My Son Got Me Addicted to Minecraft

It seems an apt time, after last week’s post, to talk about how my son got me addicted to Minecraft. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, even if you don’t play, it’s one of the most popular games around now, being available on pretty much every electronic gaming device out there (eg. PC, MAC, Linux, Android, Apple IOS, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox360, Xboxone, and even the WiiU).

Like so many others though, I’d never really considered playing it. It wasn’t the sort of game I’d played in the past, and what I’d seen of it (it’s just big square blocks) it didn’t look at all interesting. And so, when Jay first asked me to get it for him, I brushed him off saying I’d think about it. Which in Daddy Speak means “we’re not getting it”, and I tried to dissuade him from wanting it whilst I was “thinking about it”.

Not Long after though, he called me at work. Okay, I was having lunch, but it was during a work day. The purpose of his call was to ask me how to spell a certain Youtubers name, “stampylonghead”. Not knowing this person or the type of videos he made, I told Jay that I would have to look it up, and would let him know. After I checked out his videos and made sure they were appropriate, for a 5 year old that is (I didn’t tell him this of course). Like the responsible father I am, I thus went back to eating my lunch and forgot about it.

Shortly after he called again, where I told him that I hadn’t found it yet and would let him know shortly. This wasn’t a lie, without actually trying to find it I couldn’t have found it, could I? Anyway, I hurriedly did a search on YouTube and found the channel (it really wasn’t that hard to work out how to spell it), and checked out a couple of videos. They seemed okay and so I told Jay the spelling and he seemed happy enough.

Of course, when I got home, I was forced (as only a 5 year old can force) to watch several episodes of this guy (he’s a Pom but I try not to hold that against him) playing in his Minecraft world. The result being that it did convince me to at least download the demo on the PS3 and give it a try.

Shortly after, we bought the full version and have been playing it ever since. In fact, since then we have also got the PS4 version, the iPad version, and the PC version (this one primarily to play modded Minecraft). It’s now quite rare that we go a day, and certainly never a full week, without playing in one of our worlds. Some days we play in several different worlds on different systems.

And as I said last week, I even record some of my gameplay and post it on YouTube. If you’re interested in seeing how badly I play, check out the jeppoplays channel here and let me know how poorly I did.

I Guess the moral of this story is, “sometimes you should give things a try, even if they don’t at first appeal to you, you never know what fun experiences you’re missing out on if you don’t”.