We’re not telling you anything new when we say that players have jumped into the sandbox world of Minecraft to have fun in ways that have nothing to do with survival among blocks, zombies, skeletons, and creepers. Since its inception, Mojang’s experience has led to the creation of impressive structures, dream locations, and even maps seen in other video games; all, of course, using the unique cube-based construction. And many institutions around the world have realized the potential of this title as a tool to educate young users familiar with the mechanics and vicissitudes of the main adventure. This has resulted in the proliferation of numerous initiatives to showcase curiosities in areas ranging from culture to architecture.
One example of this is Minecrafteate, a project with several years under its belt dedicated to the “dissemination of cultural heritage and history through Minecraft”. The initiative, driven by a group of players, has recreated monuments such as the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña or the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. And its idea is not much different from what Denmark did back in 2014 recreating, literally, the entire country. Unfortunately, the good faith behind this giant representation of the Scandinavian region was diminished due to vandalism by a few users from the USA who decided to exploit everything they saw on the customized server.
An initiative for geography lovers
Seeing that Minecraft had sold more than 45 million copies (currently the title has over 160 million monthly active users), the Danish Geodata Agency decided to take advantage of the records of an old initiative to transfer all the peculiarities of the lands of Denmark to the world of Mojang. With the support of the country’s government, employees Thorbjørn Nielsen and Simon Kokkendorf set to work on what was intended to be a way to attract the attention of young people to get them interested in the geographical aspects of the area.
The Danish Geodata Agency took advantage of the records of an old initiative to transfer all the peculiarities of the lands of Denmark to Minecraft.
But don’t think the team needed years of work to incorporate all the details of Denmark regarding its terrain, as their plan consisted of using algorithms to convert the existing records of the Danish Geodata Agency into representations within Minecraft. The idea, which allowed Nielsen and Kokkendorf to avoid the tedious and titanic task of placing every geographical feature cube by cube, only took about two months of work.
In a matter of weeks, Denmark was ready to open its borders in the world of Mojang. With the recreation of its geography, the country had a way to open up to the world through an initiative focused on the younger audience. Unfortunately, this idyllic idea would soon see the arrival of players from the USA more willing to destroy than to learn; something they achieved by exploiting a server exploit.
Source: karrthus via Minecraft Forum.
The vandals from the USA
Although Denmark’s project was placed on a server that encouraged visitors to create more structures, the Danish Geodata Agency deactivated a function to prevent disasters in this representation of the country: TNT cubes didn’t explode. However, some players from the USA discovered an exploit that allowed them to detonate dynamite when it was transported in wagons; leading to craters in the Minecraft landscape. To make matters worse, the vandals boasted on forums and social networks by building US flags in the destroyed areas and giant letters spelling out the word ‘America’.
Luckily, the damage done to the Minecraft server was not so severe that the entire project came crashing down. As Chris Hammeken, press officer at the Danish Geodata Agency, explained in an article published by the BBC, “only a small area was destroyed”. In fact, the vandals didn’t move much to do their mischief in the game: “The flags appeared right where the players start, so I think the people who put them there wanted to attract as much attention as possible”. So Denmark barely paid attention to some users entering their initiative just to cause havoc.
Indeed, this demonstrated the goodness of many other users. Because shortly after the craters from explosions and US flags appeared, users collaborated to restore the place to its original version. “It was the players who cleaned up the mess, replacing everything with green grass and flowers the next morning,” Hammeken commented. So, although there are those who enjoy destroying the beautiful things we have in the video game industry (as well as in sector-related initiatives), there will always be people who will strive to maintain the true vision of these projects.
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