A game that's been popular for as long as Minecraft has is bound to create some misinformation along the way. Be it because of internet rumors getting out of control, or players misinterpreting signals, Minecraft has a lot of misconceptions about it.
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These misconceptions are often about things within the game itself, but this kind of misinformation also spread outside of the community to people who have never played it before. Plenty of non-gamers have their own misconceptions about what Minecraft is and who plays it. These can be a constant source of frustration for fans of the game.
It's A Kids Game
Any Minecraft player over the age of 15 has likely had to contend with this one at some point. The perception of Minecraft as a game "for kids" is not an entirely unfounded one. Minecraft undeniably has a huge appeal to children, and its non-violent nature means that most parents have no problems with their kids playing it.
A huge portion of the Minecraft fanbase are children, but to say they're the only people who play the game is very narrow-minded. As the game has been around for over 10 years, many players who first played it as a kid still play it as an adult, not to mention the various esports events that now center around the game, bringing in elite skills that most kids could never have.
Sugarcane Can Only Be Planted On Sand
This is a very old myth, but one that seems to have stuck around in the community. It's easy to see where this misconception comes from. Sugarcane only naturally spawns next to bodies of water, most of which will have sand on their borders.
In reality, the condition of sugarcane is that it can only be placed on a block adjacent to water. This means that dirt and grass are just fine for growing sugarcane. The only plant that has to be placed on sand is the cactus, which truly does only grow on sand, but it doesn't need to be near water.
The Story Of Herobrine Is Real
Perhaps the oldest myth of Minecraft, Herobrine is a concept that refuses to die in the minds of fans, as Mojang themselves have fanned the flames. Herobrine was a character spawned from a Creepypasta, some stories claimed it to be Notch's dead brother, others say a scorned Mojang employee added it, but they all agreed that he was bad news if he appeared in a player's game. All versions of the story are completely untrue, but the popularity of the Creepypasta has left many convinced otherwise.
Even to this day, people on forums claim that there used to be an unimplemented Herobrine file in the game that was eventually removed. No such file has ever existed in any version of the game. This belief was spawned by Mojang's in-joke of putting "Removed Herobrine" in the patch notes to every update, but this is just a jovial nod to the Creepypasta, nothing more.
Lava Prevents Fall Damage
A common tactic when diving in caves and ravines is to use water as a safe way to traverse downwards. Landing in water saves players from long falls and can be used to swim back upwards in a pinch. Doing the same with lava would certainly make traversing the Nether a lot easier.
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This property has led many to believe the same is true to lava, but those players will likely be disappointed. Putting aside the fact that diving into lava is a bad idea at the best of times, it does not have the same properties as water and will not prevent fall damage if there is a solid block directly under it.
Level Y = 11/12 Spawns The Most Diamonds
This misconception is tricky to unravel because it's people doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. As Bedrock Edition tells the player in the loading screen, Y = 11/12 is the best place to mine for diamonds, but it's not because they spawn there the most often.
Diamonds spawn anywhere from Y = 16 as below, and each level has an equal chance to spawn a diamond, with one ore vein spawning per chunk. Mining at Y = 11/12 is best because it means that all visible levels have the possibility of spawning diamonds. However, with the 1.18 update set for release in the latter half of 2021, this won't even be true soon.
Bad Graphics Means Bad Game
As the gaming industry and gaming community have evolved over the years, this has largely died out as a criticism of Minecraft. While big publishers still push the idea that more pixels and prettier lighting are what makes games better, audiences as a whole have come to accept that graphics are secondary to gameplay.
That said, in the early days of Minecraft, this wasn't the case as much, and many wrote it off as a worthless game because of the unimpressive graphics. In reality, Minecraft's voxel graphics spawned their own artistic style, and with developments in texture packs and shader packs over the years, the game can be just as pretty as any other game with a good enough PC.
Hostile Mobs Kill Animals
While this misconception may seem ridiculous to any veteran player when in the shoes of a brand new player, this doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption. Hostile mobs attack the player on sight, and they attack villagers, so it's not that much of a leap to assume they'll attack the peaceful animals too.
Thankfully for outdoor farms, they don't. Hostile mobs freely ignore any animals they come across in the wild. That said, some animals will attack other animals if they come across each other. Wolves attack sheep on sight, and foxes attack chickens, rabbits, fish, and even baby turtles. Polar bears, meanwhile, will attack any mob that gets too close to its cubs.
It Invented The Survival And Crafting Genre
This is a misconception that is common among younger players, who aren't as familiar with gaming's history before the early 2010s. Minecraft can most certainly be given a large chunk of credit for bringing the survival and crafting genre the popularity it now enjoys. It was one of the biggest pioneers in the genre, alongside DayZ, but it wasn't the first.
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Survival games have existed for centuries, with several tabletop games using mechanics that modern players would recognize. In terms of video games, Robinson's Requiem was released in 1994, and while it's not very advanced, all the hallmarks of modern survival and crafting are there.
Diamonds Are More Likely To Spawn Near Lava
This is a myth that still runs rampant today, and it's not hard to see why. Caves in Minecraft sometimes spawn large pools of lava, which usually have a lot of air above them. It's not uncommon for players to find diamonds lurking in the walls around these lava pools, and some have assumed this to mean that diamonds have better chances of spawning near lava.
However, this is not true. Diamonds are more commonly found near those big lava pools because there are more blocks on display than usual. Many blocks are usually covered up in a normal cave, but lava pools create a big open area where ores can be spotted more easily. It's a fair assumption for newer players to make, but this is a case where correlation does not equal causation.
It's The Best Selling Game Of All Time
As many sites, and now, Wikipedia would have people believe, Minecraft is the best selling game of all time, with over 200 million sales. It's an incredible and accurate figure. There's just one problem: Tetris.
While Minecraft has out-sold every individual edition of Tetris throughout all of gaming history, the base game of Tetris has been re-released in different forms for different consoles. Games that alter the formula in some way, such as Tetris 99 or Tetris Effect, can be put to one side, but putting together the sales estimates for every regular version of Tetris puts the game at over 400 million sales, double that of Minecraft.
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