I have been playing Minecraft since I was eight–years–old, hopping around aimlessly on my family’s desk monitor with a head full of ideas. I would sit and play for as long as I could and watch contently as my sisters took their turn— even if it was boring, I could live vicariously through their playing and be entertained.

As I grew older, my interest didn’t fade, and I began to play on multiplayer servers with others, introducing me to mini games and new skills to build, only making me more obsessed with the game. Eventually, I got my own laptop and after begging my parents, I purchased and downloaded Minecraft for my own personal use. To say I was hooked is an understatement. Whether it was playing in survival mode and working for resources to build my base and advance further into the game’s achievements, spending hours carefully crafting my own creative world, or becoming better and better at PVP (player versus player) games in multiplayer, I had what I saw as the world at my fingertips.

I’m certainly not the only Rosary student that loves Minecraft. In fact, my friend Samantha Guerrero ‘23— who plays Minecraft on her Xbox— said, “I like playing Minecraft because there are so many different things you can do in the game— You can build, play mini games, interact on servers, and the best part is getting to play with your friends.”

Though school and extracurriculars would minimize my hours on Minecraft, my love has grown and grown to the point of seeking to modify the game and bettering my gameplay by improving my setup; for example, my laptop is from Apple, and Minecraft runs best on Windows— plus, I was playing on a trackpad, but I’ll get into that later.

Consequently, I began to do in-depth research on parts in order to build my own computer so that I could improve my experience; however, this comes at a price— literally. PC’s are notoriously pricey, and though I had saved up a considerable amount of money, I was still tied to a budget. In time, my parents expressed to me that they’d prefer I purchased a pre-built computer in the hopes I wouldn’t accidentally purchase the wrong parts or experience mishaps when constructing the computer. Though I’d prefer to customize my own, I agreed— after all, a computer is a computer, and I’m blessed to afford one at all.

That brings me to today, with a PC that runs Minecraft beautifully and a setup I wouldn’t change for the world. Transitioning from one device to another has certainly been interesting, and while much of my experience has been bettered, integral parts of my experience have only been made worse.

For example, though switching from a trackpad to a mouse has certainly been an interesting change, it’s ultimately made my overall gameplay better; however, there still lays a bias surrounding players who either choose not to play with a mouse or are only left with their trackpad on their laptops. While this seems like an easy fix and a quick transition, it represents an overlying pretension: I don’t necessarily mean trackpad players’ automatic gameplay disadvantage (it certainly exists), I mean the idea that every player needs a mouse.

Whether a player is on a laptop or not, playing with a mouse is the norm despite the fact that many people do not have access to purchase one or may not possess the means to add this to their experience in terms of space.

Because I’ve experienced both sides, I prefer a mouse; however, I have played with a trackpad since the beginning and loved the game just as much. It isn’t as necessary as ostentatious players make beginners believe. Though a somewhat innocent bias, it only reinforces the classist ideology surrounding gaming technology, making Minecraft seem like more than a really fun game that anyone can play on almost any device— consoles, PC’s, laptops, and phones are all ways to play, and yet another negative bias surrounds those that play on anything other than a maxed-out customized PC with the highest quality performance level, three monitors, and the most posh keyboard and mouse available. If they love Minecraft, let people play in a way that is personally and economically available to them.

Not to forget, every single guy I’ve interacted with when speaking about Minecraft and the way I play has been met with condescending and pretentious comments, simply because I enjoy the same game. The questions I get most often are:

• You got a PC to play Minecraft? (Usually followed up by “What a waste!”)
• Why would you go pre-built? Could you not figure out how to build it yourself?
• I mean, what do you even do when you play? Pick flowers on your survival world?
• Are you even good?

If a girl enjoys a hobby, men and the general public consistently warp her enjoyment into a sort of universal inside joke: ‘She likes something I like? Well, I must like it more because I’m definitely much smarter and she’s not doing it for the same reasons I am, so I’m going to make fun of her.’ I love Minecraft, I love my PC, and I love playing Minecraft on my PC. End of story. My laptop could barely handle running and storing Minecraft— I don’t think it could physically handle other games, even if I wanted to try them out. And I certainly should not have to prove to anyone that I’m good at the game in order to possess a PC (just take my word for it if you really want to know!)

Instead of excluding people from playing what I believe to be one of the greatest video game ever created, the video game community as a whole needs to wake up and accept that not everyone’s experience is the same: not everyone is a teenage boy that plays with two monitors and a professionally constructed PC. People that cannot afford to play on a PC, with a mouse, or are just players that aren’t male that are trying to enjoy something they love and should not be ostracized for their available setup and experience. Minecraft should be for everyone, on any device, of any gender, and of any economic status. Let us play in peace!