Pop Culture Thursday: I Hate You, Minecraft

I know it was dark and cloudy and cold out the first time my children mentioned Minecraft. Of course, all that means is that it happened between October 2012 and the middle of June 2013, but I think it might have been January. I made a mental note to check it out.

Which I promptly forgot, until I read an article about the creators in Time magazine. When it talked about teaching kids the basics of coding, I was sold. It sounded so much better than Mario Kart.

And I'm not just saying that because I'm terrible at Mario Kart.

Anyway, at some point this spring I got them Minecraft for their Kindles. They were delirious with joy. Half of Lovebug's playdates turned into two boys obsessing over Minecraft; the Wii wasn't even mentioned. Better still, Hugmonkey could play it too.

Then Hot Guy noticed how much they were talking about it. . . .and how much the rest of the world was talking about it. He had the bright idea to get it for the Xbox, so he could play it too and so they could all play it on a larger screen.

And that's just what my family has been doing with all their free time lately. There's no point in cutting the children off, because then they just watch their obsessed father play. I know that soon Hot Guy will get over it, as he's gotten over every other video game. . . .

The fact that he just announced he'll be playing this game "forever" was just a hyperbolic way of expressing how much he enjoys it, right? He doesn't mean that this is about to become our only family hobby? Right? Right?

I mean, when they're not playing it, they're discussing it. I believe the kids were even incorporating some elements into their game on the playground this morning. And guess what happened when it was time to leave the playground. . .no one got upset. They were totally cool with it. . .as long as they could play Minecraft when we got home.

And they keep saying, "Well, Mom, if you played you'd understand," and "You should try it, honey."
"It's so much better than other video games! It's so creative! It's the BEST GAME IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!"

Meanwhile, I'm over here having flashbacks to the Sims. In 1991, I think, I first played the Sims on my computer. This version of the game is so old that's it's not even mentioned on the Wikipedia page, but it was similar to the game played now - just a lot more basic. And I TOTALLY fell in love with it. So in love, in fact, that I resented it when I had to stop playing. I arranged my class schedule to maximize playing time, I think. I played the game instead of going out. It was awful. The only way I could quit was by going cold turkey.

I haven't played a creative video or computer game since. I'm afraid of what will happen to me if I start playing Minecraft. I'm slightly worried about my husband, but at least the kids have managed to move cheerfully between the game and real life.

So far.