Minecraft is actually a great way to teach someone how to play games. Unlike other games, minecraft has no difficulty curve when you put it on peaceful. Sure, people have to look at a crafting wiki, but trust me, non gamers can read just fine. There are 4 things you have to learn to control your character in minecraft: movement (which is actually a step that most gamers don't think about, but for many, controlling something out of body is not a natural experience, we don't think about it because of how much we've done it), holding left click, right clicking to interact, and spacebar to jump. At that point the player can do anything in the world without fucking up (on peaceful). Other games, even easy ones like crackdown, punish the player for being slow or unable to control their character fully. I run a server where two of my friends started playing who have never really played video games before. At the start, they moved very slowly, and couldn't look around and walk at the same time. Now, they both have built homes. Sure, they're still not as good as me, or anyone who plays on the server who played games before this, but they can move at their own pace. It's kind of funny, because I like to connect things on my servers with giant floating bridges that lead to buildings who's sole purpose is to be a giant stairwell. So they have their little houses with this giant skyscraper right across the water.
