Minecraft vs. League of Legends

The world’s best sandbox game versus the best MOBA in the world.

The Match-Up

The first match in the semi-finals of the tournament pits two titans against each other. Both can be counted among the most popular games in the entire world. Both are also the center of countless videos and livestreams. Each game dominates its respective genre with an iron fist. Of the two, Minecraft has expanded the most as a franchise especially after being bought by Microsoft. League of Legends has been more about the core game and competitions aka eSports.

Instead of being bought, LoL offers skins and heroes for purchase in the item shop. GameOgre knows quite a bit about that first hand as we offer a $10 League of Legends card to ongoing community members in our Game Shop. We have done this for years and can speak from experience that demand has never been higher for the card. The game also has sales to drive demand for the card even higher. Minecraft has a completely different business model because you buy it and pay no fees or buy anything from a shop. Instead of buying stuff, you make it largely yourself since the game is a giant sandbox.

The biggest advantage for LoL over Minecraft is in the competitive arena. League of Legends commands a top spot in this ever growing area of gaming. Teams from all around the world compete against each other in front large crowds. In fact, there is currently a movie on Netflix about this very phenomenon with LoL being the game that is played. Yes, the game is that big.

Minecraft’s biggest advantage over League of Legends besides obviously creativity happens to be one of the MOBA’s few weaknesses, a friendly community. Because it is so competitive, new players are not exactly welcomed with open arms. If you are on a team and somebody thinks you are not doing something right, they will loudly and bluntly tell you about it. On the other hand, Minecraft flourishes when players work together from the start because there is no competition. Even just messing around can be fun because there are no pressures. GameOgre used to thoroughly enjoy digging tunnels, filling the tunnels with dynamite, and then watching the amazing fireworks.

In the end, League of Legends prevailed by a nose. The game just has a stranglehold on its industry that few have been able to match while Minecraft is spread out over a plethora of different versions and platforms. In addition, competition in the sandbox genre is heating up with survival sandbox games like Ark and Rust. Blizzard has a great game with Heroes of The Storm, but even it pales in comparison to LoL. There is a new “MOBA” that just started making waves called Battlerite, but it will take quite some time before it would be ready to even try to rival League of Legends. Thus, the MOBA king moves on to the finals.

Tale of the Tape

Minecraft

Buy to play sandbox MMO.
Clear leader of its genre ever since launch.
Highly anticipated when launched.
Offers a single player and multiplayer mode.
Can craft exclusively or craft with monsters etc being able to attack you.
One of the best games ever for creating since it is a giant sandbox.
Has a MMORPG inside of it.
Has the most creative videos of any game in the tournament.
Was sold to Microsoft and continues to expand its franchise.

Versus

League of Legends

Free to play.
Bright colorful graphics.
Leading MOBA for years.
Intense action.
Strong following.
Has a reputation for not being friendly to new players.
Has really capitalized on the free-to-play model.
Always one of the most popular games on Twitch.
Great game for competition.

Select Comments For Minecraft

Rating: 9
Author: Aaddron
Comment: Minecraft is an odd game, it basically breaks every single industry “key to success” and still succeeds. Photo realistic graphics? Nope, this game could be passed off as a Ps1 game. Deep and engaging storyline? haha no… actually the game doesn’t have one. Epic combat system? Nope, swing sword hit target… that’s about it. Ok so how about a detailed environment and setting? Wellll… not really, lets just say it has it’s moments. One epic NPC that guides you with witty lines and is always trying to kill you? … … nope, in fact NPC’s weren’t added until late in development and at this point still do nothing. Sooo I give up, what makes this game so great? Exactly!

Minecraft is a game that if brought to a publisher probably would of been rejected. Thankfully it wasn’t, Minecraft is developed by Mojang which started as one man band. Notch is his internets name and he defied all odds, produced a winner and now has his own game development studio. It’s really a great story but we are here for the game so lets just leave it at. Notch made a game, it’s sold through the roof and now he has more money than he knows what to do with… all without the help of the tradition “publisher”.

So back to the original question, what makes Minecraft so great? There are millions of answers but since this is my review I’m gonna go with its openness. When I say open, I really mean open, sure it has the “see it, walk to it” aspect of all the top sandbox games but that;s where it ends, no only can you walk to anything you see, you can blow it up too. Sick of that mountain… well just take it out… ever want to dig a super big hole but can’t because of zoning laws… no problem! Dig to your hearts content, no annoying city workers here… although you should still watch out for the locals… except them little green fellas. Friendly little buggers, might even help you dig if you let them close enough to you. *trollface* O and the best part? Sick of your world… simply start a new one, everything is randomly generated so no two worlds are the same.

To know what Minecraft is all about, you simply need to read the title of the game. Minecraft is a game of mining and crafting. Your sole purpose is to survive, gather ores and build. You see you start the game with nothing… not even a hint as to what you should do. Then night falls and it quickly becomes apparently something isn’t right, monsters start spawning and 9 out of 10 times you’ll find yourself dead before dawn. So you died… you respawn, nothings changed, still no objectives, still no instructions but this time you know nightfall equals bad news. With a little help from the internets what was once confusion is now a race against time to find or build a shelter. You survive your first night, congrats!

Minecraft is a game of blocks, everything is a block and every block can be broken and placed. You use these block to build and craft, you use wood from a tree to make planks, you use the planks to make sticks… you use 2 sticks and 3 planks in the shape of a pickaxe to make a wood pickaxe. Minecraft is a game of upgrades. Your fist can’t break everyblock and is really slow… so you’ll want to upgrade to wood tools which are faster but that have limited durability so then you want to use the wood tools to get materials to upgrade to stone ones, these are slightly faster and last longer… then stone to iron etc.

Crafting a major part of the game not only for making and upgrading tools but also to get access to tons and tons of items that can only be crafted. Items like chests, pressure plates, trip wires, furnaces, minecarts, rails etc. Minecraft doesn’t hand anything to you… if you want to build it you have to make it first. This kinda sucks as elaborate contraptions take forever to build as you need to get all the materials by hand, it can be extremely time consuming but at the same time it’s extremely rewarding when your done. For those that might not have the time they’ve added a creative mode where you can get any block in the game in infinite amounts and break everything in one hit without tools. It’s a great place to experiment.

Multiplayer in Minecraft is unique. Usually a good Multiplayer takes away from the a good Singleplayer and vice versa but in Minecraft that isn’t true. Minecraft’s multiplayer is Minecraft’s singleplayer with multiple people. If you don’t like Multiplayer or can’t get anyone to play with you that’s absolutely fine, your not missing anything minus player generated stuff. However if you choose to play Multiplayer your experience can change dramatically. Instead of adventuring on your own you can adventure with many other players. Instead of one little house, players get together and build full cities. Communities have formed and full RPG style severs with real players as NPC style characters have spawned… some truly awe inspiring stuff has come out of the multiplayer side of Minecraft.

It’s not all roses though, for every way Minecraft’s multiplayer is great, it also has an equal amount of issues. Minecraft multiplayer is like the wild west, not many rules and people don’t always follow them. Griefing (players raiding your server and destroying everything) is a common occurrence, same with hackers, spammers and pretty much any other annoying thing you can think of. Mojang has taken some steps to help but it’s been mostly up to the Mod community to devise methods of warding off these troublemakers, they’ve been successful in some respects but it’s a never ending war. The only way to prevent this is making your own server and only allowing friends on it… still make sure to take protective measures though as even then you’re not safe if you leave the door open.

Minecraft is in many ways a throwback to the old days of gaming, featuring little to no hand holding, like losing all inventory items on death (5 minutes to get back to them) and no mini map or objectives to guide you. You don’t have a whole lot of health and even on easy monsters due quite a lot of damage. It’s a throwback but a whole new world at the same time. The sheer aspect of being able to do anything… and I mean anything is simply unmatched… fancy a game of minesweeper? Yup you can do that. Wanna make your own Adventure Game… go for it, thousands of people already have and surprisingly a lot of them are really good. Mods? Yup have them too.

Minecraft is the game that “shouldn’t” work with today’s gamers but it does, o it does. Well it’s about that time, I’ll leave you with the sole rule of Minecraft, always dig straight down*.

Rating: 8
Author: quinn
Comment: Minecraft is quite a fun timekiller. The classic version, especially, really floats my boat. Although it went downhill after Survival was released, I can always count on the original if I ever need a good pick-me-up. It’s also great to put on the computer when my little cousins come over, they love it too!

Select Comments for League of Legends

Rating: 10
Author: shaki997
Comment: This is one of the most popular games in the world right now. You take place as a summoner who summons diffrent champions and battles with them in the fileds of justice.
the game is tons of fun and allows you to play a lot of difrent champions and roles. the game is mainly played in the 5vs5 mode where the objective is to destroy the enemy nexus wich is in the center of the enemy base. the more games you play the bigger level you get. when you get to level 30 you are allowed to play ranked games where the game is at a lot higher level and the game is more serious. the map consists of three lanes with three turrets each and an inhibitor behind them. when the inhibitor is destroyed the minions in the game get stronger and allow you to easily destroy the nexus and win the game. its tons of fun and adictive and i rocomend it to anyone.

Rating: 10
Author: Wildout
Comment: League of Legends is at the top 5 most popular games/MOBA-s ever released, a very large amount of champions/roles/classes/item builds/playstyles and other
if you have never played this game, well you are missing out on tons of fun, its based on DotA mainly, but has some changes in mechanics, and its changing drasticly, it has 5 seasons right now, and is by far one of the best games I’VE every played, if you do decide to check this game out, you won’t regret it my rating for this game is 10/10

The Showdown

Cheaper to Play = League of Legends

Better Multiplayer = League of Legends

More Popular = League of Legends

Better User Created Content = Minecraft

Better for Livestreams/Videos = Minecraft

Minecraft received a total score of 3
League of Legends received a total score of 2

The Result

League of Legends Wins!