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There is a big strange stupid thing when you have children. One thing you want them to live their best lives, follow their dreams, grow, and develop into their own little person independently of you.
But you also want them to like what you like.
Me? I like video games.
Now, I sorta like video games. Even though I’ve spent most of my working life Writing about video gamesI would call it a love-hate relationship. Video games are an art form like no other. They blind us, inspire us, strengthen us.
But video games are kind of super annoying too.
They are derived. Desperate for critical attention in the mainstream, but burdened with the kind of youthful writing that largely makes it impossible to take it seriously. Even worse, decades of marketing exclusively to boys have left games and games culture with a misogynistic hangover that can only be described as “problematic”.
Do I want to share my love of video games with my kids? Yes. Do I want them to become stereotypical hermit crabs locked in their room while their bodies are falling into puberty and trigger subreddits? Ideally No.
Sorry in advance for the exaggeration, but I’m having problems right now. Minecraft Problems.
The concept of “games as services” has exploded in recent years. Nowadays we don’t play games for a month or two, finish them and move on to the next one like in the “good old days”. No, now we’re going to pick a single game and play it for Years. League of Legends, Fourteen days, World of Warcraft… Minecraft.
This is the dark path my eldest son has taken. I am sorry to inform you that my 7YO has become a “Minecraft type”.
He. Habit. Stop. Play. Minecraft.
He won’t stop talk also about Minecraft. He’ll wake me at 6 a.m. with Nintendo Switch in hand to show me the armor that he’s carefully crafted or the house he just built. When he drives home from school in the car, he’ll spoil me with blow-by-blow reports of his graduation from creative to survival mode. Ask. Endless questions.
“Do you know how to make a pickaxe?” For sure.
“Do you know what a ‘biome’ is?” superior in order to?
“Do you know how to use Redstone circuits to create an autonomously powered structure?” Uh …
Minecraft is one of the situations for me “I don’t understand and at this point I’m too scared to ask”. Although I’ve written a lot of words about Minecraft and tacitly respect it as a platform for education and creativity, I have Not receive Minecraft. I don’t like “mining” and I don’t like “handicrafts”. It should never be.
My son who likes video games but goes into Minecraft is a shit about Monkey’s Paw. I wanted a real boy who would share my love of video games, but somehow I had a son who was obsessed with the type of video game that I – a grown man with a broken brain that vacillates on the brink of the Middle Ages – had no hope of understanding.
Should I try it I think so. At least that’s what my wife thinks …
Me: “I would do anything for my children. EVERYTHING.”
My wife: “Play Minecraft?”
Me: “No, not that.”
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But most likely I’ll force myself to understand Minecraft. Chances are that I will in the end teach me to reluctantly enjoy it. Maybe someday my son and I will share heartwarming adventures, maybe a role reversal in which he becomes a teacher and I a student. What an ironic turn of events. The soundtrack to our lives will go up, I will make my first piece of diamond armor and we will be the hordes of … what do you call these green guys? Creepers? Yes. Creepers.
“I love you son.”
“I love you dad.”
Or maybe I just leave it up to him. Why do I have to be involved at all? Typical stupid dad shit trying to pave the way for me to pursue his own hobbies.
The truth is, despite all my problems, Minecraft has already had a positive impact on my son’s life. I’ve seen him move from a seven-year-old who detested reading to a boy who was content to chew increasingly complex Minecraft guides he “borrowed” from the school library. He found some difficult processes and learned some real lessons about the benefits of self-study.
So I could complain, but I know I shouldn’t. It could be worse. Much worse.
He could play Fourteen days.