So I’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft lately, and I’ve discovered that—in addition to it being an excellent game—the block-based fantasy sandbox has a surprising number of lessons to offer to the entrepreneurially minded. After all, the game is essentially about operating an enterprise of one, creating a physical and economic empire solely out of the work of your own hands.
Does it sound silly? Well, maybe it is, but Minecraft is a game that gets into your head in a big way, and for lessons like these, I think that’s a good thing. Let’s take a look. (Also, see part 2, with even more business secrets of Minecraft)
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6. Risk, Effort, & Time Do Not Necessarily Correlate With Reward
The first key lesson in Minecraft is the role of risk, and how it leads to reward. This lesson comes across most obviously in mining and exploration, and the various approaches to it. One of the great things about Minecraft is that just about every problem has more than one solution. If you’re looking to acquire diamonds, there are two basic ways to do it: Explore and fight your way through a very deep cave until you’re near the bedrock, and then search for diamonds. This method is very high-risk: You’ll run into a lot of monsters, lava, deep pits, etc. And it’s relatively resource-intensive; you’ll need armor, weapons, buckets, and other spelunking equipment. At the end, if you’re lucky, you’ll find some diamonds, and maybe a treasure chest or two.
On the other hand, you can dig your own mine or quarry, heading straight down to near-bedrock level and then building branches to systematically look for diamonds and other rare minerals. This method takes more time and effort because of all the mining, but it’s very low-risk. Even if you run into a natural cave, it’s easy to dig in another direction and cut that risk. Either way, you have a chance of ending up with diamonds. Especially for a relatively unskilled Minecraft player (like myself), the more time-intensive, lower-risk effort pays off with the same reward. In the same way, in business, blazing the most obvious, most-travelled trail can bring huge risks. Take risks that need to be taken; consider carefully the ones that merely save time but are entirely avoidable. They could sink you entirely.
5. Legacy Capital Has Its Uses
Everybody’s first base in Minecraft is pretty crappy. After all, it’s built with dirt and maybe a little bit of stone. It’s small. But if you build your main base elsewhere, as I tend to do, don’t forget about that base. Likewise, don’t forget about small camps you make if you get stuck out in the woods on an early night. Those bases are legacy capital: Capital expenditures that were already constructed. They’re a sunk cost, and they’ve probably depreciated a little bit, or at least gone obsolete. They may provide little value later on, but little value is more than no value. That base could save your life, just like older, depreciated equipment can still add value, even if it’s to a lesser degree than newer equipment.
Same deal with old mines: There is no such thing as a truly depleted mine or cavern. If you’ve taken most of the rare ores out of a deep, early mine, chances are it’s pretty well-lit, safe, and easy to access at that point. And if you’re ever in need of some quick coal, cobblestone, or even iron, you can probably find it in a cave like that relatively easily, rather than starting a time-intensive new mine or a risk-intensive new cave dive. Don’t let legacy capital go to waste.
3. Sustainable Practices Pay Off In The Long Run
In my first Minecraft world, which I still play, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I certainly didn’t know how to farm. I got most of my food from wild animals: cows, pigs, and sheep. You can probably guess what happened: Cows, pigs, and sheep became very scarce in my area of the world (I didn’t know they didn’t reproduce on their own). The ease of killing animals unsustainably early on led to a serious population bottleneck down the road, and far greater effort into rounding up surviving specimens for a sustainable ranch—not to mention the effort I had to put into finding other food sources when wild game became scarce.
Setting up a sustainable farm took more time than just hunting animals—but it lasts forever. A lot of real-world resources take a lot of effort to keep sustainable, as well. But in the long run—longer than an hour or two in Minecraft—it will pay off, because that resource will continue to exist.
2. Vertical Integration Is Paramount
This one will be pretty obvious to Minecraft players. Cattle are a better food resource than wheat. Cattle are only sustainable (see above) if you breed them using wheat. When I first started breeding cattle, I didn’t really have a wheat farm near my base; I brought some wheat from a distant base. This, of course, was wildly inefficient: I would have had to travel back to that other base every time I needed wheat. And I don’t have an egg farm at all, meaning that I can only make cake when I happen to come across eggs. It is far, far better to be vertically integrated—to personally control all the means for every stage of production. Have a wheat farm to feed the cattle, an egg and sugar farm to make cake. You won’t be dependent on the vagaries of the wild—or of competitors.
1. Without A Defined Direction, It’s Easy To Spin Your Wheels
Probably the most important business lesson from Minecraft has to do with management as much as with entrepreneurship. And that’s the importance of having discrete, distinct goals. Just like real life, Minecraft is a sandbox. You can pretty much do what you want. Work on your house all day, or explore, or work, or make food. But if you don’t have a definite plan, you’re just going to fluff the days away and never accomplish anything of note. You’ll just slowly accumulate more stuff. Am I talking about real life or Minecraft? Obviously both. Having a definite goal to work toward gives you more direction, whether it’s getting redstone so you can make a minecart system or hitting work milestones to get a bonus. Minecraft life without goals is just like life without goals: Still pretty pleasant, but unsatisfying in the medium term.
And that’s a pretty good lesson indeed.
