Sitting 5 feet from me is my 10-year old son, Paul. He’s playing Minecraft. He’s really into Minecraft. He’ll play Minecraft until he goes to school. Then he’ll play in the afternoon when he gets home from school.
On December 31st, 2012 we were discussing New Years resolutions. We asked him, “What’s your resolution?” He said, “I’ll give up candy for a year for $50.” We were shocked. But Paul had a plan. He wouldn’t tell us what it was… but he had a plan.
On June 30th, 2013 he got $50 and I asked him if he wanted to go to Target. We drove silently to the store… then he walked straight to the video game section and picked up the card to activate his Minecraft account.
We went home, he set up his account, and he instantly knew what to do. Why? Because for the last 6 months he’d been watching YouTube videos about Minecraft.
Since then it’s been a bit of an obsession. At times it’s been a full-blown obsession. But, for the most part, it’s been a good thing.
Geek Class Rising
Paul isn’t alone. Nearly 16 million people have bought the game for PC/Mac. (see Stats) Minecraft Pocket Edition for mobile devices and tablets tops charts for both Apple & Android devices, as well. (Source)
Minecraft is huge. It’s one of those things that has become so ubiquitous among pre-teens that you might not even see it. When I have been in schools and ask younger kids, “What are you playing these days?” Minecraft is always #1. It’s funny when I mention it as the kids who play always squirm, a little, just when I say “Minecraft.”
Here’s what I love about Minecraft. For most, people just geek out on the game play. They build stuff, they do missions, they explore official game play and experiment with playing on the thousands of unofficial, player-run servers that make the game infinitely expandable and ever-morphing.
But a certain subset of player are a new Geek Class rising. These are kids and adults who are building incredible new 3D worlds of their own on Minecraft. (see examples) These are players who lease their own servers, learn about IP addresses, upload Minecraft modifications (mods) via FTP, and even develop their own modifications to the game.
Comparatively, these are the same kids who used to play Leisure Suit Larry on their Commodore 64 while the rest of us were tossing crab apples at passing school buses. Just like the C64 nerds became the ones who learned to code for fun, a decade later being the ones who coded for a living for companies like Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft… the Minecraft nerds are learning to develop mods for Minecraft. In years to come these nerds will be using the skills and values of Minecraft to shape the next wave of technological advances.
So, while it’s easy for me to brush off Minecraft as just another addictive video game, I need to constantly remind myself that while I’m not into it… Paul is. I don’t get his obsession just like my parents didn’t get mine.
And the stuff that Paul is learning as he plays countless hours of Minecraft really are his investment into the next great Geek Class Rising right before our eyes.
Other things I’ll write about Minecraft later:
- Why is Minecraft so addicting? What is it doing to our kids brains?
- What do parents need to know about Minecraft?
- Is Minecraft safe for my kid?
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