More than 20 million people play it, and nearly 10,000 more every day. Microsoft bought the company that developed it for $2.5 billion. It spawned an entire genre.
Minecraft is not a game like most. Rather than fighting or racing or, the game encourages creativity and collaboration, and offers a blank slate on which entire worlds can be built. More than just hand-eye coordination, which any shoot-’em-up can develop, Minecraft can build visuospatial reasoning skills in a limitless but nonthreatening, kid-friendly way.
A studyconducted by researchers at Australia’s Griffith University, called “Minecraft as a teaching tool: A statistical study of teachers’ experience using Minecraft in the classroom,” concluded that Minecraft can be “very successful as a teaching tool and that learners showed high levels of motivation and participation – which suggests improved learning.”
“More interestingly is the emergence of science and math as subject areas where Minecraft can be used,” the study says. “During construction of large-scale projects, learners might need to calculate the number of blocks required to complete the project. Angles and distances can be calculated too, along with speed, weight, and trajectory (projectiles).”
This Saturday, gamers worldwide, including more than a few at City Center 15: Cinema de Lux in White Plains, will try to out-Minecraft each other, with a $15,000 scholarship awarded to the winner.
For the parents who may not have the slightest idea about this whole Minecraft thing — who know little more than that “it’s like Legos” — here are five things you need to know, a sort-of Minecraft primer for the uninitiated:
It really is like Legos
The basic unit of measurement and construction in Minecraft is a cube, commonly called a block. When you launch a game, you create an entire world — a world so large you can get irretrievably lost — complete with forests, deserts, mountains, savannahs, caves, towns, people, animals and more, all made out of cubes.
You, in the form of a block-based avatar, destroy blocks and strategically place blocks to reshape the three-dimensional online world as you see fit.
Every type of cube has specific attributes — put rock cubes on top of a sand cube and the sand cube will disappear. Set fire to a wooden cube and it will burn. Players spend hours, which can stretch into weeks and years, building ruby cube castles and wooden cube towns and stone cube fortresses.
It’s essentially nonviolent
There are two basic ways to play Minecraft,creative and survival. In creative mode, every type of block is available at the outset, and creatures like zombies and spiders will do no damage to your avatar. You can also fly, which makes building those cloud-high towers a breeze.
On survival mode, every resource must be obtained and managed, food must be consumed and mobs of nefarious block-based creatures must be fended off. There is alsoadventure mode, similar to survival and intended more for multiplayer play.
Zombies and spiders notwithstanding, fighting is not the central activity in any of Minecraft mode, the way it is in “Halo” or “Mortal Kombat.” Building effective fortresses, block by block, is just as important in Minecraft as fighting zombies.
In creative and survival mode, there is no way to “win” in the traditional sense — you build as much or as little as you’d like, as opposed to fight- or race-based games, in which there is a clear winner.
There is in-game chatting
Minecraft is, to a large degree, a one-player game. In order toplay with other people, you must be on the same server, either creating one yourself or joining a public server.
Once you are on the same server and in the same world, you have the ability to chat with other players, and — depending on the server — there are little to no protections on what can and cannot be said.
The emphasis, though, is on collaboration, teams of people working to build a world. The easiest, and safest, way for kids to play together is via the mobile, or pocket, edition which allows gamers using the same wifi signal to join each other’s worlds.
It’s big business
As of Feb. 17, 2016,almost 23 million peoplehad purchased and downloaded the PC version of the game, with nearly 10,000 buying into Minecraft in the previous 24 hours, and that does not count players on XBox gaming systems or mobile phones.
In 2014, Microsoft bought Swedish game developer and Minecraft creator Mojang for $2.5 billion.According to Forbes, as of 2015 the game grossed more than $700 million over the course of its life, with the word “Minecraft” trending more on Google than the Bible, Harry Potter and Justin Bieber.
Sweden native Markus Persson, who created the game, launched it in 2011 and sold Mojang to Microsoft three years later, became an almost overnight billionaire and bought a $70 million Beverly Hills home before 2014 was over.
There is a Minecraft Hell
Yes, you can create a portal to Nether, consider it Minecraft Hell, where giant Chthulu-like squid demons swim through rivers of lava. Going to Nether is a good way to get lost, after which you may have to travel a long way to find your fortress or carefully crafted beach house.
There is also the Minecraft approximation of electricity, called “redstone,” which allows enterprising players to build powered railways, doors that open and close, electric light and more.
Players can also tame wolves to create dogs, breed cattle and sheep and chickens, and perform other real-world activities to create more nuanced gameplay.
HOW DO YOU WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
To be part of the action, visit SuperLeague.com and register. On the site, you can create a team, sign up for an existing team or let Super League assign you to a team. Teams will consist of 4-7 players. The grand prize, a Super League championship trophy and a $15,000 team scholarship (Super League uses a scholarship fund partner to make sure awarded money is used for college only), will be awarded to the team with the highest cumulative score. Teams — which will play for 90 minutes once a week — can visit SuperLeague.com, where they can select Leaderboard and see how other teams rank according to scores. Point totals across the four weeks for all teams will be available on the site. At the end of four weeks, the team with the highest cumulative score wins.
Mojang, the developer behind the hit building and exploration game, “Minecraft,” is bringing something new and exciting for its players and it will be coming every month. According to a report inTech Times, Mojang is setting up a subscription service that will bring new “collectibles” to its players every month.
The new service will be called “Mine Chest” and inside the chest every month, players will get new items that can be worn, collected and can even be used to create or build with. Some of the items will only be made available through the service and cannot be found elsewhere. These include “Minecraft” toys and “Minecraft” shirts. Even the chests, where the goodies are found, can be collected as well.
In their announcement of the new service,Mojang describes it as something that will “bring that same sense of discovery and creativity” every month. They also listed DIY crafting recipes as part of what subscribers can get.
According to the officialMine Chest site, each “Mine Chest” will also be themed according to where they are found or discovered, which means chests can be themed as the Jungles, Frozen Plains and the Nether.
Since the monthly service will also be bringing physical products, a shipping fee is included in the monthly service fee. Gamers need to shell out $29.99 a month plus $7 shipping, handling and tax. Only gamers in the United States are able to avail of the service in the meantime, but Mojang promised that it will bring the service worldwide soon and will try to find a way around expensive shipping costs.
Those who want to avail of the service can start signing up now via the service’s site at minechest.com. First shipments will be made in May and gamers who are able to sign up by the end of February receive a special gift: a limited beta version including “items that explore the beginnings of ‘Minecraft.'”
The first update of 2016 for the Minecraft: Pocket Edition is finally here. The new Minecraft version 0.14.0 comes with new additions for the Redstone builders and we remind the players that the Redstones have been released for Minecraft in November.
Redstone is a structure that will allow the players to control powered-mechanisms. With other words, you will be able to make simple devices such as a light switch, or even more complicated things such as elevators. This feature surely opens up many possibilities, so you will do whatever you want in the Minecraft game. Just use your imagination and this feature will help you materialize your ideas.
The new Minecraft 0.14.0 add even more Redstone components such as repeaters, dispensers, comparators, hoppers, trapped chests, droppes and many more. Here is a video that shows of a few new features that the Minecraft 0.14.0 comes with:
The new Minecraft version also comes with some spooky witches along with their huts. Inside the huts you will find cauldrons that are filled with random potions and something that will dye your armor. There are also wearable pumpkins, slime blocks and item frames that will allow players to display their awesome items for all to see.
Minecraft: Pocket Edition is available for mobile devices that run on iOS or Android and it can be purchased from the App Store or Google Play Store for 6.99 dollars. You can also download and play the Minecraft: Story mode game that costs only 4.99 dollars and it comes with five-part episodic series. However, keep in mind that the game comes with the first episode, while the other four episodes you will need to purchase (either separated or as a season pass).
Have you installed the Minecraft 0.14.0 on your mobile device? Tell us your opinion about the latest Minecraft: Pocket Edition!
The first round of Minecraft’s four-week Galactic Missionchampionships was held Saturday at the City Center 15: Cinema de Lux in White Plains. This Minecraft experience is a custom, space-themed adventure in which gamers build and battle together in a fun environment inside a movie theater instead of at home.
Gamers of all ages had the opportunity to play face-to-face against other video game enthusiasts in the theater as well as against thousands of others across the world, while watching the action unfold live on the big screen.
Some local players will be reporting for lohud.com from the “battle front.” This week, meet StarLord:
Who I am:Hello, I am StarLord and I am 11-years-old and live in New Rochelle. I have been playing Minecraft for 5 years and I love it because I get to build whatever I want and how I want, too. I am in control of the building. I am also on my school newspaper, I enjoy reading books, playing other video games and playing with Legos.
The coolest part of playing on Saturday: I enjoyed playing with other kids like me who are into Minecraft.
Round 1 recap: At first I started to build a volcano. It was hard because I was trying to make it as realistic as possible in a short time. I think I did okay; it was a little hard because I kept getting killed by other players who were faster than me.
How hard or easy is it? I am used to playing on my PS4 or my PC. This was my first time playing on a laptop and it was a little difficult using the laptop mouse, but once I got the hang of it, I started playing a lot better. The games are timed for building; you have to think quickly on what you are going to build.
What’s the competition like? There are a lot of really good players here; I have never played with so many players at the same time, but it really awesome to see Minecraft on the BIG screen. The competition was cool; I have never played in one before, but I had a lot of fun today!
Strategy for next week: I don’t know yet, but I will practice a lot this week to get better for Round 2.
Interested in becoming a contributor? Email kcroke1@lohud.com
BARCELONA, Spain — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered a much-needed shot of adrenaline to Samsung’s Unpacked press conference by making an unannounced appearance on stage to talk virtual reality and to praise his South Korean partner.
“VR is the next platform, where anyone can create and experience anything they want,” Zuckerberg said. “For right now, it’s mostly used for gaming. That’s quickly evolving.”
Zuckerberg asked the audience to imagine being able to do anything from sitting around a virtual campfire with friends any time they want to holding spontaneous meetings in VR.
He added: “That’s why Facebook is investing so much in VR, so we can deliver these new social experiences. VR is going to be the next social platform. And that’s why we’re working with Samsung.”
Zuckerberg said Samsung is the only company that can build the OLED screens at the scale needed to deliver the “low-persistence rending” necessary to make VR a mainstream technology.
“We’ve been working to make Facebook the best platform for 360 video,” he said. “360 videos are even more immersive. You feel like you’re actually there. Our community already loves 360 videos. More than 1 million people are watching them every day. And more than 20,000 360 videos have been uploaded.”
Zuckerberg said Facebook has created new teams with Samsung to develop next-generation social apps for VR. And he said more engineers have been shifted to accelerate the underlying VR technology. As an example, he said that in the coming weeks Facebook would deliver a technology called “dynamic streaming” to Gear VR. This tech delivers higher-resolution video to the area someone is watching and lower-resolution to other areas in order to improve quality and reduce the bandwidth needed to deliver the video.
Finally, Zuckerberg said that 200 gaming apps have already been developed for Oculus and that Minecraft would be coming to the VR platform.
Minecraft’s first big update of the year comes to PC and Pocket Edition
Above: More Minecraft.
Image Credit: Microsoft
Correction: We originally stated that the 13 redstone skins cost $2 each, but they actually all come in a bundle for $2 total.
Minecraft’s getting more content today.
Microsoft announced today that the first big update of the year for its block-building game is available now for the Windows 10 and mobile versions. Minecraft, which is on just about every platform imaginable, has sold over 70 million copies (which is why Microsoft bought Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014). However, this new content, called the Overworld Update, is currently only available on PC and mobile. Sorry, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U players.
“With the Overworld Update, make more advanced mechanical contraptions with additional components, including comparators, repeaters, dispensers, droppers, hoppers and more,” Microsoft details on its site,Xbox Wire. “Stumble upon witch huts as you explore spooky swamps, and steal their unique potions to use for yourself. Other new gameplay elements include slime blocks, wearable pumpkins, and red sandstone.”
Microsoft is also rolling out new skins based on the game’s redstone component along with the update. Two of them, the Composer and Artisan, are free, with 13 more available in a bundle for $2.
