Minecraft has become one of the best-selling and most popular video games ever released, but is its content appropriate for 7-year olds?
In Europe the age rating is determined by PEGI, according to which Minecraft is rated 7+. This can be considered a first answer to our question, but let us discover more about Minecraft!
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What’s really enthralling about Minecraft is its sandbox style featuring building blocks in an open world, which can be explored and where children can craft items and create anything they want.
Minecraft also has several game modes, which let you choose between single player, local multiplayer and remote multiplayer [1]. This means that you can switch from a world generated on the device you only are playing on, to the two multiplayer mode, which can be hosted on either your own device or on a remote public server.
While the local multiplayer mode is relatively safe, as players are on the same network and probably in the same building, playing Minecraft on a public server can be dangerous, since that is where people who put at risk children’s safety target their victims.
Therefore, the basic single player mode or the local gameplay should be the default option for your kids, but if you are letting them play online, set up a child account, disable messaging and check out the server before they access it.
Image credit: code.org
However, as a game containing also a survival mode (on top of the creative and adventure modes), it often requires collaboration between players, allowing kids to develop teamwork and social skills [2]. For this reason, Minecraft is one of the best video games for learning, even used by schools as an education tool, thus representing a great opportunity for you children to learn how to code.
Author: Ludovica Maria Golia