Hey Parents, What Is Minecraft Doing to Your Kids?

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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If there are any impressionable kids watching this, time to send them out of the room. The big secret coming from Modern Parent is that Minecraft is actually good for your children and helps them with classroom work as well as real life. Keep this a secret because if they ever caught on to this fact, play would cease immediately. :D
 
My kids wanted this a while back. At the time I didn't understand it and thought it pointless. However, as many parents have done, since I saw no harm in it I gave in. But since I didn't want them just playing with random strangers I setup a Minecraft server at the house for them and any of their friends from school. Of course since I was now running a Minecraft server I figured I'd better figure it out. So purchased myself a copy and tried it out. Then my wife wanted it....so now we have family nights/weekends where we all go on and play together.
 
Hrmm if MS can start pushing this angle and get Minecraft on every school PC, Laptop, or Tablet I can see why they bought it out now...

When will they start selling a Minecraft Enterprise License?
 
I play with my 4 year old so I have only ever done "creative" mode, and have no idea what the "survival" mode is all about.

But I will say, that to me, it feels like a digital version of Lego's. In fact it makes me wonder why Lego's hasn't made a creation game since they have tons of themed games (which my son loves as well).
 
Jutsu said:
Hrmm if MS can start pushing this angle and get Minecraft on every school PC, Laptop, or Tablet I can see why they bought it out now...

When will they start selling a Minecraft Enterprise License?
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Not far off from that now just with normal licenses with how many copies they have sold. There is even a educational version schools can get (http://minecraftedu.com/ being at least one example) that gears it more toward school use than normal play.

The reason they bought the game is because it already is just about everywhere and continues to be everywhere. As of June last year it was at 54 million copies sold. Jan 27 - 28th of this year 10,000 people bought the game between those two days alone. On the consoles you have people buying content packs. Game is already on the pc, tablet, xbox 360, xbox one, ps3, ps4, vita, smart phones.

Of course you are the ignoring all the none game related stuff they can bring in money for. Clothes, toys, books.... They spent $2.5 billion on the company and will have earned all of that back by year end. They aren't worried in the least about trying to come up with ways to make money off the investment.
 
westrock2000 said:
I play with my 4 year old so I have only ever done "creative" mode, and have no idea what the "survival" mode is all about.

But I will say, that to me, it feels like a digital version of Lego's. In fact it makes me wonder why Lego's hasn't made a creation game since they have tons of themed games (which my son loves as well).
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My guess is because it would cut into their sales too much. Only way a Lego game would really be good for them is to limit what you have. You start off paying $50 for the game and that gives you enough Lego pieces for 1 or 2 kits. then you have to pay $15 - $75 for each kit after that. If they gave you unlimited pieces from the start people would be buying the digital copies for kids and it would take away from the physical ones that they sale.
 
My son is 5 and loves this game. Has it on his tablet and xbox one. Builds all kinds if crazy stuff. And there is no clean up after wards lol.
 
westrock2000 said:
I play with my 4 year old so I have only ever done "creative" mode, and have no idea what the "survival" mode is all about.

But I will say, that to me, it feels like a digital version of Lego's. In fact it makes me wonder why Lego's hasn't made a creation game since they have tons of themed games (which my son loves as well).
Click to expand...

Survival mode you have to feed yourself, build everything from scratch, and hide/fight creepers if difficultly > peaceful. I don't play it but my six year old does. She has basically all the "formulas" memorized which I find impressive.
 
I'm not going to look forward to what Microsoft is going to do to Minecraft. Probably make it Windows and Xbox exclusive.
 
Ashbringer said:
I'm not going to look forward to what Microsoft is going to do to Minecraft. Probably make it Windows and Xbox exclusive.
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My co-workers were not happy when I suggested micro-transactions for things like special picks needed to mine special ore. Since they degrade an break people would have to keep buying them. I think they were mostly upset because they knew I was right lol.
 
Kardonxt said:
My co-workers were not happy when I suggested micro-transactions for things like special picks needed to mine special ore. Since they degrade an break people would have to keep buying them. I think they were mostly upset because they knew I was right lol.
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One thing I love about Minecraft is that it's Java, which allows it to run on just about any device. I love putting this on my linux machines and just handing them to my nieces and nephews. Pentium 4 with Radeon Xpress 200 runs Minecraft just fine.

Micro transactions are first on the chopping block. But I think Microsoft is planning a HD version of Minecraft that'll be exclusive to Xbox and Windows. But there's so many other Minecraft clones that do just as good of a job I'm just at some point the community will jump ship to another Minecraft clone.
 
Wasn't Minecraft a blockland knock-off?

Either way Lego missed a gigantic opportunity.
 
jpm100 said:
Wasn't Minecraft a blockland knock-off?

Either way Lego missed a gigantic opportunity.
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Everything is a knockoff of everything. You are a knock off. In reality there is very very very very little that is "unique" out there anymore. However, the creator of MC did say he borrowed inspiration from a few sources to mold what he designed. Building with blocks is about as original as..well...nothing.
 
Minecraft is my gateway "drug" for my kids to enter the world of PC gaming. We have it on iPad, Xbox 360, and PC's. They already have discovered the PC version can do so much more.
They learning to type and use a mouse. Over Christmas, I let them get a few Steam games. I've hopefully planted the seeds of PC gamers...
I got started with consoles first (Atari 2600), moved onto a C64, then Amiga, PC, Linux, etc. I don't go back to consoles.
 
My girlfriends daughters are both in love with minecraft. They have it on their iPads, Xbox 360, Galaxy S3 phones and watch endless hours of it on Youtube.

The oldest is very much more in to playing the game and just loses herself when playing, much as I remember when I was younger and gaming.

Got me thinking now of maybe doing a private/custom server for her and her friends. Any good guides, FTPs, anything at all out there?
 
Ashbringer said:
I'm not going to look forward to what Microsoft is going to do to Minecraft. Probably make it Windows and Xbox exclusive.
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They already said they wouldn't do that and so far have held true on that promise. Which that wouldn't be the first time. When they bought Rare, they still continued to make some Nintendo games.

I know it is hard to put faith in people doing the right thing when they buy something out, but I do think this is one of the rare cases where they know what they were buying and won't do anything to screw with that which would only hurt them.
 
Really all I want is oculus rift to release and oculus rift support in minecraft. Which is more than I was going to get from Notch. A part of me died when microsoft bought minecraft but a dead part of me came back to life lol.
 
Ashbringer said:
I'm not going to look forward to what Microsoft is going to do to Minecraft. Probably make it Windows and Xbox exclusive.
Click to expand...

If you haven't been paying attention lately Microsoft is reaching out past its own ecosystem. They are pushing productivity in iOS and Android with office. They know they can't just run in their own little world. They learned the hard way that trying to push one platform in today's world isn't feasible if you can't control it, and they were way late to that game.
 
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