Minecraft: A Safe Place to Avoid Death?

By Phoebe Agnew-Bass | June 18, 2022

Terror management theory (TMT; Pyszczynski et al., 2015), inspired by the works of Ernest Becker, proposes that humans’ ever-present awareness that death is inevitable has a pervasive influence on human behaviour. One’s awareness of their mortality has the potential to cause extreme anxiety and debilitating terror (Juhl & Routledge, 2016), unless it is successfully managed on a symbolic level via a sense of meaning and self-esteem (Pyszczynski et al., 2015). TMT suggests, therefore, that one’s central goal in life is to transcend death itself, whether literally (e.g., afterlife) or symbolically (e.g., legacy). Certain videogames might constitute an avenue to symbolic immortality. In particular, the videogame ‘Minecraft’ (Mojang, 2009) may assuage feelings of existential anxiety.

Although meaning and self-esteem might reduce feelings of existential concern, ultimately the awareness of one’s death is an uncomfortable experience (Wisman, 2006). It may be argued that individuals engage in videogames, such as Minecraft, in order to escape reality and manage their death-related anxieties. This idea of escapism is explained by the ‘Existential Escape Hypothesis’ explored in TMT literature (Wisman et al., 2015), which suggests death anxiety can be managed by reducing self-awareness. While many types of media are capable of providing this escape (e.g., movies, books; Hastall, 2017), the extremely immersive nature of videogames mean that they can be thought to capture the true essence of escapism (Calleja, 2010). This may be especially true for ‘sandbox’ games such as Minecraft, which places the player in a world, distinct from reality, where they can do almost anything (Mojang, 2021).

Many individuals engage in escapist behaviours, such as gaming, in order to avoid experiencing boredom, namely because feelings of boredom are thought to instil a sense of meaninglessness, which individuals strive to escape from (Moynihan et al., 2021). Hence, boredom may be considered a threat to meaning, making someone aware of the mediocrity of their current situation, which motivates their escape, in order to find a sense of purpose (Moynihan et al, 2021). This concept is a key tenet of TMT, which outlines that when people feel their lives have meaning and they are of value, their feelings of death-anxiety are assuaged (Becker, 1973). Consequently, existential escape may be described as a distal defence, as it acts to protect the sense of meaning and value an individual possesses in their life. Research has further suggested that this use of existential escape, as a distal defence, may be especially prevalent in those with lower levels of self-esteem, perhaps because these individuals have more vulnerable bases of meaning and value (Wisman et al., 2015). Therefore, without this buffer in place, an individual may be more susceptible to death-related thoughts and anxiety, particularly if they already have a low self-esteem. Indeed, those who tend to engage in online gaming tend to have low self-esteem (Wiederhold, 2016). Hence, by engaging in escapist behaviours, such as playing Minecraft, some individuals may avoid experiencing this terror.

However, this does not fully explain why some individuals play Minecraft rather than engage in other forms of media, such as watching TV, as a source of escapism (Hastall, 2017). The appeal of videogames like Minecraft may also stem from the fact that they have the ability to buffer death anxiety in ways that other media cannot. For example, videogames often allow individuals to escape into a world where their character, which acts as an extension of themselves (Turkay & Kinzer, 2014), either cannot die, or can come back to life. As TMT proposes that one of the key goals in life is to transcend death, the eradication of death as a problem in such videogames may present a potent psychological defence and grant a sense of symbolic immortality (e.g., Florian & Mikulincer, 1998).

In Minecraft, players have the option to play in ‘creative mode’, which grants the player immortality, or ‘survival mode’, which renders the player vulnerable to death. However, even in ‘survival mode’, when the player dies, they ‘respawn’ (are brought back to life; Mojang, 2009). This means that ‘death’ within this game is not a profound threat. Therefore, while playing Minecraft, individuals may be able to experience transcendence of death through ‘escaping’ to a world where their character (a representation of themselves; Turkay & Kinzer, 2014)cannot die. More generally, these avatars also persist beyond one’s own death providing a digital form of symbolic immortality (Gorman, 2014). Thus, videogames like Minecraft may bequeath a sense of symbolic immortality onto their players which reduces feelings of death anxiety.

Individuals may also be encouraged to play Minecraft due to other ways it can provide an anxiety-buffering effect, for example, through the bolstering of self-esteem. The anxiety-buffering hypothesis of TMT suggests that self-esteem is an important psychological defence that allows a person to deal with the issue of death by making them feel they are of value (Greenberg et al., 1992). However, people may stake their self-esteem in different domains (e.g., appearance; Crocker & Knight, 2005). This suggests that when a videogame bolsters one’s bases of self-esteem, then it could have an anxiety-buffering effect (e.g., Arndt et al., 2009).

Videogames such as Minecraft have the capacity to appeal to a variety of ways in which people might traditionally acquire self-esteem, thus enticing different kinds of people to play. For example, some individuals’ self-esteem may be dependent on their appearance or public evaluations (Crocker & Knight, 2005), so may derive self-esteem from their ability to modify the appearance of their in-game character. Indeed, those who base their self-esteem on other’s opinions of them tend to be more strategic in how they present themselves online (Rui & Stefanone, 2013). This may extend to Minecraft, which can be played as an online multiplayer game, where individuals are granted control over how their character is presented. Since some individuals conceptualise their videogame character as an extension of themselves (Turkay & Kinzer, 2014), changing the appearance of their in-game player enables them to present ‘themselves’ as their ‘ideal self’. This self-presentation optimises how they may be seen by others, enabling them to maintain their self-esteem (Rui & Stefanone, 2013).

However, some may find other aspects of Minecraft more appealing if their self-esteem is based on other factors, such as outdoing others in competition. For example, players can compete to complete the game in record times (e.g., ‘speedrunning’; Davis, 2018), or opt to play against each other online. Furthermore, some members of the Minecraft community have developed a competitive tournament called the Minecraft Championships (Noxcrew, 2021), in which some players are invited to compete in various different challenges. This sense of competition can be extremely important for some gamers in the pursuit of self-esteem (Kazakova et al., 2014). Therefore, Minecraft may satisfy this basis due to its potential to be competitive in nature, consequently alleviating death anxiety in these individuals. In sum, Minecraft has the capacity to assuage feelings of death anxiety in several ways such as providing a source of escapism, symbolic immortality, or appealing to many ways in which people might try to acquire self-esteem. Its considerable potential to alleviate death anxiety may explain its increasing popularity, and why different people choose to play this game.

Phoebe Agnew-Bass is currently in the third year of her undergraduate psychology degree at Royal Holloway, University of London. She learnt about Terror Management Theory and the work of Ernest Becker from Dr. Samuel Fairlamb, in the module ‘The Psychology of Love, Death, and Meaning’.

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