‘We take it seriously’: Minecraft boss reassures parents over key concern

Minecraft: A Game That Keeps Growing

It’s been 15 years since Minecraft exploded onto children’s screens around the world, breaking records as one of the most popular video games in history. Now in its 15th year, the game has over 166 million monthly active players and has generated over billion dollars in revenue since it was invented.

Minecraft’s popularity has been largely attributed to its never-ending nature, which some say helps encourage kids’ creativity while others fear it promotes screen addiction.

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Jens Bergensten, the Chief Creative Officer at Mojang Studios who is known for leading the development of Minecraft, says when he started in 2010 they thought the game “had already peaked”.

“It had sold 700,000 copies by then, which was unthinkable for a small indie game, so the strategy was that we would use that money to create new games,” he says.

“But quite quickly it became clear that I could help with Minecraft and that there was no slowing down and it has just been growing and growing.”

As a father himself, Bergensten thinks the game’s popularity is largely due to being “a nice mixture of adventure and creativity”.

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“For children, what I see is the exploration and the adventure and always looking what’s behind the next hill and also building and being creative is part of the fun.

“It’s almost like you are creative just by playing and once you’ve built a house or a castle or something, you really feel proud about it and you want to show people.”

Bergensten says a big part of the game they are constantly upgrading is how players can share the experience with friends, something that makes a lot of parents nervous.

But Bergensten says they take children’s online safety “very seriously”.

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“Within all of Xbox and Microsoft systems, we have parental controls, we also make sure that we keep an eye on public chat that is going on, so that we can catch any early signs of any problems,” he says.

“It’s very important for us as we know there are so many people of all ages playing Minecraft.”

When asked how the game stays a step ahead of online predators, Bergensten is adamant the issue is not handled lightly.

“We take it seriously and we want to be best in class in regards to making sure that our players feel safe.”

Bergensten adds that as a dad himself, he lets his eight-year-old son play Minecraft knowing that he’ll be protected while on it.

He also says his son provides him with a real life understanding of how the game along with other video games affect his behaviour.

“When he plays different kinds of games, I try to interact with him after he’s played and see what’s his mood and how does he feel and I might be biased, but I feel that after playing Minecraft, he just seems much more happy and it was a two way interaction.”

Bergensten says it’s one of the few games he and his wife allow their son to play “as much as he wants” because it’s not addictive like some other games.

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“We want it to be engaging and I know there are a lot of games that are designed [so] that you should always feel that you need to return at a certain time to get the most rewards,” he says.

“But Minecraft should be more about when you want to play or when you have friends who want to play with you.”

Instead of working against parents, Minecraft has in fact moved into the teaching realm, helping students learn while they play.

Minecraft has now been adapted to teach students a range of subjects such as maths & geography.

Bergensten says the idea for Minecraft Education originally came from teachers.

“The education part of Minecraft started a while ago and was actually initiated by teachers who saw that they could use Minecraft as a way to engage students.”

He says it’s now being used to teach everything “from maths and geometry to geography, history, even chemistry and it’s being used here in Australia”.