Why This Minecraft Player Has Been Walking For 4 Years

Minecraft is known for having all sorts of quirky gimmicks, glitches and mods. In the case of one player, he's not trying to exploit anything about the game... he's just trying to walk. In fact, player Kurt J. Mac has been walking in Minecraft for the past four and a half years.

According to Kotaku Kurt J. Mac has been walking in the same direction in Minecraft since 2011. Why? Because he's raising money for the Child's Play charity. He's managed to raise more than $$335,000 so far. So anyone thinking that this is a fruitless or pointless venture can think again. Kurt is making some serious bank for kids in need.

He's been walking in Minecraft and managed to travel 2,097,152 blocks so far. Kotaku estimates that he's managed to walk 1,303 miles over the past four years.

Now that you know why Kurt is doing what he's doing and now that you know how much he's accomplished doing it, the next question is: where is he trying to get to?

Good question.

Despite having traveled more than a thousand miles, he's still a long way off from his destination... the Far Lands.

According to Kurt...

And by documenting every step of the way, he's referring to his YouTube series covering the journey. You can check out his latest romp in the video below.

The fabled Far Lands are supposedly a glitchy-type area in the older Minecraft builds. According to the Minecraft gamepedia they're a section of the game world that did not procedurally generate proper like the rest of the world. It sports a rather odd looking terrain design similar the maze from the movie The Maze Runner.

Minecraft has all sorts of crazy elements in the game that has managed to keep the game fresh for years on end. It's not surprising that someone would use an old glitch from a previous version as a goal for walking. The Far Lands seems like a lofty enough achievement for Kurt that it should keep him busy for quite some time.

It's interesting to see that games with undefined goals can be used in this way. Then again we've definitely seen games like DayZ and Rust spawn all sorts of cool new ways to play and interact with the game and the people in that world. Seeing someone take a basic concept in Minecraft and turn it into a meta experience while raising money for kids is pretty cool and a sign of how emergent gameplay can be used to further the fun factors and community immersion in a game.

You can follow more of Kurt's Minecraft journeys by following his YouTube channel.