While Microsoft’s Windows Phones may be a dying breed, that hasn’t stopped the company from staying loyal to the mobile platform.
Ever since Windows Phone died a slow and not-very-subtle death, Microsoft has put a considerable amount of effort into supporting Android and IOS. While app versions of Office software are great, it’s their continuing support of mobile gaming which is surprising.
Despite other platforms losing updates for Microsoft’s Minecraft, the company is still making sure that mobile gamers are kept up to date. Seven years on from its original release, Minecraft Pocket Edition is a strong iteration of the now iconic survival game. In 2018, it also saw its largest yearly revenue yet.
With the recent introduction of the game’s Bedrock Edition, an update that introduced crossplay across a wide range of platforms, Minecraft Pocket Edition is more popular than ever. With more crossplay allegedly in the works, this may be a new tactic for Microsoft.
In 2018, Microsoft brought in over $110 million in revenue from just mobile alone. With a base cost of $6.99 and additional DLC texture packs and skins, Minecraft Pocket Edition is going just as strong as it always has.
With consistent updates, new features and a focus on crossplay, Minecraft is arguably better than ever.
Even though the launch of Fortnite and PUBG on mobile hugely contributed to the battle royale frenzy last year, these free-to-play games didn’t really hurt Minecraft, one of the most popular paid games on iOS and Android. Indeed, according to new data from app analytics platform Sensor Tower (via Gameindustry.biz), 2018 was Minecraft’s most profitable year on mobile with the iOS and Android versions bringing more than $110 million in revenue for Microsoft (up 7% year over year).
Minecraft is a $6.99 purchase on iOS and Android, but there are also lots of in-app purchases to unlock skins and more. “The largest portion of spending in the game last year came from the United States, at 48 percent of the total or approximately $52.8 million. Great Britain’s $7.3 million (about 6.6 percent) was a distant second, while Japan ranked third for spending at 5 percent or approximately $5.5 million,” Sensor Tower’s report notes.
Microsoft’s immensely popular sandbox game hugely benefited from the launch of the new Bedrock version, which brought support for crossplay multiplayer across iOS, Android, Windows 10, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This is all done through Microsoft’s Xbox Live platform, which Microsoft wants to bring to more iOS, Android and Switch games with a new cross-platform XDK.
According to Sensor Tower, the mobile versions of Minecraft generated $500 million of revenue for Microsoft since 2014. That’s definitely not bad for a game with 91 million monthly active users on all platforms, but Fortnite has been doing even better for Epic Games. Earlier this month, Sensor Tower reportedthat Fortnite mobile revenue reached $500 million on iOS in less than a year.
We had been working for several weeks on a storytelling unit in my ESL classes in 2012. We had read and analysed short stories, examined the grammar of narrative tenses, looked into setting, character descriptions and developing plots. It was time to create our own stories.
Yet, one group was struggling for ideas. I needed to intervene. I suggested taking inspiration from a story they knew. What films had they watched recently? Were there any popular TV shows to use as a starting point?
“Or video games,” one student suggested.
“Why not?” I replied, and then someone popped the Minecraft question.
Fast forward a few weeks; Minecraft kept finding its way into my classroom. Oral presentations became screen-casted videos of student-created builds. Projects on natural environments were illustrated by the biomes in the game. We even had a recreation of a Sherlock Holmes tale made in the game!
Minecraft is a game with a vast online community. Its endless possibilities mean there is always something new to discover.
We then brought the game itself into class, using the now defunct MinecraftEDU with impressive results. How could a game featuring so little language drive this much language learning? In addition to the language generated by the students themselves in their projects, I found that a huge amount of English was being generated as students shared tips, accessed online guides and built a common understanding.
The game had given them a reason and a context, not only for using English, but also for activating 21st-century skills. Here are six examples of higher-order thinking skills my students developed while creating and playing games:
1. Collaboration
Minecraft is a game with a vast online community. Its endless possibilities mean there is always something new to discover. In my experience creating projects in Minecraft and running after-school clubs, expert players are always keen to help their novice peers learn the essential skills. This can occur with two players at the same workstation or with the class playing together on the same networked map. The novices raise their skills very quickly, uncovering ideas even the experts didn’t know.
After choosing Minecraft as an in-class resource, I found that not everyone knew how to play—including me! The solution was simple: I put the novices together, and we brainstormed questions about the game. Meanwhile, the experts prepared a rough survival guide. We then paired up, and the newbies learned gameplay tips and tricks, most of which was conducted in English. Suddenly, my English Language Learners (ELLs) had a reason to use all that language for advice and requests, explanations and asking for clarification.
2. Critical Thinking
Minecraft is truly an open-world game. When a player spawns to start a new game, the map stretches in all directions. Playing in survival mode, a new player is quickly required to learn the basics. They fail…and fail a great deal. However, each failure is a learning experience. If a player cannot build a base or find a light source before dark, or strays too far from their shelter, they respawn and try again. As they learn, they start to hypothesise, experiment, reflect and adjust. This process parallels that of scientific inquiry and encourages resilience and problem-solving skills to negotiate with an occasionally unforgiving digital world.
Minecraft generates excitement with each new discovery, whether a feature of the game or a gameplay idea.
Planning and reflection became a regular feature of our play. Before entering the game, students would outline their plans for the day—a great way to get them using the “going to” future tense and conditional form for hypotheses. At the end of class, we reviewed the plans and ideas to evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Students recorded these reflections on a Google Doc as a reference for the next time we played.
3. Initiative and Creativity
The harsh reality of the survival world forces players to come up with inventive ways to stay alive. I once witnessed an 11-year-old novice panic as night fell and his overly-ambitious base remained incomplete. Then, he simply encased his in-game character inside a wall of dirt. He had no room to move but also, as he pointed out, gave the mobs—computer-controlled enemies—no way to get to him. After waiting a few minutes for the in-game night to pass, he broke down his wall of dirt to resume his base building. This was not an idea he had been given by a fellow player, nor was it one he had seen online. It was simply one he invented when he had no other options.
Minecraft generates excitement with each new discovery, whether a feature of the game or a gameplay idea. That excitement was always communicated around my group very quickly and with a remarkable degree of fluency. And these discoveries were added to the student's Google Doc log so that descriptive or instructional language was captured and refined as necessary.
4. Digital Literacy
While players in a school environment can turn to each other for assistance and support, they may also visit the numerous Minecraft-dedicated wikis, blogs or YouTube channels for inspiration. This involves navigating search engines, identifying key ideas, evaluating and assessing the quality of information and adapting it to the player’s own unique game world context. Many students go on to create such guides themselves, learning how to edit wikis and take screenshots, or capture, narrate and edit in-game footage in the process.
Minecraft doesn’t feature much language . . . . However, that is the beauty of this game for language learners. The lack of in-game language creates opportunities for players to generate their own.
This resulted in several of my students engaging in lengthy and demanding composition tasks. One group of junior high students who were very reluctant writers took it upon themselves to create their own guide in the form of a blog. They pooled their experiences, conducted online research and ultimately created multiple gameplay guides in English. They even requested feedback from me and their peers, very keen to root out any grammatical errors.
5. Communication
As mentioned earlier, Minecraft doesn’t feature much language, aside from some incidental vocabulary specific to the game. However, that is the beauty of this game for language learners. The lack of in-game language creates opportunities for players to generate their own. There’s also a clear context and great motivation for engaging in higher-level language, even with monolingual groups.
Several years ago, I was working with teenage Turkish students who were huge fans of gaming. Once we introduced Minecraft to our learning program, I witnessed several reluctant readers pore over English-language handbooks and websites in pursuit of deeper knowledge of the game, translating to each other and pooling their linguistic resources to come to a common understanding of the text. Without the inspiration of the game, that would not have happened.
6. Productivity
The game world is vast, and the game itself has seemingly infinite possibilities. Minecraft is a great tool to encourage production and creation. While teacher-generated builds for specific learning purposes are great, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a student engage in a project with real gusto. Using their Minecraft skills to create something, they then use their language skills to describe it, demonstrate it, encourage others to try it and tell the story behind it.
Whether a recreation of a famous landmark, an original build in response to a classroom topic, or the setting for a narrative tale, nothing is more powerful than a project generated by the students’ own voices.
For more about using Minecraft with language learners, David Dodgson recommends the following resources:
Teaching Computer Science at school just got easier as Microsoft is making a 30-hour curriculum, targeted at students in the age range 11 to 16, available as a free download.
The curriculum is based on Minecraft Education Edition, a version that offers special features for educators, and Microsoft MakeCode, a block- and JavaScript-programming editor as means for teaching the basics of coding and computational thinking skills.
The course is comprised of 10 units with each focusing on specific computer science concepts and programming skills. Teaching all units and lessons will require approximately 30 hours of instruction, with each unit including 1-4 lessons of approximately 45-60 minutes each.
The lessons are comprised of activities that introduce core CS concepts and give hands-on coding experience, as well as a number of independent projects suitable for applying the newly gained skills, and assessments for testing the knowledge and skill development acquired.
Many kids are already familiar with the world of Minecraft since it's a very popular collaborative game in which characters survive by performing tasks such as chopping, hunting or mining.This curriculum requires students to understand the merits of writing code to automate such tasks using the core concepts of computational thinking.
So by the end of the course students are expected to be able to:
Change their Minecraft world through coding in Microsoft MakeCode.
Describe and apply the following programming concepts:
Synthesize the concepts in a new, creative ways through self-directed coding projects.
The curriculum is well structured and addresses the probable inexperience of teachers who have never taught computer science before but nevertheless want to incorporate the CS into their curriculum, regardless of their subject area.
For example the guidance, backed by the appropriate material, given to educators is as as clear cut as:
Introduce the concept of computer science
Ask students: What is computer science? Then share: · The study of what machines can do for us. · Includes learning how to create new software, solving computing problems, and inventing new ways to use technology. · A very large subject that can be difficult for even computer scientists to define.
Ask students: Why is it important? How does it help us? Then share: · It’s changing everything about the way we live and work. · It’s for everyone, not just for computer programmers. · It teaches important skills, like creativity, problem solving, critical and flexible thinking, and working with others. · Those skills and knowledge are important for successful jobs and careers.
or
Coding with Microsoft MakeCode
Ask students: What is coding? Then share: · Code gives instructions to a computer to do something. · A computer can be a laptop, tablet, smart phone, or any kind of computer. Even robots. · Coding and computer programming mean the same thing.
The Units in detail:
Unit 1: Introduction · Describe computer science and coding and its importance · Learn to play and maneuver in Minecraft: Education Edition · Understand block programming in Microsoft MakeCode · Change your Minecraft world through coding
Unit 2: Events Lesson A: Introduction to events Lesson B: Coding with events Lesson C: Linking events Lesson D: Get creative with events
Unit 3: Coordinates Lesson A: Introduction to coordinates Lesson B: Coding with coordinates Lesson C: Automating actions with coordinates Lesson D: Get creative with coordinates
Unit 4: Variables Lesson A: Introduction to variables Lesson B: Coding with variables Lesson C: Combining variables Lesson D: Get creative with variables
Unit 5: Conditionals Lesson A: Introduction to conditionals Lesson B: Coding with conditionals Lesson C: Debug problem code with conditionals Lesson D: Get creative with conditionals
Unit 6: Functions Lesson A: Introduction to functions Lesson B: Coding with functions Lesson C: Building on functions Lesson D: Get creative with functions
Unit 7: Iteration Lesson A: Introduction to iteration Lesson B: Coding with iteration Lesson C: Debugging with iteration Lesson D: Get creative with iteration
Unit 8: Arrays Lesson A: Introduction to arrays Lesson B: Coding with arrays Lesson C: Building on arrays Lesson D: Get creative with arrays
Unit 9: Artificial intelligence Lesson A: Introduction to artificial intelligence Lesson B: Coding an intelligent agent Lesson C: Get creative with artificial intelligence
Unit 10: Final independent project · Design an original creative project to program four tools for a survival backpack to help you in a Minecraft world · Demonstrate your learned coding skills and apply them in a new way · Validate your approach to the project, including beta testing and analysis of code to debug and problem solve
Of course, the most eye-catching of all has to be Unit 9 on Artificial Intelligence which introduces the concept of crafting programs that mimic human intelligence, but also revolves around the ethical questions surrounding it.Here students will be creating AI rules for winning a tic-tac-toe game as well as building Intelligent Agents who navigate mazes and chop wood on their own.
The final project is about creating several sub-projects which address the needs that your Agent is going to have to satisfy in order to survive the game, and which can be solved with code. For example, to satisfy your character's requirements for lots of paper you can code a sugar cane farm for him to harvest. Simiarly for building better tools you can code an iron-finder.
In all, this curriculum offers a first class opportunity for educators around the world to introduce their pupils to the concepts of computer science and critical thinking in order to prepare them for the workplace of the future.
A bug in Minecraft’s latest update has given players the ability to parkour.
This week’s snapshot update appears to have a bug that allows players to wall run.
Redditor NatalieZem posted a video of the bug in action (via Kotaku), explaining how this feat of athleticism is possible.
“Just for context, this isn’t a trick or a prank or anything. In the recent snapshot, you can’t jump while pressing against a block. And apparently not being able to raise your elevation also means you can’t lower it either. Try it for yourself: All you need to do is stay sprinting into the wall and you can move along it.”
A number of players are enjoying the unintended feature, and want to see it implemented properly in the game.
