Crafting Participatory Culture - Minecraft

1. What is Jenkins's theory that the author is referring to here? How might it apply to how audiences interact with the Minecraft game?
2. How is Minecraft different to conventional computer games in terms of narrative and what kind of experience this offers gamers?
3. How did YouTube respond to this trend? Have a look at what YouTube offers to gamers by going to the site. Watch a PewDiePie and Ali A video as part of your research.
4. Who is Herobrine and Steve?
5. Why did Mojang shut down Brandon Liatch's attempt to create a Minecraft 'film'?

Jenkins fandom theory refers to fans who act as textual poachers - taking elements from the media to create their own culture. this development of new media has accelerated participatory culture in which audiences are active and creative rather than passive. They shape the flow of the media. from this perspective, convergence is a cultural process rather than a technological one.

In terms of Minecraft, this theory is applicable to the lack of direction or instructions in the game -  the freedom allows them to be creative in the way they use the game world. 

Naturally, being fans of the game, consumers then wanted to become prosumers, and share the creative ways they’ve played the game with other fans. These videos soon became known as Let’s Plays and although they are not new in themselves, their popularity, along with the gaming industry in general has been growing in popularity, for some time coinciding with Minecrafts. 

'Lets play' allows gamers to use more blocks to create different and new environments. Every Let’s Play Minecraft on YouTube is a paratext to the game, this is how the game became so popular without any professional marketing and it is also for this reason; content owners are more lenient with fan made paratexts, because it’s free exposure.

The very first story to emerge from minecraft was about a mysterious character named, “Herobrine”, who would appear in people’s games without any reason, often scaring the players. he is a kind of anti-hero whereas steve is a hero. Steve is the character you use to go around the game, he can build just about anything

In 2014 Brandon Liatch, an invested petty producer of Minecraft wanted to create a part live action-part animation film based on the Minecraft world, “Minecraft is the perfect video game to adapt to a film … The reason is that it doesn’t have a character, it doesn’t have a story, which to me is a big benefit because we can come up with our own original story”. Using KickStarter he managed to get $60,000 before Mojang shut it down, saying “We don’t allow half a million kickstarters based on our ip without any deals in place. Despite Minecraft and Mojang being very open to the way you use it’s content they still have reasonable limits, and the agency of a prosumer is not breaking copyrights.