My son is 9-years old, and he IS a gamer. Not everyone in the younger generation loves to just sit around and play video games all day--but he does. As an instructional technology specialist and educator, I battle the stigma that all young people are tech savvy, and just want to play video games. Young people are individually different.
Bottom line is this...give me something challenging, and I'll do it all day.
For some video games are challenging and entertaining. At age 7, he received the Wii game Kirby. The goal of this video game was similar to that of many other video games we purchase today. You work your way through the levels, until you defeat all levels and ultimately, defeat the world. It only took my son two days to do this. TWO DAYS! A $50 game, and he was done in two days. Mind you, it was a weekend of playing for couple of two-hour stints. That was probably my fault for not pacing him. It was his birthday, what can I say?!
Now his passion is Minecraft. At first I thought Minecraft was 'just another game', but now I'm seeing it's more. Just as in any game, it has a full community. Adults are podcasting techniques, college students are posting videos of their play, and yes--9-year olds are creating their own servers with this very simple, block-style game. The premise is easy, as you enter a world, collect (or mine) for materials to create your own house, weapons, and food while creepers, zombies, and spiders try to kill you. Oh, and the lava, high ledges, and lack of food could kill you as well. Just survive. Play with others online and they could kill you, or work with them as a team to provide for the collective.
In the Minecraft documentary, Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, software developers of this game compare it to Lego when they first came out. Lego use to be a box of blocks, and you were to use your imagination to create. Even now Lego is a box with specific pieces and detailed instructions to create a specific object, be it jet, helicopter, or the White House! Where is the challenge in that?
Minecraft is a world created from blocks. There are twelve different biomes for your player to play in: forest, desert, plains, swampland, jungle, ice plains, taiga, extreme hills, ocean, mushroom island, Hell, and sky. I haven't created my own Mojang (user), but it is the goal of my 9-year old to teach me how to play this summer. I am tech savvy, but I'm worried my adult-trained mind will not be creative enough to share the fun. I'll let you know.
