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Microsoft Is Using ‘Minecraft’ To Design Its New Campus, And It’s Brilliant

by Stone Marshall | Nov 30, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

The decision reaffirms the company’s commitment to innovation, and it shows a level of loyalty that’s becoming rare in the tech world.

Recently, Microsoft has begun drawing up blueprints to expand their new, 500-acre headquarters in Redmond, Washington, which they expect to finish in 2022. However, instead of opting for a more traditional layout for their new campus, the company is looking to one of their most popular games, “Minecraft,” for architectural inspiration.

In “Minecraft,” whether in the single or multiplayer setting, users create various versions of livelihoods in different worlds, building objects such as homes, buildings, museums, farms and fictional structures like sky fortresses.

However, the level of creativity these designs can exhibit has caught the attention of people far removed from the world of video games. In response to its users’ inventiveness, “Minecraft” began creating modifications that gave players the leeway to create a greater variety of universes and lifestyles. These tweaks have given “Minecraft” fans a deeper challenge to be creative and implement new ideas in the their gaming world.

As you might expect, these player-created communities have generated a massive fandom within the “Minecraft” universe. And, in an effort to capitalize on this organic surge of interest, Microsoft saw an opportunity to create something authentic based off their own video game.

According to Jordan Novet, of CNBC, “Riku Pentikainen, who until recently was director of global workplace strategies inside Microsoft’s real estate and facilities group, saw his son playing Minecraft earlier this year and was intrigued by how the game could help the company with its transition. Employees could learn and get excited about the remodeling long before they could check it out on foot, and in a more dynamic way than what was available through typical renderings.”

Mojang, the company that created “Minecraft,” was purchased by Microsoft four years ago for $2.5 billion, and earlier this year, Microsoft promoted “Minecraft” boss Matt Booty. Booty’s prescient decision to sell to Microsoft at the right time has benefitted both parties immensely, as the game remains one of Microsoft’s best investments. In return, the company named Booty head of the company’s games studios.

Still, while the company certainly understood the cultural phenomenon that was “Minecraft,” they likely never expected to use the video game for anything in the real world. Microsoft, however, has long prided itself on its willingness to experiment with new ideas, so their decision to incorporate something new into their campus-creation process wasn’t wholly unexpected.

To channel this “Minecraft” creativity into their new headquarters, the company hired Blockworks, a business that uses “Minecraft” to create realistic projects, to help them formulate possible campus aesthetics. In addition to Microsoft, Blockworks has collaborated with companies such as Disney, Warner Bros. and the Museum of London. Using the game as an architectural compass gives the people of Blockworks the ability to quickly construct and propose ideas, an ability that even non-gamers can see the value in.

More details online: https://studybreaks.com/thoughts/microsoft-uses-of-minecraft-as-a-form-of-creativity/

Inside Xbox event will showcase updates to ‘Minecraft,’ ‘Sea of Thieves’

Xbox fans have a lot of news and announcements to look forward to this weekend — and a free copy of Crackdown to play right now — as Microsoft’s X018 event gets underway in Mexico City. Tomorrow at 4:00 PM EST, X018 will host a special two-hour live edition of its monthly Inside Xbox show.

Microsoft is gearing up for the holiday season by making announcements about some of its biggest games including Crackdown 3, Minecraft, Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2 and Forza Horizon 4. Several guests will also make appearances, such as head of Xbox Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Matt Booty and Minecraft studio head Helen Chiang. Also on the docket for tonight’s show is the announcement of over a dozen new games for Xbox Game Pass.

Fans can snag some in-game goodies for Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4 if they watch on the Xbox Mixer channel while logged into their Microsoft account. The broadcast can also be seen on Twitch, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Minecraft, mothers and sons all play in Theatre Replacement’s Mine

by Stone Marshall | Nov 29, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Theatre Replacement’s new production uses the computer game Minecraft to start inter-generational dialogue.

Mine
When: Nov. 14-17, various times

Where: Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, 6450 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby

Tickets and info: From $15, shadboltcentre.com

Theatre Replacement’s latest work Mine is what happens when a performing arts parent gets actively involved in their child’s play — in this case, creator Maiko B. Yamamoto becoming involved in playing Minecraft with her 11-year-old gamer son, Hokuto MacDuff.

Developed over the narratives the two discovered playing the popular video game, the play involves a group of inter-generational gamers/performers between the ages of 10 to 45 enact different stories built up around the game and also transposed into real world events. Or something like that, in this confused digital realm.

“The show was inspired by a conflict I was experiencing with my son who, at around age eight, was becoming completely obsessed with digital screens and the game Minecraft,” said Yamamoto.

“We limited his screen time as we’d been advised, but it was still really hard for him to leave and it became this kind of Grand Canyon rift between the two of us. It was really hard because I didn’t want to be the one taking away this thing he was really into, but zoning out and spending all your time in a digital world isn’t taking care of him either.”

The conflict grew and, in seeking solutions to it, the parents found MCKids Academy, which uses Minecraft for learning positive and safe experiences. For many younger people, the building process is more important than the survival aspect of the game and the creativity exercised in making things in the online environment can become a means to positive play. Eventually, Yamamoto accepted her son’s entreaties to play the game.

“And I was such a newb, could barely walk in a straight line and kept breaking things while he was an expert running circles around me asking what he could show me how to do,” she said.

“He was the expert, but I was still the parent, as he would ask me if he could bring home a dog before he “tamed” one or put his bed next to mine. Suddenly, there was a possible work of theatre coming about.”

Collaborating with game-savvy local theatre artists such as Hong Kong Exile’s Remy Siu and Conor Wylie, as well as a quartet of local gamer/performers ranging in age from 10 to 14, Mine was created. Yamamoto said that slowly the parent-child narrative develop between mothers and sons with an online lens of sorts.

“You watch a group of gamers between ages 10 and 45 enact different mother/son relationships through all of their various moments as well as try to navigate this whole new digital world that we are in,” she said.

“Hokuto is on stage with me and we’re navigating and the hardest thing for me is letting go, letting them/him become this confident human in this new world.”

Using stories ranging from Bambi’s opening between the mother and son to the heavy-handed prophecy of Terminator, the play exposes many sides to the parent-child dynamic. There are a lot of conversations about fears.

“The kids onstage are meant to appear like these gods who can do all these things while the parents are barely able to keep up with them,” she said. “And the wonderful thing is we are always playing the game too. If it’s night time, zombies and creatures will suddenly start wandering in and, in daytime, you have pigs and other animals presenting, it starts raining, odd things happen all the time.”

Mine is something of a huge, unstructured improvisation based around the game and it won’t play out the same each time. As to whether the makers of the game were pleased about it being used in the play, Yamamoto says they were.

“Ultimately, it’s a pretty Minecraft-positive show and we talked to lawyers who made it clear that many others are doing this and you really just need to say ‘this is not an official Minecraft product,’ and it isn’t,” she said.

“We’re not changing the game, we’re using it, and we’re a non-profit, so we aren’t making money on it either.”

But the real question to answer is did the research for the play turn the parent into an obsessive gamer like the child?

“Minecraft became a natural part of our conversation and I became able to see why it’s hard for him to leave at times,” she said.

“He’s in the middle of building a hotel and he needs to focus on it and his response is no different than my own when I go ‘not now I’m busy.’ So now I ask him first about what he is doing and how much time he needs, in the same way he does for me.”

Mine will touch different nerves in different age groups. Where younger players might just see vanquishing a zombie as what you do, parents could think that a child alone in a room obsessively killing characters could be a precursor to some American style school shooting outburst. There are multiple levels to the play and they are designed to foster discussion.

“Theatre Replacement is trying to create a show that adults and game age kids can watch together and then discuss,” she said.

“And they may likely have very different reactions to things taking place. We’ve been able to use our imaginations like never before with this, because you can do that with Minecraft.”

Mine is not an official Minecraft product nor is it affiliated with Mojang. It is touring to London and Cambridge in March 2019.

When Will Oculus Go Finally Get Minecraft? It’s Still Unclear

Yesterday, YouTube VR was released for Oculus Go. In his tweet about the release, Oculus CTO John Carmack stated that it was one of the two apps people always ask him about, and that there “is also some progress on the other one” – the other one almost certainly being Minecraft.

No upcoming Oculus Go game is anywhere near as anticipated as Minecraft. Minecraft is the highest selling 3D game ever, with over 150 million copies sold. It is available on almost all gaming platforms, with cross platform multiplayer between most of them.

The game is anticipated for Go not just due to its significance outside VR, but because it has been available on the Samsung Gear VR headset for over 2 years now. Gear VR runs the same Oculus mobile store as Go, so in theory porting should be easy. In fact, some YouTubers have even managed to sideload the game into the Go headset, though reportedly only singleplayer works.

Minecraft’s absence was noted at Go’s launch back in May. No statement was given at the time (by either Oculus or Microsoft) about the reason for the absence, a release date, or even if it was coming at all.

Minecraft Was Carmack’s “Quest”

Oculus CTO John Carmack was heavily involved in porting Minecraft to Gear VR back in 2016. Carmack worked directly with Mojang to provide both code and guidance. Facebook’s lawyers warned him that his work would become Microsoft’s property, but Carmack didn’t care – getting Minecraft on Gear VR had become his “quest”. In fact, Carmack went as far as to say that he “would have cried” if the deal hadn’t worked out.

Shortly before Minecraft’s release on Gear VR, Carmack called it “the best thing to come out on Oculus”, even going as far as to say all of Oculus, not just Gear VR.

First Hints Of A Go Port
Carmack first hinted that the game could be coming to Go in June, when he stated that it was “a high priority for sure”, but added the disclaimer that few Go owners would have a gamepad paired. This is relevant because the Go’s included controller does not have enough inputs for Minecraft.

The following month, Carmack hinted that progress was being made, and noted that he cared a lot about getting it:

From ‘If’ To ‘When’
When asked to list his favorite Go apps in September, Carmack ended his response with “When we get Minecraft running on Go it will be back in the list.”

This brings us back to yesterday’s tweet, where Carmack suggested “some progress” has been made.

What’s The Delay?
The Minecraft team have had a very busy year. While the Nintendo Switch version of the game was intended to ship last year, delays meant that it didn’t ship until June of this year. Additionally, the team have had to make fundamental changes to the graphics engine in preparation for the ‘Super Duper graphics pack’, a DLC which will add modern graphical features to the game. This too was intended to be released in 2017, but has been pushed back all the way to 2019.

The delays of these projects mean that a lower priority task such porting to Go may have been heavily deprioritised. With the Nintendo Switch version of the game shipped however and the graphics DLC hopefully shipping soon, Minecraft for Go may be next on the agenda, and this may be what Carmack was referring to in his latest Tweet.

We’ll keep you updated on any further news about Minecraft coming to Oculus Go.

Tagged with: john carmack, Minecraft, Oculus Go

Johannesburg school turns popular game Minecraft into a learning tool

by Stone Marshall | Nov 28, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Cell phones are slowly being integrated into the schooling system in South Africa.

Educational technologist at Educor, Bilal Kathrada says cellphones should be used as a learning tool instead of banning them out of the classroom as that will only get learners to find clever ways to bend the rules.

The popular game, Minecraft is now being used as an educational tool.

Tracy Heath of Brescia House School in Johannesburg explains how the game Minecraft is being used to improve learning in the classroom.

Read: ‘Don’t ban cellphones in schools, rather teach kids how to use them to learn’

Also Read: ‘Don’t ban cellphones in schools, rather teach kids how to use them to learn’

Most kids play it and they love it. And with this generation, we need to take what they love and turn into an educational experience.

— Tracy Heath, PS Senior Management Team and ICT teacher
So Microsoft bought the game and we run it as part of our educational system… They’ve turned the game into an educational app.

— Tracy Heath, PS Senior Management Team and ICT teacher
Most people will tell you that if you are playing a game and you having fun, there is part of your brain that gets stimulated which is active and not passive. You are not just sitting and getting stuff to you, you are engaging with the material.

— Tracy Heath, PS Senior Management Team and ICT teacher

Kamehameha schools ‘Minecraft’ program

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Kamehameha Schools has partnered with Microsoft on educational opportunities geared toward computer science.

One of the ways they’re doing it is through the popular video game, Minecraft.

The video game is being used as an educational tool for students to learn more about Native Hawaiian Issues.

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