![Freshman Jacob Zahalsky works cooperatively on Minecraft. “[The club] is different from others at Marshall,” Zahalsky said. “There’s not many similarities—it’s more of an accessible server than it is a formal club.”](http://www.gcmnews.net/media/rnf/files/2016/04/DSC_9759.jpg)
“[The club] is different from others at Marshall,” Zahalsky said. “There’s not many similarities—it’s more of an accessible server than it is a formal club.”
The co-presidents came up with the club as a place for Minecraft enthusiasts to play alongside their peers late last year, but missed the registration deadline. This year, they’ve been able to establish the club as an activity that is accessible both at after school sessions and at home.
“Most of the time, [the club] is free to people who want to play Minecraft on wifi in their spare time or whenever,” Brothers said.
According to sponsor and Economics & Personal Finance teacher Sandra Ludden, the lack of a need for formal club meetings is both convenient and unifying.
“It’s neat that they all help each other out in the game and they can play it from anywhere while still being involved with each other,” Ludden said. “There’s a kind of unity—it’s a unified club in all these different locations.”
The club is able to play as an organized group outside of Ludden’s room due to the fact that they have their own server, which is hosted by junior Jared Zell. Zell has the responsibility of running the library help desk alongside Instructional Technology specialist Roxanne Kaylor, as well as being a teacher for the Cyber Security Club.
“I’m not necessarily one of the leaders of the club, but I’m here to help out,” Zell said. “There’s a lot to configure, and there’s always some kind of problem [in the game]. I make sure the cool mods that we have work without ruining the server or messing with anyone’s computers, and I make sure the in-game economy is balanced in that we want to keep this a typical survival game rather than having some people beat the game entirely.”
Minecraft Club is separate from Video Game Club despite their similar aims, and Shin feels the distinction is helpful in that the structure of Video Game Club has limitations.
“They usually play something like Super Smash Bros., which dominates meeting times, so there’s less options,” Shin said. “In Minecraft Club you can play at home or at school during meetings so there’s more freedom.”
Video Game Club member and sophomore Jeremy Klein also thinks the additional club has value in its specificity.
“There’s a lot of people who consider themselves players of Minecraft but they don’t really play video games that much,“ Klein said. “This could be good for differentiating that as well as providing a club for people who really like Minecraft but don’t like the video game community.”