Probably the best idea anyone has ever had for a game. What characterizes Minecraft and allowed it to gain success was not that it was a limitless sandbox, but the fact it gamified already existing sandbox elements into something with legitimate structure.

Sandboxes had existed for years by the time of the devious little block game's inception, but Minecraft did it differently. Truth is, what makes Minecraft really work is the fact it's not just a sandbox. You don't start off as a god here, you become a god. Your own ability to work defines what you get out of it, and the game is actively prepared to throw hurdles at you while trying to get there. It's not just survival mechanics; Minecraft has a very cohesive vision of what construction is "for." Other entities in the world can interact with the world in similar manners to you, and your way of dealing with them could be swinging a sword, but it could also be machinery designed to trap and farm them. You could simply build a tower, and that's your job done, but it's the push to starting that effort that makes it feel like something more than other sandbox games. Everything here reinforces that, most prominently the melancholy yet encouraging music, which could have had absolutely any kind of style to fit any sort of element of the games amalgamation of genres and concepts; but instead of being action-packed adventure music, or anything fitting to the semi-fantasy setting, we got beautiful, relaxing and thought-provoking piano/ambient pieces which contend for the best music of any video game ever made to me.

There's a very classical computer game mentality to all this. Tons of freedom, tons of mechanical resistance, and everything coming together to form a sort-of-simulation sort-of-roguelike sort-of-tower-defense sort-of-sandbox hybrid that twists tongues to describe in concept but is just so elegant and comprehensible to see in motion. It may have nabbed a thing or two from Infiniminer's presentation, but Minecraft's sheer understanding of the potential of blocks elevates it to greater heights than recognizable. The game deserved its success, and the ultimate encapsulation of its best quality to me is that the most iconic element of the game about building, is an enemy that is willing to throw away all your hard work and blow it all up. Unique, and not once will we see it be truly replicated in a way that succeeds it.