
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Everyone loves revisiting the “Golden Age” of Minecraft content, but no one seems to be able to agree about when it was. Really, it’s whenever the player first discovered their favorite Creators and got lost in the worlds they built.
Today, Minecraft is everywhere on YouTube. It’s music to study or relax to. It’s a toybox of familiar props and mobs for genre-hopping storytellers like Aphmau to play with. It’s a prompt for real-life adventures. And its visual language has spread throughout YouTube Shorts, from parkour videos to random memes where the game’s textures make an inexplicable cameo.
We’ve even partnered with Minecraft on an all new YouTube Shorts effect. The "Minecraft Spring" 360º effect allows you to be immersed in a unique Minecraft world that takes place in the cherry blossom biome featuring the pinks of Spring heading into the warmth of summer. Someone has just unleashed a bunch of chickens! Try out the Minecraft Spring effect for yourself here or directly with Shorts creation, choosing Minecraft Spring in “All” or “Background” categories after tapping “Effects”.
Where will Minecraft go from here? It’s been 15 years, but there are still new mountains to climb and more diamonds to mine. We can’t wait to see what’s next. Till then, enjoy our celebration of this incredible community.
1. YouTube Data, 2024