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The Dopamine Slot Machine - Minecraft: We Love this Game!
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The Dopamine Slot Machine podcast, Andrew, a father of two and lifelong gamer, and Brandon, a consumer research psychologist and former professional video game coach, explores the influence of video games on children. This week’s episode delves into Minecraft, the globally popular block-building game that has captivated kids for over a decade.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:07
Andrew Wilmot
Good morning, good day, good evening. Whenever you are, or welcome to the Dopamine slot machine, the podcast that discusses what you need to know about the video games that your children are playing. How are they designed to get your kids hooked? And how do they make money from your children? And what you can do to make sure that your child's relationship with video games is a positive one. My name is Andrew. I'm a dad of two and a lifelong gamer.
00:00:28
Bdizzle
And I'm Brandon, a consumer research psychologist and an ex e-sports video game coach.
Focus on Minecraft
00:00:34
Andrew Wilmot
This week, we're covering Minecraft, the block building blockbuster that's been one of the top obsession amongst kids for well over a decade. So firstly, to be clear, we Minecraft is a franchise. We're talking about just Minecraft or Minecraft Java or Minecraft Bedrock Edition. We're not talking about Minecraft Dungeons. We're not talking about Minecraft Legends. We're not talking about Minecraft Story Mode.
00:00:56
Andrew Wilmot
Those are all separate games, spin-off games. We're talking about core Minecraft. So firstly, if you've never heard of or never seen Minecraft, what is it? it's it's It's a playground where you build things. You can build anything you want out of different types of blocks. You're sort of set on a and set in the wilderness and basically let loose. Do what you like. It actually has a couple of modes. So there's survival.
00:01:23
Andrew Wilmot
which has a bit more restrictions. you know you You need to eat depending what difficulty you've got it on. There might be monsters that show up and attack you at night. if If you want to make a wooden house, you're going to need to go chop down some trees. so Creative, the other main game mode, is much more like digital LEGO with an unlimited supply of blocks.
00:01:45
Andrew Wilmot
It can be either single player or multiplayer, so you can either just play it on your own, you can play it if you've got a console split screen, you can join a server, and in contrast with Roblox, which we spoke about last week, you pay once and then that's it, you own it. There are additional charges for things like Minecraft Realms, which is the easy way to spin up your own server that you then control, and there are microtransactions, which we'll get into later, but that's
Positive Experiences with Minecraft
00:02:16
Andrew Wilmot
the gist of it. So, Brandon and I have both played Minecraft, right? Minecraft first sort of appeared back when we were in school.
00:02:24
Bdizzle
I didn't play Minecraft until I was like, I must've been 17 or 18, Andrew. I was nearly out of school, nearly into trying to build my academic career actually. and But yeah, we we're both relatives.
00:02:35
Andrew Wilmot
What happened?
00:02:37
Bdizzle
I think we're familiar with it firsthand. So instead of, let's say Roblox, which is almost before our time, ah ah Minecraft was something that we grew up with. I think I even played the beta version when I was really young.
00:02:48
Bdizzle
I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember it being not as complicated as it is today.
00:02:54
Andrew Wilmot
Yep, it has grown over the years. I i think i I first played back in 2011, 2012, Which yeah, that's I would have been 16, 17. That's our audience able to guess our ages now from that. But unlike a lot of games, I actually do feel really positive about Minecraft, and right I think it's worth talking about to start off with the benefits of it.
00:03:20
Bdizzle
Yeah of course and um and I'd also like to say what a relief I'm glad we're covering ah ah something a little bit more positive because I think there's there's actually something quite unique about Minecraft in terms of where it sits in terms of the age ranges that it appeals to and but also what the gameplay loops actually are and in subsequent what you're potentially pumping hundreds of hours into and And I know Andrew, you you speak quite passionately about
Minecraft and Creativity
00:03:47
Bdizzle
some of these. ah you like to start us off in terms of your, where where should we start Andrew? Because there's quite a lot of them.
00:03:53
Andrew Wilmot
So let let's describe a little bit about the the gameplay itself. right So if you if you want to achieve anything in Minecraft, whether you're on survival or creative, you've got to plan what you want to do. And then you've got to go do it. There's not really a shortcut. there's you can't pay someone money you know You want to go build a house. You can't just have a box pop up page.
00:04:17
Andrew Wilmot
$5 to get your house instantly. There's nothing like that. Even in creative, you've got to go and lay down each one of those blocks. And if you're in survival, then you're talking about needing to go mine all the materials, craft, hence Minecraft, craft various items for it. And it's it's a whole sort of structure to it.
00:04:40
Bdizzle
So everything is an event and it takes, I guess, everything you have to put tenable effort into. And if you want to do a big project, it subsequently is reflected in the amount of effort. You've got to plan it, you've got to find the relevant materials that you need, you then need to build whatever structure you want to build. And as a platform for kind of fostering creativity alongside that, know in comparison to maybe openness, which is associated with creativity,
00:05:07
Bdizzle
that kind of concient conscientious okay this is what i want to do this is one what i want to achieve and minecraft just kind of beautifully combines those things in a lot of ways and what's important about fact that it not only combines them but the time scale so if you compare to a lot of our experiences on roadblocks if you look at the the drastic rise of fortnite and those dangers will have a another negative episode i'm sure down the line maybe is they're very very quick you have five to ten minute Burst of investment if it goes well whatever if it goes very very well massive reward network hit whereas with Minecraft it's slow arduous and and I think that's a far healthier form because it kind of reflects and how you kind of engage with things in the real way is that is I'm probably describing a job of minecraft has is a great mirror but just what the majority of work looks like in a lot of ways.
00:06:01
Andrew Wilmot
Yes, the children yearn for labour. They yearn for the mines.
00:06:04
Bdizzle
Well, they do, really do we were evolved.
00:06:06
Andrew Wilmot
But there's it's just true, I know.
00:06:09
Bdizzle
There's a reason why we can all psychologically survive it. We we evolved to find these types of environments engaging. And it's it's increasingly pleasant to see a game leverage those types of core mechanisms in us, all of us.
00:06:23
Bdizzle
in in in a kind of a healthy way, versus the leveraging, let's say, our need for immediate gratification in a negative way to suck hours out of our lives. So yeah, I've got quite a soft spot for Minecraft, to be honest with you, Andrew.
00:06:37
Andrew Wilmot
it's It's funny you touch on the social aspects of it as well. you know for I play Minecraft with our eldest. She's got Minecraft on her own device, which is very heavily time controlled and parental controlled.
00:06:51
Andrew Wilmot
But we've we've played it together, you know split screen. We've played on a specially set up multiplayer server, which her friends can access as well, so that they get some supervised sort of digital third space time. And the act of just putting an effort together to go build something together is is really cool. And she shows pride in that as well.
00:07:18
Bdizzle
Oh Andrew, I always feel like um I would get a bit blurry eyed when you talk about these little stories. um um and And I love that. i can't like It just sounds so healthy innately. And ah ah you know me, Andrew, ro I'm a bit of a cynical, negative thinker, but there's a ah ah lot of um almost exposure to the negative side of like life through that experience and you're sharing that.
00:07:40
Bdizzle
with your child and what what I'm talking to or talking about for those at home is that in Minecraft you can spend a lot of time let's say building something and something can go wrong you can die and lose the the all you've gathered x y and z so not only does it enable this collaboration for a goal it also enables this collaboration of risk of things not going wrong, of early exposure to failure and managing it in in a healthy way. And it's one of the reasons why I like Minecraft. It's one of the reasons why I exceptionally love the the fact that you've been playing it with your child, Andrew. like I wish I was a fly ah fly
Risks of Unsupervised Play
00:08:17
Bdizzle
on the wall. I'm sure its it would be a lovely viewing.
00:08:21
Andrew Wilmot
Well, at some point you should ah should hop on our tightly controlled private server where we know everybody who's joining and all the children involved are supervised.
00:08:32
Bdizzle
I'd say it's a good it's a good but tangent to maybe maybe some of the things that aren't so good about Minecraft. And again, a great comparison is our previous episode, Roblox, where you can actually have very, very direct restrictions in place that they just stop the likelihood of negative exposure.
00:08:52
Andrew Wilmot
So I actually titled in in my notes for this, rather than negatives, it's just things to be aware of. And yeah, online content, a for children if playing on online servers and they're not servers that are in your control, do you know who they are playing with? the There is a messaging function.
00:09:13
Andrew Wilmot
And you will encounter the term for it is grief, a grief for of somebody who gets enjoyment in a game, in a multiplayer game by setting out to ruin other people's experiences. So in Minecraft, that could look like you building a house, somebody comes along and demolishes it, blows it up just for the kicks of ruining your hard work. And that's the thing that, you know, you will come across on some of these online servers
Microtransactions in Minecraft
00:09:41
Andrew Wilmot
and There are parental controls but as with we as we see again and again with parental controls, even when they are good, it puts you in an arms race with your own child.
00:09:43
Bdizzle
but
00:09:55
Bdizzle
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Andrew. Because I would still say this is a negative to the platform, but it's very, very age dependent. moment you have, let's say, ah open exposure to one of these digital environments, the moment you include Community-based kind of sandboxing of servers and things have a tendency of becoming weird And potentially dangerous, but one thing that kind of sets minecraft apart is one the gameplay loops more positive longer form teaches basically the value of hard work and the reward from a long-term investment the negative being that
00:10:32
Bdizzle
If you had unrestricted access, you can still encounter these kind of unsavory environments. but So I do think that's a negative, but at least you're you're actually armed to deal with it. It's a problem you can engage with. You can have a completely offline environment if you like, for example. So maybe a bit too much on the negative side. I don't know what you think, Andrew, but I do think that's a negative of the platform if if you're not a particularly tech-savvy person.
00:10:57
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah, yeah, you know, and not everybody will have the love of skills and understanding that perhaps we take for granted. That certainly tech companies, they they don't just take it for granted, they actively exploit that differential in knowledge between parents and their own children.
00:11:18
Andrew Wilmot
But there is there is something negative, actually, that I do want to mention regarding Minecraft. And that's touched we touched on it earlier, and that is the microtransactions. So firstly, I have to say, I had to go look up how they structure the microtransactions, just because they are so unobtrusive.
00:11:39
Andrew Wilmot
to our experience of it, that we've just never engaged in it. to my My daughters never asked about it. You will see them like advertised on the front page, like, oh, there's a you know new set of skins with some promotional tie-in. And we will do an episode on microtransactions and all the pitfalls generally to be aware of with that. And we have touched on in the past the issues with obfuscation with digital currencies. And so Minecraft does do this. You don't pay in dollars or pounds for content in Minecraft. You buy mine coins, which are then used
00:12:18
Andrew Wilmot
on things in Minecraft. the sake of those who didn't listen to last week's episode where we touched on this in Roblox, can you explain a little bit about the problems that result from this multi-layered approach to digital currency?
00:12:35
Bdizzle
Yeah, of course. So it's just ah it's just the bread and butter technique of the industry where your brain is very, very used of assigning value to currency. So even if you're very, very young, 30 pounds is the half the cost of like a AAA modern video game. It's a certain amount of sweets, right? The moment you put it into a different context, a different environment,
00:12:58
Bdizzle
brains not as practiced at making intelligent decisions about that specific currency. On top of that, through this transactional process, what what these companies will do is they'll set up an architecture that actively ah ah encourages you to put more money in when you've put a certain amount of currency in. So if you want to buy something, you might put 10 pounds in. The thing that you want to buy is actually worth only eight pounds of currency, so now you've got two pounds left over.
00:13:27
Bdizzle
Well, that's a waste now. That's negative. So you're kind of actively incentivized of putting more money into the game after that as well. And again, all these features are best thought of. but They're not one person. Oh, this is a happy little accident. These are large teams of people designed to try to ah ah basically maximize their bottom line at any means necessary. And that's always something to keep in mind when thinking of what is the intent around some of these features.
00:13:56
Andrew Wilmot
When I talk to other parents about safety in video games, I do say that for me a real red line is microtransactions. But going back to microtransactions in Minecraft, the sort of things they've got are much more on the positive side. Yes, they do have some cosmetic packs where you can change how your character looks.
00:14:21
Andrew Wilmot
mostly it's stuff like custom levels, adventure packs, and one real crucial thing is there's no loot boxes, loot boxes being effectively a form of gambling where you buy something you don't know what's in it until after you've paid the money and opened it and inverted to commas, and so Look, I still don't think that microtransactions, particularly with that you know approach of having its own currency that you first have to buy, I don't think that's good for kids in any way.
00:14:52
Andrew Wilmot
But if you compare this to microtransactions in other games, and it's it's night and day,
00:14:53
Bdizzle
I agree. I do agree.
00:15:01
Bdizzle
Yeah, it's not comparable. It's not it's not comparable. It's not your cheap phone game. It's it's it's kind of it. I would even maybe go it's one of the least defenders.
00:15:14
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah.
00:15:14
Bdizzle
I can't think of many games that have that do include microtransactions. There's a lot of games that don't that are this inoffensive. And I get very irritated by these things, especially when they're companies that particularly target younger audiences.
00:15:30
Andrew Wilmot
So we I speak very highly about Minecraft, but we definitely experienced, when our eldest was first sort of introduced to it, some, I don't know if I want to call it compulsive behavior, but definitely difficulty pulling away
Minecraft's Educational Value
00:15:46
Andrew Wilmot
from it. as You know Minecraft, is that something that you're able to comment on?
00:15:52
Bdizzle
So like i can say I can say a lot of things, but I want to start with like a positive first. So I want you to imagine, you and your, in your case Andrew, your your son and daughter sat down and you decide to build a castle, maybe some of her other people are involved, her friends, whatever. you've got a group of six, seven people that align on a vision and then work together collaboratively to achieve it over a prolonged period of time.
00:16:19
Bdizzle
Now, are you describing a video game that very young children can engage with or are you describing a business meeting? Are you describing like a board meeting of a company, right? Exact same set of skills in a lot of ways. And I think there's so many advantages of bringing that into someone's environment at a young age. And I almost guarantee you in the future, we'll be able to draw like a really beautiful linear regression maybe across average salary and the type of games and hours that people put time into.
00:16:48
Bdizzle
which is a really scary of realization and this is already kind of happened with studies looking at let's say phone screen time social media use and academic grades right you just draw a linear regression between them and what i mean by that is the amount of time that you engage with a social media platform your grades go down and if you don't engage with it at all your grades go up.
00:17:09
Bdizzle
So I want to say that because I am very, very positive about Minecraft. But again, all roads lead to this is not like a happy by accident product. This is not like enjoying a piece of art where someone like saw something very pretty and spent hundreds of hours trying to create a perfect representation of it. This is Minecraft, like any games company, large teams of people. Every feature is focus grouped to death. You
Minecraft in the Attention Economy
00:17:33
Bdizzle
know, they would have aligned on the vision early and the as a byproduct of that is designed again to compete in this attention kind of economy where every product digital product is fighting for your attention and as a byproduct of that it is designed fundamentally to take as a much time away from you as possible and that's
00:17:54
Andrew Wilmot
I'm going to jump in there because, actually, I think Minecraft might be unique in this matter. So my Minecraft's been owned by Microsoft for a few years now. And I'm sure all of that applies. But it started life as a one-man indie game. And so the sort of core gameplay elements, you know the mining and the crafting,
00:18:16
Andrew Wilmot
all came from before it was so heavily monetized before these teams got involved. And you certainly see the influence of those teams with what's happened since Microsoft bought Minecraft. But perhaps a lot of the positivity comes from the fact that it did start off its life as a pure piece of art.
00:18:38
Bdizzle
This is a really interesting point. and I wonder if we'll see that in industry where these kind of titans that come from, let's say, more humble origins and are subsequently kind of tied to that, actually are more reluctant to deploy some of the methodology seen broader in the industry. It's an interesting point, Andrew.
00:18:57
Bdizzle
and and it's not And for the people at home, I really don't want to be all doom and gloom. It's more of a, that's just a really useful kind of thought experiment to understand why, one, we we need to be critical of these types of digital pieces of entertainment and ensure they're not encroaching on, you know, if you're my age, our personal lives or or your child's life.
00:19:19
Andrew Wilmot
OK, that's a really good point. I actually have a question and it's it's not about a specific
Managing Peer Pressure in Gaming
00:19:24
Andrew Wilmot
game. It's from Christian in Cambridge who asks, how should parents deal with peer pressure from other kids to play games that will rot their minds? Interesting verbiage there. But her I'll go'll go over to you first, Brandon.
00:19:41
Bdizzle
Well, it's very topical. I think we're increasingly culturally aware that these kind of digital environments are toxic. They're not good for us. We know when we're scrolling TikTok, this is not productive. It's not making you happy. It's just a way of filling time in a negative way.
00:19:58
Bdizzle
In regards to, it's quite a tough question. I always think kids are almost too bright to ever lie to. So as a broad piece of input, I would maybe say just make sure they're included in the conversation and maybe they can see that reflected in the world around them. What do you think Andrew?
00:20:17
Andrew Wilmot
I mean, firstly, it's worth mentioning that I'm not a parenting expert, and this isn't a parenting podcast. I'm just a gamer who also happens to be a parent just trying to do his best. But I completely agree. And that's the approach that we've taken. Now, my eldest, you know I talk about compulsive design, and you know she wouldn't particularly understand. But she can see her peers stood outside the school gates too busy in their phones to look up and speak with her. And she can see that and see that she doesn't want to be like that. And we can have some age age-appropriate conversations about why we say yes to some things and no to others, why we approve of Minecraft, but she's not going and playing Grand Theft Auto anytime soon. That's perhaps a fairly bad example. That one would just say that it's got some inappropriate content.
00:21:14
Andrew Wilmot
but Ultimately, you know let let's let's give a little call to action here. I would love to hear from any parents of teenagers, because ultimately my my daughter generally still thinks that I know a lot of things and I'm right on most things. We do disagree on some some aspects. But parents of children who have got to the age where they are convinced they know better, we would love to hear some of your takes on this question.
Listener Engagement
00:21:43
Andrew Wilmot
And don't forget that if you've got some questions for us, or if you or your children have been impacted by the issues we've discussed today, that you can get in touch with us on our website, thedopamineslotmachine.co.uk, or find us on the Dopamine Slot Machine Discussion Corner Facebook group. All links can be found in our artist's profile, and we would love to hear from you. Brandon, to wrap us up, what's your reading recommendation for this week?
Book Recommendation
00:22:06
Bdizzle
Oh, this one's very dear to my heart, Andrew, as you know, we've talked about it quite a lot. there's a book called Addiction by Design by Dr. Natasha Skoll. And this is a really fantastic breakdown of a lot of the mechanisms that casinos used basically to try to extract as much money from their their consumers as possible.
00:22:47
Andrew Wilmot
All right, thank you, Brandon. That's all we have time for today. Thank you so much for joining us.
Closing and Next Episode Teaser
00:22:52
Andrew Wilmot
We'd love to have you here with us again in next week's episode, where we're going to take our time going over microtransactions, the little purchases that can add up to a big problem. This has been the Dopamine Slop Machine. Thank you and see you soon.