Minecraft is not your average video game. It’s phenomenally popular, yes, with more than 40 million people playing it every month. But Minecraft is a crossover hit: it’s the rare game that’s big among four-year-olds and forty-year-olds alike, and it boasts more female players than many other hit games. The second-bestselling game of all time, Minecraft has proven itself to be an enduring cultural phenomenon.
It’s also unique because it’s no longer just a form of entertainment: its endearing world of textured cubes is officially becoming an education product.
Microsoft snapped up the company behind Minecraft, Mojang, in 2014. Since the acquisition, one of Microsoft’s top priorities for Minecraft has been to develop it as a classroom tool. For years educators have been using the original game and its modified versions (mods) to teach subjects as diverse as ancient Roman history and computer programming. This flexibility has led Ian Bogost, a professor of interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a video game designer, to hail Minecraft as the equivalent of Legos or a microcomputer for the younger generation.
A human eye built in Minecraft Education Edition. (Credit: Xbox Wire)
“It’s game-changing because of the way it has broken the market and cultural barriers between commercially successful entertainment games and educational games,” says Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine who focuses on learning and new media. “Specific educational features of Minecraft — shared virtual world, construction tools, hackability— are not new, but what’s really new is the fact that it has been put together in a package that is embraced at a massive scale by kids, parents, and educators.”
This fall, Microsoft plans to weaponize Minecraft in the war for classroom mind-share by selling an education edition. It could prove an unexpected advantage in Microsoft’s increasingly fierce battle with rivals Google and, to a lesser degree, Apple over the education market. Microsoft’s Windows operating system still rules the global education market, but Google Chromebooks, which are cheaper laptops designed to run Chrome OS and primarily use online apps, have grown to dominate U.S. classrooms. In 2015, Chromebooks topped 50 percent of personal computer sales in the U.S. K-12 education market for the first time, with Windows PCs trailing at 22 percent, according to a Futuresource Consulting report.
Microsoft has also been dueling with Google over education software, especially for managing and grading assignments. In April, it announced a Microsoft Classroom update to its Office 365 cloud service as a direct challenge to the Google Classroom and Google Apps for Education platforms. But a version of Minecraft tailored to K-12 classrooms could prove the truest arrow yet in Microsoft’s quiver as the tech giant aims to win over educators and students.
By the time Microsoft acquiredMinecraft, the game was five years old and had sold more than 50 million copies for PCs, smartphones, and video game consoles.
The game’s popularity grew in part because it was accessible: plenty of four-year-olds could start playing it with almost no instruction. But advanced players stayed engaged by discovering a complex world of hidden in-game mechanics and additional creative possibilities through player-made mods. In the game’s Survival Mode, players must withstand attacks by monsters while figuring out how to mine resources, farm animals, and crops; they also have to craft increasingly complex tools and technologies. In the sandbox-style Creative Mode, a player might build a virtual version of the Eiffel Tower. Or recreate the city of King’s Landing from the HBO show Game of Thrones. Or construct a working 32-bit calculator within the game.
But by 2014, Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson had grown weary of managing the expectations and complaints of Minecraft’s player community. When he posted a half-joking message on Twitter asking if anyone wanted to buy him out, big companies took notice. He entertained offers from video game behemoths Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts before eventually going with Microsoft, according to Forbes Magazine.
On September 15, 2014, Microsoft announced the $2.5 billion deal to purchase Persson’s company, Mojang, and the rights to Minecraft. He and his co-founders gracefully bowed out and handed over the reins to Microsoft.
Most media attention at the time focused on how Microsoft could leverage the game to bolster its mobile presence and prop up the popularity of Windows. The following year, journalists gravitated toward Microsoft’s demonstration of an augmented-reality Minecraft as seen through HoloLens goggles. But a few shrewd observerspointed to education as the place where Microsoft could get a major boost out of Minecraft.
(Credit: Xbox Wire)
In the two years since Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang, Minecraft has continued to collect new players by the cartful. Sales have doubled to almost 107 million copies sold as of June 2016. If you were to count each copy sold as representing one person, the resulting population would be the world’s 12th largest country (after Japan). In 2016 alone, Minecraft has sold more than 53,000 copies on average each day.
But Microsoft has bigger plans for the game of cubes and creepers. Earlier this year, the tech giant made another acquisition that led directly to its new Minecraft: Education Edition initiative.
The MinecraftEdu story begins in 2011 with Joel Levin, a computer teacher at a New York City private school. Levin became a leader in Minecraft education by blogging about how he was using the original game in his classroom. He eventually joined two Finnish entrepreneurs in co-founding Teacher Gaming LLC and licensing Minecraft to create MinecraftEdu, a modified version that gives educators the tools to create lessons within the game.
By the time Microsoft approached Teacher Gaming, MinecraftEdu had been deployed in 7,000 classrooms across 40 countries. On January 19 this year, Microsoft announced it had bought MinecraftEdu and planned to build out its own version of Minecraft for classrooms called Minecraft: Education Edition.
Minecraft: Education Edition promises classroom management tools that will allow teachers to more easily coordinate students in a multiplayer environment. New tools will let teachers create their own lessons or use ready-made lesson plans, such as “City Planning for Population Growth,” “Exploring Factors and Multiples,” or “Effects of Deforestation,” according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
In June, Microsoft announced a free early access version of Education Edition. “More than 25,000 students and educators in over 40 countries around the world experienced the early access program and provided feedback to help us fine-tune the product,” says a Microsoft spokesperson. So far, though, not every feature of Education Edition is being met with whoops of joy. For example, Microsoft chose to include in the game virtual chalkboards — a decidedly old-fashioned tool plunked down into a 21st-century game.
“I would like it if what Microsoft had to say is that schools should be more like Minecraft, not that Minecraft should be more like a classroom,” said Chad Sansing, a web literacy curriculum developer at Mozilla and a former teacher, in a Motherboard interview.
UC-Irvine’s Mimi Ito, in her work using Minecraft to educate kids, has found the game better suited to less formal, more kid-native uses. In mixed-age summer camps and after-school programs, for example, she’s seen teenagers mentoring younger kids on shared Minecraft projects. “It’s magical for kids to connect with and learn from experts who are just a little bit older than them and who are passionate about the same things,” Ito says.
By tailoring Minecraft to formal school settings, Microsoft runs the risk of sacrificing some of the game’s inherent strengths. But it’s still a no-brainer for Microsoft to leverage Minecraft in its broader struggle with Google for control of the education market. Google may have Google Classroom to match Microsoft Classroom, but there’s nothing else quite like Minecraft.
Even if Minecraft: Education Edition falls short of conquering classrooms, plenty of schools, libraries, museums and summer camps will continue using the original game to captivate kids in more freewheeling learning environments. All Microsoft has to do is keep supporting it.
“I’ve been studying learning games and edutainment for 20 years,” Ito says, “and I actually never believed there would be a game that would really cross over between the commercial entertainment market and education in a mainstream way.”
Microsoft is right to keep burnishing its unusual jewel. When the kids get out of school, they’ll still be spending hours playing in their generation’s shared virtual sandbox. And wherever Minecraft goes, Microsoft is there.
So you’re thinking about getting a brand new Xbox One S console? If you’re a Minecraft player, we think you’ll be happy to meet the Xbox One S Minecraft Favorites Bundle. It has all you need to build, survive and explore with the latest Xbox hardware. We’ve included over 230 character skins, 3 texture packs and 7 Mash-up packs alongside the Minecraft: Xbox One Edition game so you can let your survival and creative skills run wild. If you play Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, this is the perfect bundle to make the upgrade to Xbox One S. You can transfer your existing Xbox 360 worlds over to the Xbox One Edition, and enjoy building new ones that are up to 16 times bigger.
What exactly is inside this colorful and lively box you ask? The Xbox One S Minecraft Favorites Bundle includes:
Xbox One S console (500 GB) with built-in 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player, and 4K video streaming plus HDR for video and gaming – so you can experience richer, more luminous colors
New Xbox One S wireless controller with expanded range and Bluetooth support for Windows 10 PCs
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition download code, with enhanced performance and 16X bigger worlds compared to the Xbox 360 Edition
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition Favorites Pack download code, which features the Festive Mash-up Pack, Halo Mash-up, Fantasy Texture Pack, Natural Texture Pack, City Texture Pack, Battle & Beasts Skin Pack and Battle & Beasts 2 Skin Pack
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition Builder’s Pack download code, which includes Biome Settlers Skin Pack, Cartoon Texture Pack, Candy Texture Pack, Plastic Texture Pack, Pattern Texture Pack and the Greek Mythology Mash-up
Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta download code
14 day Xbox Live Gold trial membership
The bundle is available now at participating retailers in the United States and Canada, including Microsoft Stores and microsoftstore.com, for $299.99 USD or local equivalent, with the following markets becoming available shortly thereafter:
October 11, 2016: United Kingdom, Western Europe & Central Europe
November 1, 2016: Australia & New Zealand
Coming Soon: Asia & Latin America
Whether you’re crafting weapons to fend off dangerous mobs or placing blocks to build the grandest of castles, we’re looking forward to offering you an outstanding experience on Xbox
Last week, DC Entertainment CEO Geoff Johns addressed complaints from fans and critics about the thematic tone of the company’s cinematic universe. Johns acknowledged that the films were too dark and gritty, promising that the future of the universe, including director Zack Snyder’s upcoming Justice League film, was going to look a little brighter and more optimistic.
Here’s the problem: Snyder created the universe in which these superheroes exist, and he has no plans to go anywhere anytime soon. This is the challenge when you start with your biggest characters and branch out from there. Your tone is already set.
The reverse Avengers
It may not matter that Johns, Snyder and DC as a whole are finally ready to embrace a more lighthearted world where the heroes are a bit less dour, because the universe is already in motion.
At this point, how much can you change Batman or Superman’s character without making them feel like different people? The heartbroken, angry and revenge-seeking Bruce Wayne is the Batman modern DC audiences know, because that’s how he was introduced in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The isolated, confused and self-sacrificing Clark Kent is the Superman that we’ve seen in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.
Not only that, but Snyder is now setting up a whole new series focused on seven heroes: The Justice League. This would be fine if DC approached its films the way Marvel did, but it hasn’t. It went the opposite way, and that’s a problem.
Marvel introduced people to Iron Man in 2008, followed by Captain America and Thor. Prior to that, the Hulk had received a couple of films that, while not great, at least introduced movie audiences to a modern interpretation of character. The only new characters that Marvel introduced in 2012 with the first Avengers movie were Hawkeye and Black Widow.
Instead of having one director set up how each individual character would appear in the universe, Marvel let each character flourish under different directors and then brought them together. The tone of these films was all over the place, allowing Joss Whedon to a voice for the team that was a mixture of everything that came before. One director made some chocolate, another had made marshmallow, and then Whedon was able to look at everything and think “holy shit I can do S’mores with this!”
And lo, it was delicious.
Warner Bros. didn’t do that. In an attempt to catch up with Marvel, DC decided to introduce Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman before jumping right into Justice League. The most popular characters have already been introduced by Snyder, and they’ve already worked together, and the tone for the whole mess has been set. Snyder made a terrible sandwich and now Warner Bros. is trying to convince us that a new director will be able to make just the lettuce delicious.
Changing the tone of an entire universe is already a difficult process, but deciding to do that while giving the same director the keys to the entire kingdom is even more challenging. Not only do the upcoming standalone films have to come from the universe Snyder created in the first two movies, they’re also ultimately going to have to fit into the team up that Snyder is also directing. The directors being brought in to “save” the tone of the DC franchise are stuck with grimdark both in front and behind them.
It may not be this bad
Now, to be fair to Snyder, the director claims otherwise. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the release of Batman v Superman, the director said that one of the reasons they wanted to bring more directors on board to help craft the DC cinematic universe was to ensure that each film felt different. Snyder told the magazine that there’s a “danger when you try to mimic things like tone” and they didn’t want every movie to feel like the same experience.
Executive producer Deborah Snyder added that it was very important to the studio that each movie had its own tone and that the filmmakers were given the creative freedom they needed to make the movies they wanted. While the studio would have final say over what idea for a character made it into the final script, and in turn, the film people would see, they wanted an amalgamation of talents.
Warner Bros. decided to bring out the big guns early in the cycle to kickstart The Justice League
Again, to their credit, both Snyders are aware of the issue facing the universe, but they’re not addressing the main problem. As long as Snyder is in charge of setting up universes for characters, there needs to be a bit of synchronization between directors to ensure it feels like it’s one world. That’s why there are moments in Suicide Squad that make the film feel like it’s attempting to be dark and gritty — most of them concerning Batman — while the rest of it tries to pack in as much absurdist story beats as possible. The weight of Snyder’s vision is to going to be hard to escape.
Although the change in direction didn’t land with audiences as much as Warner Bros. wished it would have, it’s the first time since the DC cinematic universe began that something seemed different. Johns is set on making sure future movies aren’t as downright grim as Batman v Superman or Man of Steel, and Warner Bros. seems like it’s heading in a slightly more Marvel direction, although far from being that family friendly. For a split second, it almost feels like everyone has figured out how to diminish the criticism they receive time and time again while still appealing to fans.
The lingering question is whether that can happen at this point with so much of Snyder’s influence tied so heavily to the universe. Bringing more directors on board means there’s room for growth and exploration in the DC universe, but in order to remain as consistent and coherent as possible, Snyder’s original conception for the world will have to appear in every film in every way. Especially since these characters are being introduced on the path to The Justice League film.
Warner Bros. decided to bring out the big guns early in the cycle to kickstart The Justice League, but the films were critical disasters. Marvel plays it safe by making sure characters and tones can be removed or kept from the Avengers if they don’t work out, but Warner Bros. doesn’t have that safety valve; Snyder’s vision and sensibilities are shot through these films on both sides. It was a risky gamble that didn’t pay off.
It’s an understatement to say that Avengers: Infinity War will be packed. While Captain America: Civil War featured 12 of the MCU’s superheroes and a number of other supporting players, the third Avengers flick will feature upwards of 60 movie characters who will be involved one way or another in the long-awaited conflict with Thanos. Obviously that means there will be a lot of familiar faces, but according to directors Joe and Anthony Russo, they also have a few unexpected faces up their sleeves, some of whom might hail from the small screen.
While speaking with the Toronto Sun, the Russos acknowledged the obstacles in place that make it hard to include TV characters in the movies, they do look at all these characters, but they don’t want to give everything away about what they’re planning for Avengers: Infinity War. Anthony Russo explained:
We do consider everyone. We don’t want to get too specific about what’s going to happen with these movies. We want these movies to be a surprise for audiences.
There’s been a lot of back and forth about whether Marvel TV characters will ever appear in the MCU’s big screen adventures, especially Infinity War. Although the Marvel movies and TV shows do take place in the same universe, they’re run separately, and because the movies are developed so far in advance, it’s harder to coordinate schedules and not mess up a project’s plans. This past May, the Russos implied it was unlikely any TV characters would show up in Avengers: Infinity War because they were focused on “telling the stories of the characters that currently exist on the movie side,” but maybe they either changed their minds during the scripting process or simply want to offer a little hope to the TV fans who want to see certain characters, namely the Netflix heroes, appear in Infinity War, even if it’s just a cameo.
The interview also addressed Captain Marvel, who will be leading her own movie in 2019. However, earlier this year, the Russos may have accidentally let slip that Carol Danvers will debut a little earlier in Avengers: Infinity War. While the brothers wouldn’t confirm or deny whether this is the case, they did approve of the decision to cast Brie Larson. Joe Russo said:
It’s an incredible piece of casting. You couldn’t ask for better. Not only is she an amazingly talented actor but she’s a wonderful human being. We’re really looking forward to the opportunity of re-teaming with her — if we were to get the chance to work with that character.
As the article noted later, the Russos used this same “coyness” when talking about whether or not Spider-Man was involved with Captain America: Civil War, and we know how that turned out. So while her appearance isn’t official yet, it’s looking more and more likely that Carol Danvers will pop up during Avengers: Infinity War. That said, because Captain Marvel will tell Carol’s origin story, she may not necessarily have her powers when she’s alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on May 4, 2018.
‘It is ‘Train to Busan’s’ preoccupation with morally complex characters that makes it enduring despite its narrative being contained within very confined spaces,’ writes Oggs Cruz
In Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan, the titular mass transport vehicle serves as an apt and very literary setting for an exhilarating morality tale that pits humanity’s fragile virtues and delicate principles with a ferocious catastrophe.
Zombie infestation
The catastrophe here is a zombie infestation, one that has spread throughout Korea with disarming swiftness, crippling almost all of the country’s infrastructure, except for the train that fortuitously left the station at the right time, except that one infected straggler managed to stowaway.
Screengrab from YouTube/Zero Media
What starts out for workaholic fund manager Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) as an innocent trip to visit his ex-wife as a birthday gift for his daughter Soo-an (Kim Soo-an) turns out to be a struggle for survival when the zombies inside the train start multiplying, and the survivors start dwindling, becoming more and more desperate and vicious against each other. Along with the father and daughter duo is a collection of other passengers, all of whom also represent an entire spectrum of ethical competencies.
It is Train to Busan’s preoccupation with morally complex characters that makes it enduring despite its narrative being contained within very confined spaces.
Screengrab from YouTube/Zero Media
Yeon’s action set-ups are all thrilling, most especially the ones in the middle where the main characters are forced to get past several compartments to rescue their loved ones. However, the interactions among the characters, resulting from the diminishing of the chances for survival, raise the stakes even further, adding fuel to the immense emotions that are already part and parcel of the survival tale that relies so instinctively on very critical decisions.
Streamlined storytelling
Screengrab from YouTube/Zero Media
It is enough that the audience knows that the big and burly fighter (Ma Dong-seok) is an expectant father and that his wife (Jung Yu-mi) is dependent on his protection, that a high school athlete (Choi woo-shik) is also secretly in love with his number one fan (Ahh So-hee), that the two elderly sisters are differentiated by their capacity for kindness, and that a corporate official is unscrupulous when it is his life, which he deems more important than the rest, that is on the line.
Yeon doesn’t waste time peppering characters with unnecessary details.
Screengrab from YouTube/Zero Media
In fact, he introduces most of the characters in one judiciously plotted sequence that reveals enough just so that their respective fates in the midst of all the immediate danger become worth the time, stress and effort. As the movie speeds through all of its brilliantly designed perils, the characters develop personalities that are worth more than idle dialogue.
It is this very essential simplicity that turns Train to Busan into such a feat of streamlined storytelling, with character development going hand in hand with the ingeniously engineered succession of increased tension and urgency.
Championing hope
Even with all the cleverly trimmed characterizations, Train to Busan doesn’t lack the requisite heart to sustain interest despite the gritty showcase of humanity at its most ruthless and self-serving. The film is as much invested in humanity’s potential for kindness, compassion and devotion as it is in its capacity to abandon all forms of decency all in the name of survival.
Screengrab from YouTube/Zero Media
As it turns out, the film champions hope, with its ending focusing on the final and most crucial test on humanity that has seen itself both at its worst and its best during that eventful train ride to Busan. At the end of the day, it is love, expressed through the saddest of songs, that will separate us from all the world’s monsters. – Rappler.com
