I know what a scare quote is, and their implication could be to "scare" like calling someone "an artist" or saying that you made a "good comment".

But the article isn't trying to imply skepticism or disclaim particular words, it's just trying to distinguish what is in-game for people who don't know what minecraft is.

maybe it was slightly too subtle for me to have used single quotes in my comment and not pointed it out. in this case they would have been more appropriate

it's entirely likely this was just a formatting mistake, but it still feels "off" enough for me to get uncomfortable and stop reading

If you're using the word 'item' to describe a data structure in minecraft, you're not using it in the traditional way, you're using it in a technical way.

i think it's perfectly reasonable for them to have used double-quotes for 'chests' because that is a very gaming-specific item (perhaps not minecraft-specific- looks at every dungeon crawler).

however, something being a data structure or not doesn't really matter when 'items' means exactly what you would expect it to mean within minecraft, especially when said item is a book!