Minecraft game - what do you know?

[trulyscrumptious43]

DS age 14 is obsessed by this game. I limit his screen time to 2 hours a day but it seems to be all he thinks about too. Does anyone know, is there any eductional value in it? It looks very basic from what I've seen, am I just not getting it?

Fantasticly educational and creative game. Incorporates binary logic to basic economics.

Try and get them into building/programming games on roblox. Fantasticly educational game.

I'm trying to find out about the data download usage rate. I fear ours is being maxed out (we only have 15GB p/m) by minecraft. How does it work vis a vis data usage? I think we use the single player option and as far as I know, there is no 'server' involved (7 y o person is using it)

Watch a few videos of it on YouTube.

my ds plays it on tablet does this mean he cant connect with randoms??

Hi All

I'm a bit late to this conversation I know but thought I would pick up this thread as it does answer some of my questions.

I have today made my son go cold turkey on this one as his Minecraft obsession levels are getting out of control. I have found out that my son's cousin has given him routes and names of his friends who play online (on a PC) so that he can link up with them. My DS is 10 and they are 17. He has been playing in this mode for a few weeks unbeknown to me. They use guns. I am not happy about this but I don't really know much about it so I would like to know if anyone can give me the heads up on this and if it is anything to worry about.

I know they 'chat' and am concerned about the content of the conversations but that is something I cannot police unless I stand and look over his shoulder - as far as I am concerned he is to young for this type of play. I would not let me son out to play with a random 17 year old so I don't see why I should do it online but am I being a bit over protective? My instinct tells me not.

I think the Minecraft obsession has increased since the beginning of this thread as it dates back to early last year, I wonder if any opinions have changes since?

Walterwhiteswife - playing on a tablet - you can't connect with randoms.

every server is different. Some are heavily moderated, too.

9yo DS plays with strangers on servers his 12yo brother used to play on, it's pretty obvious the other players are other kids (no swearing or actions I disapprove of so far)

I tend to be in the "proceed with caution but be inclined to proceed until proven wrong" camp. So I check on them but not closely.
I think the big bad world is out there and M/C servers can be a reasonable place to let some of it in and keep the lines of communication open if they encounter anything unsuitable they will tell me (I hope).

Something I tell my kids a lot is that people online LIE. Not too young to learn that msg. So online play is probably fine but don't let it cross over into real life without great caution.

Its a bit more complicated than you think (well it can be) type in on youtube:
Minecraft Command block
Minecraft Mob farm
Minecraft Redstone