A Minecraft Experience
MinecraftGIFs is a blog based mostly on the release of animations (GIFs), videos, and images revolving around the indie game, Minecraft. The blog is maintained by a group with the same name as the blog. From one of the posts, we can assume one of the members is name Bobby. The main contributor does not provide a name other than “pcro,” which is seen in his “About My Blog” on the right-hand side. They have been around since 2012, judging from its copyright. I chose this blog because I play the game and wanted to see the creativity of other people who enjoy this game.
The site is structured in a simple manner. The posts are lined up from top to bottom on the left half of the screen and an about post on the right half. There are few advertisements, 3 that can be distinguished separately which I see as a good thing, and they are on the right side. There aren’t many posts per page, which is good for a person like me who only has 100 kilobytes-per-second internet speed, seeing as a majority of the posts involve moving images. One of the negative aspect of some of the posts is that it is hard to grasp, due to the fact that the GIFs are separated and play in a loop. I for one enjoy my videos, or GIFs, to play smoothly.
The blog has around 6 posts a week, most of is GIFs related to Minecraft, most of which is made by the blogger, and videos from other sources. There are a few word posts related to the game, and posts to music the blogger likes but aren’t related to the game. I get the sense that the blogger aims at humor as the main emotion to play upon, but there are a few posts that seem more relaxed, like flowing lava for example.
The blog gets varying amounts of traffic, an opinion I based off of the number of notes (events of that post, such as likes and reblogs). One of the posts is a reference to the Disney castle that appears in Disney movies, garnered more than 50,000 notes, while many barely get 50 notes. There is no sign of actual comments from other surfers that come through the site, but the blogger does respond to questions which are likely sent to his e-mail or twitter.
Some posts I find hilarious are the chickens and a pigs dangling over a big fire, just looking at their struggling is funny (that’s dark humor, I know). The blog is definitely informal in its works, since there are a few posts of arguments between the blogger and co. Overall, the blog has some decent works, but a better collection can be found elsewhere.
I’m sorry Shio that the blog of a game you play often wasn’t all it was cut out to be. It can definitely be annoying when you are in the midst of watching a video and it freezes. If anything, take the time to research other blogs that could potentially give you a better experience with sharing the Minecraft experience.
When I first started reading this review, I was immediately reminded of Tumblr; the site’s bloggers make frequent use of GIFs. Then I actually clicked on the blog link that you included and what do you know, it IS a Tumblr! Anyway, I appreciate that you chose a topic that wasn’t conventional art. It’s not often that you see a cool video game-related blog, so I’m glad you found one. Kudos to the fact that you had some positive things to say about the blog, even though you ultimately felt that it wasn’t the best blog for this topic.
Compared to the other blogs about art and music this one acquires a unique beauty in my opinion. Even though the layout of the blog is so simple ( which I love because it makes it easier to look through)it was still rich in quality because the verity of the intricate graphic designs speak for themselves. I used to be a big fan of video games, from Nintendo to play station, and I never thought of the graphics appearing on the screen as art! This blog was a real eye opener!
Like you, I also play Minecraft and I found this blog to be enjoyable. Although you stated that better Minecraft-dedicated blogs could be found (I agree), I still enjoyed some of the works that people created in the game and I’m glad that you introduced something unique to me.