4 ms·

I wish more people felt uncomfortable with such a close marriage between commerce and lower education. Get em while they're kids and you have a customer for lif

• RandomInteger4 10y ago
  Is that really the case though? I mean, I'm no longer a customer of Mavis Beacon, Mario Teaches Typing, and Dino Park Tycoon ...
  • SquareWheel 10y ago
    Dino Park Tycoon - now that takes me back. Would love to take a trip down that memory lane.
    • jalami 10y ago
      https://archive.org/details/msdos_Dinopark_Tycoon_1993 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Dinopark_Tycoon_1993
      • RandomInteger4 10y ago
        :O
      • SquareWheel 10y ago
        Wonderful, thanks for sharing. :)
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • tomc1985 10y ago
    It's more about breeding early comfort and familiarity with Microsoft software. It's the same tactic Apple and MS use in schools
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • whatshisface 10y ago
      Minecraft bears absolutely no interface similarity to any other Microsoft product. What you're saying happens and is already happening with the educational discounts on MS Office, but Minecraft doesn't contribute to that at all. I can see that it might be creating familiarity with the company name (or is it? what fraction of people distinguish between OEM, OS and software vendor?), but unlike gas stations and hotels I don't see software as a place where that matters a lot.
    • vvanders 10y ago
      Really? Minecraft existed long before Microsoft bought it. Quite a few people learned programming in Visual Basic and went on to have rich, diverse careers.
  • ekianjo 10y ago
    It worked pretty well for Microsoft though.
    • croon 10y ago
      Is that not a bit early? I mean, sure, it's 5 to 7 years old depending on your count, and it has quite a lot of toys, but "lifetime" seems a bit of a stretch. Star Wars has for sure stood the test of time, and I have no problem imagining Minecraft being Lego 2.0/Lego digital or something else entirely, but right now I see it merely as really great/pervasive product with some branding.
• Yen 10y ago
  I could potentially see a conflict if we were talking about a subscription-based or microtransaction-based game, but Minecraft is a one-time purchase. And, I expect, most of the kids who are super-excited about Minecraft already have a license anyway.
  • vidarh 10y ago
    Well, once per platform. Plus increasingly in-game purchases of texture packs etc.. Though Minecraft is still cheap and low on commercialisation compared to a lot of the "let's annoy them until they succumb and pay for more diamonds/gems/gold/tokens" games.
    • tehbeard 10y ago
      commercialisation of the primary product (the game in its various editions) maybe. Gotta wonder how much the merchandise (clothing, mugs, posters, toys, freaking lego sets) is earning them though.
• Yen 10y ago
  I could potentially see a conflict if we were talking about a subscription-based or microtransaction-based game, but Minecraft is a one-time purchase. And, I expect, most of the kids who are super-excited about Minecraft already have a license anyway.
• elecpronic 10y ago
  Yeah but Minecraft is perfectly suited for children entertainment. It's not Joe Kool selling cigarettes to kids, it's a video game about cubes.
• closeparen 10y ago
  What a dim view. More to the point, one that cuts both ways. Children playing outside are in the early stages of a physically and financially devastating addiction perpetrated by those monsters in the sporting goods and sports medicine industries. Before you know it, they'll be loading up Subarus full of REI snowboarding gear and burning gasoline in the direction of Tahoe. Keep your kids away from the outdoors, everyone, there lies capitalism! Children reading are merely a resource being ripened for exploitation by publishing companies, who have somehow duped the taxpayer into providing customers for them! Communicating with each other? Oh God, the horror.
  • closeparen 10y ago
    Even purely imaginative play in the backyard is how children come to desire backyards for their own children, and the suburban houses, mortgages, and cars that come with them. Public parks, well now you're just softening them up to support Big Government. Everything about childhood has commercial implications if you squint hard enough.
• dagw 10y ago
  On the other hand, if my daughter is anything to go by, they would play Minecraft no matter what. Might as well get some education in there while they are at it.