2024-02-21 13:41:29
The game “Minecraft” has been extremely popular since the first moment it was born. Unlike many games that adopt the same style of play, Minecraft’s popularity continues to increase with the passage of days, like a snowball that grows with each passing day.
The popularity of Minecraft has pushed the game to the forefront of the gaming scene in various sectors and different ages. Just as this popularity attracts praise for the game, it has drawn the anger of many parents and educators because, as they describe, it wastes children’s time and develops violence and isolation in them, and it is a stigma attached to all games, whatever they are.
“Minecraft Education” came as a clear response provided by the company that developed the game – namely Microsoft At that time – on the accusations against the game, in a clear effort to clear the name of the game and confirm its uniqueness in the gaming arena. But have these efforts succeeded in removing stigma from the game?
A struggle rewarded with success
Minecraft’s journey began in 2009, when independent Swedish developer Markus Noch Persson launched his game with a simple graphical interface based on the Java programming language. In the beginning, the game did not enjoy this popularity, as its capabilities did not exceed a fraction of what it can do today, and “Notch” published the game on the forums of programmers and independent game developers, so its audience was limited.
Despite this limited audience, the first “Notch” game was admired by everyone who tried it, and in record time it was able to build a source of income that prompted the developer to resign from his permanent job and focus on developing the game and implementing the ideas he received from his fellow independent developers. As time passed, the first version of the game was released in 2011.
The success of Minecraft continued to grow as thousands of people from all over the world loved it, and thanks to the gameplay that relies on creativity first and allows everyone to develop different characters and characters within the world of Minecraft, the game has been able to transform into a unique phenomenon with thousands of players playing together at the same time.
In less than 3 years, Minecraft was able to attract the attention of the world, including of course the investment men at Microsoft who realized the huge future that the game had, which is the same future that prompted Microsoft to acquire it in 2014 for $2.5 billion, and make it joint ownership between the developer studio that built it. Notch is under the name Mojang, according to the Demand Sage website.
From that moment, Minecraft turned into the huge success we know today with hundreds of sub-games that take place in the same world, such as the story mode and the Telltale series of games, along with the education mode or Minecraft Education, which is the mode that Microsoft released in 2016.
Minecraft in 2009 when Marcus Persson launched it with a simple graphical interface based on the Java language (Getty)
Education provided by experts
Usually, when a game tries to provide an educational phase, it depends on the information that the game developer wants to convey to the players, such as what Ubisoft did with the recent “Assassin’s Creed” games, which include an exploratory historical phase in the ancient eras in which it takes place. the games.
But Microsoft had another vision, a vision enhanced by the unique playing style that Minecraft applies, as Microsoft left the task of education to education experts in more than 40 countries and 10,000 schools and educational institutions around the world.
The Code Monkey website stated that the game contains hundreds of pre-prepared educational programs developed by education experts in many different fields, such as the curriculum. Steam Which covers many basic sciences and dedicated curricula in languages, history, advanced sciences, and of course programming and various digital sciences, including learning experiences that take on the nature of cybersecurity in the third edition of the “Cyber Safe… Good Game” initiative, which aims to provide an appropriate educational environment to teach children about security. Cyber and the tools used in it, in addition to behaviors that facilitate the protection and appropriate education of children.
Of course, the pre-prepared educational programs aim to save teachers’ time and facilitate the educational process, so that they can devote themselves to evaluating the children and the homework tasks they obtain within the game. Thanks to the various tools provided by the game, educational bodies are able to access all the data and experiences that children are exposed to within the game.
A truly enjoyable learning experience
In an experience that emulates the unique game world, each tutorial takes place in a different in-game world. Through these worlds, children can play together in an experience that includes more than 30 children at the same time, and different goals can be set for each of the learners and monitor their achievement of these goals.
The experience of playing in Minecraft greatly enhances these endeavors, apart from the separate educational version, as the game provides a fertile environment for creativity and building sub-games and worlds that serve any goal that educational institutions seek to achieve, and perhaps this is the real reason behind the success of the game.
The number of players and users in the Minecraft Education game cannot be determined separately, as Microsoft does not provide separate numbers for the game and its experience. But among the 300 million players in 2023, the learning experience gets enough attention within the gaming world. If only 10% of its players are in the Education Edition of Minecraft, that means more than 30 million players connected simultaneously.
Access to Minecraft for Education requires obtaining a special copy of the game, but this is important for the school or educational institution, as it obtains its own license, and through this license, teachers, students, and parents can enter the game world, control it, and monitor their children within this world.
Minecraft for education requires a license so that teachers and parents can control it and monitor their children (social networking sites)
Have you succeeded in removing the stigma?
Minecraft for education does not receive enough publicity, although it is an important aspect of the game experience, but this same experience encourages children to be creative and build worlds on their own, so it can be said that Minecraft itself is a game intended for education.
Of course, the stigma attached to the world of gaming will not disappear easily, but Minecraft for Education is the biggest and only opportunity to remove this stigma and confirm that games, like individual tools, can be used for the benefit of education and have a positive role for users.
Minecraft for education will not stop performing its role, and perhaps the launch of the third initiative of the game “CyberSafe: Good Game” is the clearest evidence of this. Therefore, we may one day wake up to a world in which Minecraft becomes the most important tool in the educational journey for children of all ages.
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