Have you heard of Minecraft? Are you like most moms who just tune it out when your kids start talking about the game because all the foreign terms make no sense and you have no time to learn a new language let alone a new game!
I recently wrote a piece for Muslim Moms in Canada about Minecraft and thought I would share it here:
A typical day in my household always includes a story about a Creeper, an Ender-Dragon or Herobine. And like most moms, I have no idea what my kids are talking about. Chances are if you have a child who plays video games, they are playing Minecraft!
Minecraft has sold over 20 million copies for PC’s and millions more on iPads and Android Tablets. Microsoft purchased Minecraft from Mojang for $2.5 billion dollars last year and the creator of Minecraft Markus Persson out-bid Jay Z and Beyonce on a $70 million mansion in Beverly Hills. Minecraft is everywhere. If you have not heard of it, you really are living under a rock!
I’m not sure how the craze began in my house but I remember downloading the game for my son and then him begging us to buy the full edition. Still not understanding the game I turned to Facebook and asked my friends for their advice. A few friends told me to steer clear of the dark side, while others told me why it was so great.
Creative Mode
The game has two modes; Creative and Survival. In both modes, players (a character named Steve in the game) use their creativity to build. Players usually begin by creating a home and then expand their world by creating other buildings in a community. In this game of virtual blocks, players use their creativity to build a world the way they want. They first must chop down trees for wood, mine for coal, iron and other elements that are used throughout the game to make different types of blocks. You will also see animals roaming around freely, you can make them your pets, let them live or use them to make food.
My son has built amusement parks with roller coasters, bowling alleys with multiple lanes, a school and anything he wants. Creative mode allows players to determine how to place blocks strategically resulting in a finished project. Sounds like a lot of future engineers to me!
Survival Mode
In Survival mode, the purpose of the game is to survive. It has all the features of creative but is more challenging and frightening. Players use their creations to hide and escape from all the enemies in Minecraft. They also mine to look for items that will protect them like swords and armour. Survival mode is where you will find Creepers, zombies, spiders and skeletons.
A creeper is that ackward looking, pixilated, green figure you see roaming around on your child’s screen. If you get too close to it, it will blow up and harm you. Skeletons also blow up while spiders and zombies hit the player. The player must destroy these creatures to live. If the player is destroyed, he/she quickly respawns (comes back to life).
What To Be Wary Of
If you are going to let your kids enter the world of Minecraft there are a few things you need to be weary of. The most important one is that it is addicting. My kids will play for hours if I don’t monitor their time. It’s a fast moving game where a day lasts only 20 minutes. Your child will always want more time to finish building something or looking for something.
If you let your kids play together in one world, they will fight. It doesn’t matter how well they get along in real life, in Minecraft there will be problems. They will bicker about what direction to go in, who found the diamond sword first and who has more experience blocks. The constant bickering has made me go crazy that I have shut the game off a few times. I have since learned to take a deep breath and let them figure out their own problems like they do on the playground.
Some parents don’t want their children exposed to the violence in the game. Parents should be able to judge if their child can handle the game or not.
Why I let my kids play
My boys are 8 and 5. I let them play Minecraft because it’s teaching them certain aspects of the real world. It’s teaching them you need materials to build and is encouraging them to go find those materials. It is expanding their creativity while they attempt at and then later succeed at building a more difficult creation. It’s teaching them how to plan, organize, execute, succeed and sometimes fail all in one game.
I don’t think my kids would have any interest in building if it wasn’t for Minecraft. They have many Lego sets that are sitting in their closet but they prefer Minecraft because there are no instructions. They write their own instructions.
I read an article that suggested Minecraft is preparing today’s kids for jobs that don’t even exist yet. With technology changing so quickly, there is no way for us know what skills will be sought after and maybe the millions of people playing Minecraft are on to something the rest of us don’t understand (yet).
That Crazy Mom 