Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know in Way over our Heads edition.
Speaker 2: The help Parents understand what their child is doing in
Speaker 2: their room all day Edition.
Speaker 1: I hope so, but I suspect that more than just
Speaker 1: parents are going to listen to this. And I've never
Speaker 1: been more nervous about what a group of eight year
Speaker 1: olds thinks of me than I am right now because
Speaker 1: I know too much about Minecraft, like I can go
Speaker 1: way too deep in it, But I also feel very
Speaker 1: clearly I don't know enough to not get hate mail
Speaker 1: for misspeaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would maybe not dig too deep on this one,
Speaker 2: because the deeper you go, the more you risk. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it's being mad for sure.
Speaker 1: But one of the key things about Minecraft is like
Speaker 1: it's nothing but rabbit holes. You look up one thing
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that leads to ten other things,
Speaker 1: and those ten other things lead twenty other things each.
Speaker 1: And it's so fascinating how complex and complicated this whole
Speaker 1: thing is, especially when you understand the actual mechanics of
Speaker 1: how these worlds are built, how they originate, how simple
Speaker 1: it is. It's just I love it. I love Minecraft
Speaker 1: a lot. If I didn't get addicted to things that
Speaker 1: I like, I would probably start playing Minecraft. But I
Speaker 1: know that that would ruin my life.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you're addicted to podcasting with me.
Speaker 1: I totally am. I can't get enough of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if that wasn't clear all that that
Speaker 2: we just said, like this is officially a CoA, like
Speaker 2: this will be a broad overview of a very very
Speaker 2: very dense game that neither one of us play. So
Speaker 2: we're gonna get stuff wrong. We're not going to dive
Speaker 2: into things you want us to dive into. So just
Speaker 2: an email disappointed. Yeah, Like, I can't believe you didn't
Speaker 2: mention blank, like just say it. And thanks to Ruby
Speaker 2: we got a little help.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I sent some questions last night that I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: will Pepper in it if they apply?
Speaker 1: For sure? Yeah, there was a few things that I
Speaker 1: just couldn't nail down, and I was like, oh that
Speaker 1: Ruby knows this, and sure enough she did.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well maybe, I mean she doesn't really play anymore.
Speaker 1: She played.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of glad about this. Like Minecraft is a
Speaker 2: wonderful game, and we're going we'll go over the benefits
Speaker 2: of it, because there are many compared to most video games,
Speaker 2: but it's also a game, and we'll go over the pitfalls.
Speaker 2: It's also a game that can really get under your
Speaker 2: skin as a kid and as an adult. I guess.
Speaker 2: But what it's not great if you're a kid and
Speaker 2: you have other things like schooling to do, if you
Speaker 2: have a kid that's super super super super into it,
Speaker 2: and she never got that into it. She really enjoyed it,
Speaker 2: but she's a kind of kid if like you take
Speaker 2: it away or for go away for a minute, she says, like, what,
Speaker 2: all right, I'll just do something else, which is he's
Speaker 2: just good.
Speaker 1: She's not gonna give you the satisfaction of pun.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, honestly, think she just forgets oh cool,
Speaker 2: because she was all into the Roadblocks game, which is
Speaker 2: a whole other kind of game, and like really into it.
Speaker 2: And as a punishment for something, we we wiped it
Speaker 2: off her iPad along with everything else except for music.
Speaker 1: Like were you yelling when you did it?
Speaker 2: No, But we just cleaned the iPad free of everything
Speaker 2: except for podcast and music and it's like the next
Speaker 2: day she was like, oh, all right, whatever.
Speaker 1: That reminds me. Do you remember Doctor Katz, the nineties
Speaker 1: cartoon with the squiggly lines.
Speaker 2: Of course, it loved cats.
Speaker 1: And Don Morrera was a regular on that. Man here
Speaker 1: was a great Yeah, he is great. He was talking
Speaker 1: about how cats just never give you the satisfaction of like,
Speaker 1: no matter what you do to him, they're not going
Speaker 1: to let on that you've bothered them. So, like he
Speaker 1: gave the example of throwing a cat through the air,
Speaker 1: the cat would be like, thanks, my man, I wanted
Speaker 1: to go this way anyway.
Speaker 2: Well into cats too, So maybe that's it. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: she's part cat.
Speaker 1: There you go. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2: Maybe, so that's fine, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So I think we should give a little bit of
Speaker 1: background on Minecraft for people who don't know what Minecraft is. Surely,
Speaker 1: I mean, at the very least most people walking around
Speaker 1: know that it's a very, very very popular video.
Speaker 2: Game, right yeah, I mean I think so, And we'll
Speaker 2: get into the history. But at its base, it is
Speaker 2: a you know, if you look at it, it goes
Speaker 2: counter to a lot of like the way it got
Speaker 2: popular is just almost astounding in some ways, because it
Speaker 2: goes counter to most video games these days, which try
Speaker 2: to make things very very real looking, and Minecraft is
Speaker 2: very blocky and pixelated, an old school and it's sort
Speaker 2: of like an interactive lego game. It's called the sandbox game,
Speaker 2: where you can just go around and and build things
Speaker 2: you mind, things to craft with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the point. And there's plenty of
Speaker 1: things to do. Like it's not like they're like nothing happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like like you can because there are so few rules,
Speaker 1: because there's no real point to it. There's not like
Speaker 1: a game that you like want to win or conquer
Speaker 1: anything like that. Like, it's essentially up to the limits
Speaker 1: of your imagination what you do in this amazing blocky world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And despite those blocks, despite the fact that there
Speaker 2: is no real plot, it is the best selling PC
Speaker 2: game of all time, second to Tetris as the biggest
Speaker 2: video game in Tetris. By the way, that's coming. We
Speaker 2: need to do that's got a great story to it. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we need to do one of those. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's one of the all time giants. And it
Speaker 2: was created by a not very good dude named Marcus
Speaker 2: with a K Person of Sweden aka Notch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was a coder from wayback, like he
Speaker 1: taught himself on a Commodore one twenty eight, which came
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty five. I'm not quite sure how
Speaker 1: old he was when he was working on it, but
Speaker 1: just suffice to say, like that's like you really had
Speaker 1: to understand code to code with one of those things. Right,
Speaker 1: So he was like a game developer, a coder from
Speaker 1: from the outset essentially, And he got a couple jobs
Speaker 1: at some of the big game companies in Sweden, and
Speaker 1: he was working at one of them, I think it
Speaker 1: was King dot com when he was inspired to kind
Speaker 1: of create his own game. And he was playing a
Speaker 1: game called Infinna Minor, Right am I saying that? Right?
Speaker 1: Like Infinity Minor but without the tea part. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: And essentially you mine resources and you build stuff with
Speaker 1: these blocks that you mine. It's a mining game essentially.
Speaker 1: Sounds very familiar, and he's not like shy about saying
Speaker 1: like this was a copy, a spoof basically of Infinom Minor,
Speaker 1: but it was also inspired by some other games, like
Speaker 1: one called Dwarf Fortress, which is really simple, but the
Speaker 1: all of the characters involved in all of the non
Speaker 1: player characters kind of have their own drive and decisions,
Speaker 1: so a lot of random stuff can happen in there.
Speaker 1: And then also roller coaster Tycoon, where you could just
Speaker 1: build your own well roller coasters. So if you put
Speaker 1: all those three things together, you have kind of the
Speaker 1: rough outlines of Minecraft, which he really started releasing I
Speaker 1: think in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I you know, I went down a twenty
Speaker 2: second rabbit hole of because once I looked up in
Speaker 2: Phenomnor and I was like, wait a minute, did he
Speaker 2: just like literally kind of steal that game? And that
Speaker 2: is a rabbit hole that I was loath to go
Speaker 2: down because I found myself on Reddit and it's just
Speaker 2: like it's very contentious of people who are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he totally stole that game and ripped it off, and
Speaker 2: people are like, no, he didn't. He was inspired by
Speaker 2: So I'm not wading into that argument. Probably you can
Speaker 2: make up your own mind about that, right, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, However, however it came out, he released it in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine and people just dug on it
Speaker 1: very very quickly.
Speaker 2: I think that was the alpha version. Yeah, the beta
Speaker 2: version main release.
Speaker 1: No the and he was like, he just put the
Speaker 1: word out there, and I think he actually started charging
Speaker 1: people thirteen dollars for just to play the alpha version.
Speaker 1: But he was also getting offs of feedback and like
Speaker 1: blogging about it and everything. The whole thing was his
Speaker 1: side gig, and but little by little it kind of
Speaker 1: moved his main gig, like alf to the side itself,
Speaker 1: and then until it was like I can actually support
Speaker 1: myself with Minecraft. I'm quitting my day job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which finally in twenty ten, he founded the company
Speaker 2: Swedish for gadget. It's Mojang moj Ang almost a g
Speaker 2: with a couple of coworkers name And here's where I
Speaker 2: don't know whether to say Jacob or Yakub.
Speaker 1: It's it's not Yakub or Jacob is Jacob.
Speaker 2: It's Papioma.
Speaker 1: No, it really is Jacob. What was wrong with Pepioma?
Speaker 1: I didn't read that email closely enough.
Speaker 2: It's Papaloma. Oh, and I knew that, and I heard
Speaker 2: you saying it. But I was just like, I guess
Speaker 2: you know something I don't know because that was such
Speaker 2: a wild stab. I just figured you were ahead of me.
Speaker 1: You just found it so enchanting anyway.
Speaker 2: You said it is yakub I forgot already h JOCKI, Jacob,
Speaker 2: Jacob Porcer and Karl MANA M A N N e H.
Speaker 2: They hired some people, they had a gaming company all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, and the beta version came out not
Speaker 2: too long after, and they went over a six month
Speaker 2: period at the beginning of twenty eleven to July of
Speaker 2: that year. They went from a million players to ten
Speaker 2: million in that short time. I'm officially launching in November
Speaker 2: twenty eleven at mine Con, which was it's still an
Speaker 2: ongoing event. I think they do it online now, but
Speaker 2: for a while it was a live event in Vegas
Speaker 2: called Minecraft Live.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they held the twenty fifteen one in
Speaker 1: London and it set the record for the largest attendance
Speaker 1: of any convention in the history of humanity.
Speaker 2: I think it's big stuff, everybody.
Speaker 1: It's huge. I mean, it is enormous. I didn't see
Speaker 1: any statistics on what percentage of the world plays it,
Speaker 1: but I did see that at any point in time
Speaker 1: there's as many as like thirty forty fifty million people
Speaker 1: playing it at the same time, not necessarily altogether, because
Speaker 1: as we'll see there's different ways to play it by
Speaker 1: yourself or with other people. But if you just were
Speaker 1: able to zoom out and look at what everybody in
Speaker 1: the world's doing, thirty million of them would be playing
Speaker 1: Minecraft at that moment.
Speaker 2: Oh boy. So starting in twenty eleven, there was a
Speaker 2: man named or and still is name Yen's Jeb Bergenston
Speaker 2: as lead designer. Watched a few interviews with this guys.
Speaker 2: It's definitely YenS, but it's also Jeb and not Yeb.
Speaker 2: It's getting very confusing. Notch stayed on on the Minecraft team,
Speaker 2: but you know, it was basically sort of letting YenS
Speaker 2: run the show. It seems like as far as being
Speaker 2: in the weeds he was developing other games, Notch was
Speaker 2: and you know, kind of live in the high life
Speaker 2: because he got very wealthy, very quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the first things he did was by
Speaker 1: himself a Fedora, which became kind of like a trademark
Speaker 1: look for him. Sure, and he started just basically join
Speaker 1: the international party set. It was like, how much how
Speaker 1: much money does it cost to get in here? They're like,
Speaker 1: you've got you've got enough, come on in, so well
Speaker 1: it exactly right. So he kind of got I got
Speaker 1: the impression that he was not just distracted by this
Speaker 1: newfound wealth and all the stuff you could do with it,
Speaker 1: but that he was not really interested in seeing a
Speaker 1: game like becoming a massive, globally dominating blockbuster and all
Speaker 1: the work that takes and coordination and all that. He
Speaker 1: was more interested in developing games. So he stepped away,
Speaker 1: like you said, and handed it over to Jeb. And
Speaker 1: then when Microsoft came a call in twenty fourteen, apparently
Speaker 1: not tweeted, who does anybody want to buy my share
Speaker 1: of Mojang because I'm ready to move on with my life.
Speaker 1: Apparently like all these companies were like, uh yeah, we
Speaker 1: totally will supposedly set up that Microsoft deal for two
Speaker 1: and a half billion, and at that point he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm completely gone now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Forbes had him as of like last week at
Speaker 2: about a one point two billion dollar net worth, and
Speaker 2: that seems pretty reliable, not like the stupid Sealle network rights.
Speaker 1: Not too shabby for somebody who wears a fedora in public.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and he you know, he stayed sort of
Speaker 2: associated with the game in the company for a long
Speaker 2: time even after the Microsoft purchase, well not that long
Speaker 2: about five years ish when they basically stopped referencing him
Speaker 2: on the loading page in twenty nineteen, stopped inviting him
Speaker 2: to their Minecraft parties, like their tenth anniversary anniversary celebration. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 2: he started letting everyone know his thoughts about QAnon and
Speaker 2: far right wing politics and homophobic things and transphobic things
Speaker 2: and sexist and misogynist things. It was sort of the
Speaker 2: greatest hits of that kind of guy. And he went
Speaker 2: public with all of it and issued some pretty lame
Speaker 2: apologies for some of it. But yeah, so that's what happened,
Speaker 2: and that's who he is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Minecraft just kept going on without him, And
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, like when Jeb took over,
Speaker 1: is he still the lead game designer, like essentially the showrunner.
Speaker 2: From But I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he is.
Speaker 1: Like it, even if he stopped, like a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, that game really flourished under his oversight. Like
Speaker 1: he he's really creative. Also, really, and I think Natch
Speaker 1: was willing to do this too, but Jeb was or
Speaker 1: is really willing to be. Like, Hey, some player, some
Speaker 1: random person somewhere came up with this amazing invention we're
Speaker 1: going to actually release it as an update or add
Speaker 1: on or something to the game like there, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's a really creative, flourishing game still because of
Speaker 1: that guy, from what I can tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So there are three modes, and this is
Speaker 2: the regular unmoded version, because as you'll learn, you can
Speaker 2: modify it in all kinds of you know, creative kind
Speaker 2: of ways or vanilla mode. But if you're playing just
Speaker 2: that regular version that my daughter plays on the PlayStation,
Speaker 2: you can play in survival mode, hardcore mode, or creative mode.
Speaker 1: Right. So survival mode is like the kind of like
Speaker 1: the where the game part comes in, Like you can
Speaker 1: actually die. So you're doing all of the interesting stuff
Speaker 1: that you do in Minecraft that will you know, talk
Speaker 1: about more extensively. But there's zombies attacking you, or there's
Speaker 1: creepers coming up and blowing themselves up and hurting you,
Speaker 1: or you can drown underwater, fall off a cliff, and
Speaker 1: when that happens, all of the stuff that you've gathered
Speaker 1: that make up what's called your inventory, all the things
Speaker 1: you can use to make other stuff, all the stuff
Speaker 1: you've made out of other things already that you want
Speaker 1: to use to like extend your life or jump high
Speaker 1: or whatever. You lose all that it actually stays in
Speaker 1: the location that you died at in Minecraft World, and
Speaker 1: but you are teleported back to either where you started
Speaker 1: the game or your bed if you've made yourself a bed,
Speaker 1: and I saw that if you can get there within
Speaker 1: five like our reality minutes five minutes in our reality,
Speaker 1: you can go pick up your stuff again, but it
Speaker 1: can be very hard to do if you're really far
Speaker 1: away from your bed.
Speaker 2: That's right. And what happens is you start basically with nothing.
Speaker 2: If you're a parent, you've wandered through and it looks
Speaker 2: like what is that blocky pixelated thing like punching everything
Speaker 2: for that's the gameplay. You start with nothing, and you
Speaker 2: basically go at the very beginning and you punch a
Speaker 2: tree to get some wood. And what you're doing is,
Speaker 2: you know, you're getting resources to build stuff, so you
Speaker 2: just keep punching and diggings things and finding new things
Speaker 2: and then and transforming them into i mean all kinds
Speaker 2: of things from you know, farms to animals to buildings
Speaker 2: and oceans and rivers, and you know you're building, you're
Speaker 2: literally building your world as you go in all the modes.
Speaker 2: From what I can tell you, got hardcore mode is next.
Speaker 2: But if you die, like the game is over, which
Speaker 2: is kind of a bummer.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, because I mean, like, you can get
Speaker 1: really far and develop a lot of stuff. So when
Speaker 1: you're walking around like punching stuff, like punching a tree,
Speaker 1: you're punching a tree to get wood. And when you
Speaker 1: collect some wood, you can actually turn it into say, lumber,
Speaker 1: and if you combine that lumber with something else you've
Speaker 1: gotten I don't remember why, I think wool from a sheep. Sure,
Speaker 1: put it together. You build yourself a bed. It's one
Speaker 1: of the first things you're supposed to do it. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to build a shelter and make a bed in your shelter.
Speaker 1: And the reason why you want to make a bed
Speaker 1: is because if you die in survival mode, you basically
Speaker 1: it's called respawning. You wake up, you're teleported back in
Speaker 1: your bed to start over. The problem is all that
Speaker 1: stuff that you've accumulated, all the lumber and all the wool,
Speaker 1: and all the things that you can make. By combining
Speaker 1: those things, they make up what's called your inventory. And
Speaker 1: your inventory can get pretty extensive. The longer you stay
Speaker 1: alive and play and do stuff in the in the
Speaker 1: Minecraft world, and you lose all that stuff, it's gone.
Speaker 1: It's actually physically in the Minecraft world where you died,
Speaker 1: and if you could make it over there in time
Speaker 1: after you respawn, you could pick that stuff up. But
Speaker 1: it can be really hard if you're really far away.
Speaker 1: And then with hard core mode, like all that's just
Speaker 1: gone forever, you have to start the game over completely.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I know that that's true is
Speaker 1: because Ruby answered that question.
Speaker 2: That was actually the funniest answer, because you said, hey,
Speaker 2: if you die in hardcore mode, is like, is that
Speaker 2: it is everything gone that you've ever built? And she said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hardcore Josh. She doesn't play that mode, though she
Speaker 2: plays the third mode almost exclusively. I think when she plays,
Speaker 2: which is Creative Mode. And this is the super cute
Speaker 2: fun one that when you see your you know, seven
Speaker 2: and eight, your old daughter playing, you're like, this is
Speaker 2: the greatest game ever. Because I sat down with her
Speaker 2: one day and watched and she's just like, oh, look,
Speaker 2: this is my farm, and this is my garden, and
Speaker 2: these are my sheep, this is my animal pin and
Speaker 2: this is my house, and look, I've got a pool
Speaker 2: on the top floor and I've got a deck and
Speaker 2: it's just really creative and super sweet and fun. You
Speaker 2: can fly and creative mode, like if you want to
Speaker 2: get up to the top of your thing, you can
Speaker 2: fly up there. And the best thing is you can't
Speaker 2: be harmed. There's no zombie coming to kill you. No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just do fun stuff like you said farm,
Speaker 1: and it's not like, oh, I built a farm and
Speaker 1: now this farm's running. Like you build the farm and
Speaker 1: then you have to operate the farm to keep it going.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's just amazing and neat all the stuff
Speaker 1: that you can do in this game. It's just crazy.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about some of the just the mind
Speaker 1: boggling stuff that people make. But one of the cool
Speaker 1: things about it is you can build this world by yourself,
Speaker 1: or you can work with others, play with others people
Speaker 1: in your house using a local area network, or there's
Speaker 1: Minecraft servers to where you're building a world together, and
Speaker 1: like other people can come in and walk around your
Speaker 1: world and hang out with you and sometimes mess with
Speaker 1: you in your world too, because it's a giant shared world.
Speaker 1: Whereas there's also another version which I ticket Ruby was playing,
Speaker 1: where that is like that's your world. Nobody else can
Speaker 1: come in because it's just on that one computer. It's
Speaker 1: not being shared with the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we just didn't know enough about it and
Speaker 2: said that's the only version you can play, because the
Speaker 2: last thing I wanted was some you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to meeting those people. So I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's a lot of fun that can be had on
Speaker 2: those you know, multiplayer private server games. I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: great in most ways. There are some very cool versions
Speaker 2: of that. There's one called Pixel Mindcraft where they have
Speaker 2: recreated the gameplay of Pokemon within the Minecraft world, which
Speaker 2: is super cool. Yeah, and some of these are like
Speaker 2: full on companies. Olivia found this boy, God blessed Livia
Speaker 2: for the breadth of things that she helps us with. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure, it's like, how about philosophy and then Minecraft.
Speaker 2: But there's one called high Pixel, which has like forty
Speaker 2: developers on staff and got bought themselves by Riot Games,
Speaker 2: one of the big companies in twenty twenty. And you know,
Speaker 2: these are all just modifying this game that was so
Speaker 2: popular already. It's really, really kind of nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say a cottage industry has grown up
Speaker 1: around it. About like fifty different cottage industries have grown
Speaker 1: up around it, with a bunch of different companies in
Speaker 1: each that high pixel. To give you an example, they
Speaker 1: make like games you can play in the Minecraft world.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, like there's one called Skyblock where you start out
Speaker 1: on just a little patch of ground floating in the
Speaker 1: sky with a single tree and a couple of resources,
Speaker 1: and you have to build your way out of that.
Speaker 1: You have to expand it with way more limited resources
Speaker 1: than you would get normally. There's a one called bed Wars,
Speaker 1: where your point is to like destroy your friend's bed
Speaker 1: so that they can't they can't respawn in their bed again.
Speaker 1: They have to go back to where they started the game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fun stuff, but that's on their server and they
Speaker 1: they modified Minecraft, and the makers of Minecraft mojang don't
Speaker 1: sue those people because you put it all together and
Speaker 1: it's this it's almost like the Wikipedia of games, where
Speaker 1: the entire world has collaborated on making this amazing game
Speaker 1: that is Minecraft.
Speaker 2: I wonder if because he so heavily borrowed let's say,
Speaker 2: from Infinity Minor or infinite minor. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe I'll just sit back and be super wealthy and
Speaker 2: not worry about these people that are doing this stuff. Maybe.
Speaker 1: But also the mind boggling thing is now Microsoft owns
Speaker 1: it and they don't sue other yeah created points. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nuts. There's some them we're going on here. Man.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's take a break and we'll be
Speaker 2: right back to talk about who the heck is playing
Speaker 2: this game and more about the world right after this.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of video games where you pay
Speaker 2: monthly subscription fees. Sometimes you'll like buy the game but
Speaker 2: then also subscribe monthly to get extra stuff or whatever,
Speaker 2: new editions of the game, things like that. But Minecraft
Speaker 2: has always been pretty great in that you buy the
Speaker 2: game and that's it. You own the game. The game
Speaker 2: is updated for free, the updates just roll out. A
Speaker 2: lot of games do that as well. It's not the
Speaker 2: only one, but it was sort of the core business model,
Speaker 2: which is you buy this game, and whether it's a
Speaker 2: PC or PlayStation or whatever, and that's your game for forever.
Speaker 2: You've got that Minecraft game, and kids can grow into
Speaker 2: adulthood like playing the same game that you, you know, insert
Speaker 2: the disc into the player.
Speaker 1: Right, So there are other there's like in game purchases
Speaker 1: and add ons and stuff you can buy. I think
Speaker 1: the big hubbub that I picked up on is that
Speaker 1: a SpongeBob bikini bottom biome is coming along, I think
Speaker 1: in August, so you can play it by Bob and yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's gonna be pretty cool. There's other
Speaker 1: like things called textures, which take this the very standard
Speaker 1: like recognizable Minecraft look and do all sorts of things
Speaker 1: to it. Some make it way smoother, some add different
Speaker 1: kinds of shading. There's one called pastel that changes the
Speaker 1: color palette and makes it much pinker and happier. There's
Speaker 1: just a ton of stuff you can get. An add
Speaker 1: on that like is you're it's a mansion, Like you
Speaker 1: don't have to build yourself. It's just now you can
Speaker 1: buy a mansion rather than build. It seems counterintuited over
Speaker 1: counter against the point, I guess, but I'm sure some
Speaker 1: kids are like, I just want to buy the mansion
Speaker 1: in Farm instead. I don't want to waste my time
Speaker 1: building my mansion. You're rabbit holing, sorry, but yes, my
Speaker 1: point is there are stuff you can buy. But a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff is free too, a lot of
Speaker 1: the mods are free.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to get great statistics on who's
Speaker 2: playing it, but Livia did found a survey from Jeez,
Speaker 2: like seven years ago from Australia where fifth and you know,
Speaker 2: I bet it's pretty indicative of who's playing worldwide. Fifty
Speaker 2: four percent of boys ages three to twelve were playing it,
Speaker 2: thirty two percent of girls.
Speaker 1: All of them raised on Foster's Beer.
Speaker 2: And early on it started out is more sort of
Speaker 2: young adult men or older teenagers, but it has since
Speaker 2: crept down in age, and I'm sure you know people
Speaker 2: of all a just still play it. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's a game that a four year old can kind
Speaker 2: of start playing if they're good with their fingies. There
Speaker 2: are two different default players from the early years. Steve
Speaker 2: Well he was the only default player in the early years,
Speaker 2: and then in twenty fourteen they added Alex. They added
Speaker 2: a man and a woman, and then they rolled out
Speaker 2: seven more in twenty twenty two with different outfits and
Speaker 2: different skin tones. But you can skin your character. You
Speaker 2: can create the stuff yourself, and I believe you can
Speaker 2: probably buy stuff and get skins that other people have
Speaker 2: created to make your player look more like you want
Speaker 2: them to look.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'd be more like you. Even Like there's clowns,
Speaker 1: Japanese demons, scarecrows, there's a lot of cool skins out there.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: You just stopped yourself. Yes, it hiss on that list,
Speaker 2: So I guess we should talk about the fact that
Speaker 2: and this is another really cool part of it. When
Speaker 2: you start out, you know, I said, you start out
Speaker 2: like and you just punch that tree. You start out
Speaker 2: with one chunk of landscape that is a sixteen by
Speaker 2: sixteen block square block, And once you reach those edges,
Speaker 2: you start creating. Like you build as you go, and
Speaker 2: it's procedurally generated as you go. And eventually if you're
Speaker 2: asking like, is there even a limit? Yes, sixty million
Speaker 2: blocks per side, which is seven times larger than the
Speaker 2: Earth's surface.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you consider a block a square kilometer of Earth,
Speaker 1: it is. It's about half the size of Neptune and
Speaker 1: twice the size of Earth. Isn't that nuts? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: just one world. So I read this amazing post by
Speaker 1: a guy named Alan Zuconi called the World Generation of Minecraft.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just dance just along the top of it.
Speaker 1: But if you're at all interested in how the actual
Speaker 1: world is generated, and it's quite fascinating and go read that.
Speaker 1: But essentially, what they start with is what's called a seed.
Speaker 1: It's sixty four bits of information, right, which is nothing
Speaker 1: that's so small, but just following a couple of algorithmic rules,
Speaker 1: the whole world generates from there. And because these sixty
Speaker 1: four bits are slightly different in each seed, there's something
Speaker 1: like eighteen point four quintillion possible worlds that can develop
Speaker 1: from a seed. That's how many seeds are possible.
Speaker 2: Out there, right, Well, tell them what a seed is.
Speaker 1: So a seed is that sixty four bits that create
Speaker 1: the world. And when you have a game like Ruby's game,
Speaker 1: where she bought that game, she bought a seed. So
Speaker 1: if she bought it, okay, her dad bought it for
Speaker 1: and so if she started over when she started the game,
Speaker 1: every time, that same world is gonna be built because
Speaker 1: it's the same information following the same rules. So it's
Speaker 1: gonna build the same world. But if she went and
Speaker 1: bought another one, they'll see that it grew from would
Speaker 1: create a totally different world. And it follows these really
Speaker 1: simple rules like if the temperature is this, and the
Speaker 1: altitude is this. This is the biome it's going to create,
Speaker 1: like a desert or a tundra or a forest or
Speaker 1: something like that. And so if you've created a forest
Speaker 1: biome now in this spot, that means it's gonna have
Speaker 1: trees and certain kinds of animals running around. If it's underwater,
Speaker 1: what's the water temperature? And depending on the water temperature,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be different animals in that biome too. And
Speaker 1: it's just following like if then rules that create a
Speaker 1: world from sixty four bits. It's nuts what they've done.
Speaker 1: And the other thing about it, too, is people play
Speaker 1: this so much that they'll actually go out and buy
Speaker 1: another copy because they know that world so well.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine, Uh, can't you just start over?
Speaker 1: You can't. But it's going to be the same world,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I mean as a different character or something.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you could start over, but you're going
Speaker 1: to be exploring the same world that you did. You
Speaker 1: know before, you could buy another copy, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be a totally different world.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought if you started over as a new
Speaker 2: like if I logged in as me in her game.
Speaker 2: I could just start as whatever I wanted.
Speaker 1: No, because it's the same seed. Yeah, you could be
Speaker 1: a different character, skin in or whatever, but.
Speaker 2: The mean the world start from scratch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the world will still be the same because it's
Speaker 1: growing from the same seed. I should probably caveat this
Speaker 1: that this is Alan Ducony talking. I'm just I'm dis
Speaker 1: amplifying what he's saying.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about those biomes. There are sixty four
Speaker 2: biome types, fifty three in the over World, which is
Speaker 2: where you know, that's sort of the main gameplay area,
Speaker 2: and then they have a couple of other areas, the Nether,
Speaker 2: which was added in twenty ten, which is pretty scary
Speaker 2: like hellish place, and then the End, which is that
Speaker 2: was in twenty eleven. That's a very very dark, very
Speaker 2: bleak place, a very bleak landscape.
Speaker 1: It's kind of metroidy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can actually win that game if you defeat
Speaker 2: the Ender Dragon. But I believe there are fifty three
Speaker 2: biomes in the Overworld, five in the Nether, five in
Speaker 2: the End, and then one that I didn't completely understand,
Speaker 2: So I'm not even going to get into it, but
Speaker 2: it gets really really detailed. Like you said, you know,
Speaker 2: if you go to the ocean and the water temperature
Speaker 2: to this, like there are nine oceans you can do
Speaker 2: like warm water ocean, frozen ocean, cold water ocean. It
Speaker 2: just and you know the different forests you can drill
Speaker 2: down very very specifically within those sixty four biomes, which
Speaker 2: is like only lens to the creativity. I think kids
Speaker 2: can just not only are they like being creative, but
Speaker 2: they're they're learning something about these biomes for sure, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe not the most detailed stuff, but they know that, hey,
Speaker 2: in this kind of biome, these are the plants and
Speaker 2: trees that you'll have.
Speaker 1: Right, there's kids walking around that are like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you go under the ocean, you'll find abandoned cities that
Speaker 1: the ancient builders created. That's what they're learning, Chuck.
Speaker 2: Mobile entities is another thing, or mobs. These are like
Speaker 2: the animals and the monsters and stuff. When they're killed,
Speaker 2: they can drop things that you can pick up. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you can tame them. They if you get updates, these
Speaker 2: mobs expand. I think they're more than seventy five now.
Speaker 2: But the things I've seen walking through the room are
Speaker 2: like sheep and pigs and things like that. Those were
Speaker 2: the first animals kind of created that you can use
Speaker 2: that you can you know, get wool from them. If
Speaker 2: you want to make that bed, you're going to have
Speaker 2: to get that wool from that sheep.
Speaker 1: Right. So, and you talked about different biomes having different animals,
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons to go to the biomes
Speaker 1: is not just to explore new cool things, but you
Speaker 1: can get different things out of different mobs. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if you went to a warm water ocean, you would
Speaker 1: find pufferfish. And if you get a pufferfish and you
Speaker 1: combine it with something else I don't remember, you can
Speaker 1: create a potion that will let you breathe underwater, so
Speaker 1: you can walk around and explore underwater. So everything that
Speaker 1: you encounter that's a mob, which is essentially another term
Speaker 1: for a non player character. You can get something from
Speaker 1: and you can combine it with other stuff that you
Speaker 1: got from other mobs, or from punching a tree, or
Speaker 1: from digging up or with your pickaxe to create new
Speaker 1: things to do new stuff with. That's what people are
Speaker 1: doing when they're playing Minecraft.
Speaker 2: One of the other things that you can find, or zombies,
Speaker 2: is very big part of the game. They are kind
Speaker 2: of like most zombies are pretty easy to take care
Speaker 2: of and defeat. They're different variations of zombies. Creepers are
Speaker 2: kind of a fun mob because creepers are a mistake.
Speaker 2: I believe that. What's the guy's name again, Marcus Person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was trying to make a pig, but he coded
Speaker 2: it wrong and it stretched out tall instead of wide,
Speaker 2: and he thought it looked creepy. He liked it, and
Speaker 2: so creepers became a very sort of popular monster in
Speaker 2: the game because he just said, I love that mistake,
Speaker 2: Let's leave it.
Speaker 1: And they're considered hostile mops, right because they'll attack you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they do that by blowing up I think we
Speaker 1: said earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's also something called ender Men, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a play on slender Man, and there are these creepy
Speaker 1: entities that may or may not attack you, depending on
Speaker 1: whether you look at.
Speaker 2: Him or not.
Speaker 1: So there's like there's definitely gameplay to this, right, Like
Speaker 1: there's like you can go off and like defeat these
Speaker 1: things and fight them and protect villages and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But there's also like you can also just farm and
Speaker 1: once in a while you have to defend your farm
Speaker 1: against some zombies. Or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll also come up on villagers and villages where
Speaker 2: they live. And these you know look like they don't
Speaker 2: look like they look like humans, I guess or their
Speaker 2: version of humans, right, And you can get things from them.
Speaker 2: You can trade with them. They have different jobs. You
Speaker 2: can change their job if you want to. If you
Speaker 2: need like food or something, you can make them unemployed
Speaker 2: by destroying their job and then giving them a new job.
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, you got somebody giving you food.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, And you like, it's just crazy that like
Speaker 1: people have village farms essentially where they're breeding villagers to
Speaker 1: make them stuff that they want. It can get really
Speaker 1: really complicated really fast. But in the most basic version,
Speaker 1: you're just you know, trading with the villagers given them.
Speaker 1: You go get emeralds and you come bring them to
Speaker 1: the villagers and they give you food or wool or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, you learn where to look for
Speaker 2: different things that you need. Like if you want coal,
Speaker 2: you know you can dig down not too deep bleef
Speaker 2: or coal. If you want this thing called red, or
Speaker 2: if you want like diamonds, you got a deep dig
Speaker 2: really really deep to find the diamonds. Just like the
Speaker 2: real world. And then Lyvia pointed out this thing called Redstone,
Speaker 2: which was I believe it was an update to the alpha.
Speaker 2: So it's been around basically from the beginning. But it
Speaker 2: has a lot of different kinds of functions, but it
Speaker 2: mainly functions like electrical wires. You can build and automate things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes things go, powers them right, like everything
Speaker 1: from pistons to doors opening to whatever. People make crazy
Speaker 1: machines using Redstone. There's a kid who made a functioning
Speaker 1: calculator by arranging Redstone and other items in a certain way.
Speaker 1: He made a calculator in Minecraft, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: one of those things you have to see to really
Speaker 1: understand how crazy that is. But that's really it's neat.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be. I don't know how well the
Speaker 1: game would work at all if there wasn't such a
Speaker 1: thing as Redstone, or if you know, you could just
Speaker 1: make things work just by pressing them right, then having
Speaker 1: to go mine Redstone and using it to make the
Speaker 1: specific thing work the specific way.
Speaker 2: That's how you know.
Speaker 1: That's how detailed it involved. It is because of choices
Speaker 1: like that and the development totally.
Speaker 2: Should we take our second break sure. All right, we'll
Speaker 2: take that break and we'll talk about how this is
Speaker 2: sort of taken over YouTube as well.
Speaker 1: Right for this, Okay, Chuck, So you mentioned YouTube and
Speaker 1: that is basically the official outlet for Minecraft. That's where
Speaker 1: Minecraft pours out into the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we'll go over some of the ways
Speaker 2: YouTube is utilized. It's very very I mean, YouTube is
Speaker 2: full full full of Minecraft stuff. But one of the
Speaker 2: things that sort of alarmed me and kind of disappointed
Speaker 2: me with this and roadblocks is that kids will just
Speaker 2: sit around watching people play this game on YouTube sometime
Speaker 2: it's like to learn how to do things. But with
Speaker 2: Ruby and her friends, I will see them just sitting
Speaker 2: around and watching it instead of playing it. And I'm
Speaker 2: always like, as a parent, like, oh god, can you
Speaker 2: you know, can you play the game and like get
Speaker 2: involved and you know, but try to pick my battles
Speaker 2: and just limit it. You know.
Speaker 1: Well, they've really turned things around on their head. If
Speaker 1: you're like, man, can you please play the video game?
Speaker 2: It?
Speaker 1: Can you go outside? Now? It's like, can you play
Speaker 1: the video game rather than watch other people play?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: That's how far we've slipped I get it though, It's like,
Speaker 1: essentially she's watching an unscripted TV show money like that,
Speaker 1: and there are people that do that. There's something called
Speaker 1: Survival multiplayer Channels. There's one called dream SMP. I think
Speaker 1: they disbanded, but essentially they had loosely scripted story arcs
Speaker 1: that they acted out in Minecraft world as like kind
Speaker 1: of fictionalized versions of themselves like our stuff you should
Speaker 1: know TV show, and there were just plots that took place,
Speaker 1: and people would watch YouTube videos of these essentially shows
Speaker 1: created in Minecraft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a one guy named Pewdiepi p E W
Speaker 2: d I E p i E. It's got one hundred
Speaker 2: and eleven million subs and is a very very very
Speaker 2: wealthy man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was one of the first like genuine YouTube stars.
Speaker 1: I think he was as big as it got for
Speaker 1: a while and.
Speaker 2: Then for him, I'm not knocking it, by the way, he.
Speaker 1: Was toppled by an i think a Bollywood record label.
Speaker 1: There was a competition a four year old from Taiwan,
Speaker 1: right exactly who opened Minecraft lego gift sets. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so PewDiePie got very very wealthy just essentially from starting
Speaker 1: out from playing Minecraft videos and you said people watch
Speaker 1: people playing Minecraft, Phil watch speed runs, see how fast
Speaker 1: they can go. There's parody music videos set in the
Speaker 1: Minecraft world. Like I think it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where like you can't get enough Minecraft once it gets
Speaker 1: under your skin to where if you're like I don't
Speaker 1: feel like playing today, I'm going to watch somebody else
Speaker 1: play and that will satisfy that inch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what now that I've said that,
Speaker 2: save your emails everyone, because yes, at home, I used
Speaker 2: to sit around and watch my friends play Adventure when
Speaker 2: they played and it was their turn, And I would
Speaker 2: hover over the shoulders of my friends at arcades and
Speaker 2: watch them play the games. So we did the exact
Speaker 2: same thing, and I take it all back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a little different because you're sitting there
Speaker 1: like willing your friend to hurry up and die so
Speaker 1: it can be your you.
Speaker 2: Know, that's it's a little different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're you're up next, that's the reason. And what
Speaker 1: else are you gonna do? You know, you're on your
Speaker 1: eighth Orange Julius. You're not gonna go get another one
Speaker 1: of those, so you might as well stand around and watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and your quarter sitting there flat on the on
Speaker 2: the screen of the arcade game.
Speaker 1: So you're definitely next.
Speaker 2: Oh man, those were the days.
Speaker 1: What else you want to talk about the Lord at
Speaker 1: all or move on?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, well, I mean I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: cool in that if you have a world like this,
Speaker 2: you're gonna you're gonna get some stuff like fan fiction.
Speaker 2: Even though technically Alex and Steve are sort of until
Speaker 2: they release, the other ones were the only two kind
Speaker 2: of characters. So it's you know, it's a little weird
Speaker 2: to have fan fiction about these two blocky people that
Speaker 2: really have did you know nothing about personality wise? Sure,
Speaker 2: I guess that's the point of fan fiction. They've also
Speaker 2: come up with this stuff, this sort of like fan fiction,
Speaker 2: you know, where you talked about the ancient Builders, Like
Speaker 2: they've created this backstory sort of of the ancient ones
Speaker 2: who who created the original structures in the game, and
Speaker 2: like where did they come from? So like the creativity
Speaker 2: is really off the charts, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, Yeah, that's the thing about it is
Speaker 1: we'll see, like one of the big benefits of it
Speaker 1: for kids but also for anybody is it it really
Speaker 1: gets your imagination and creativity going along with some other
Speaker 1: stuff too.
Speaker 2: What about Hero Brian.
Speaker 1: Herobrian is a legendary character from what I saw, Notch
Speaker 1: said unequivocally that Herobrien doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In Minecraft World, there was a four cham post from
Speaker 1: years back where somebody claimed to have encountered Steve, but
Speaker 1: it was Steve with all white eyes, and he was
Speaker 1: a weirdo doing weird stuff following him around the Minecraft world,
Speaker 1: and that became the legend of Herobrien, this character that
Speaker 1: supposedly is the ghost of Nach's dead brother, right, not
Speaker 1: just like I don't even have a brother, I have
Speaker 1: a half brother I've never met. So no, there's no Herobrien.
Speaker 1: Sorry to bust that bubble.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe, like in mods and things, people
Speaker 2: have created that kind of stuff, but in the official
Speaker 2: Minecraft game there never has been one, even though people
Speaker 2: swear that they've come across exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's a lot of ways that you can
Speaker 1: modify Minecraft yourself. Again, one of the cottage industries is
Speaker 1: creating editors to let Minecraft players modify the game to
Speaker 1: their own specifications, to let them do things like, you know,
Speaker 1: jump really high and survival mode or fly or whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: people have done is build stuff with or without modifications,
Speaker 1: and the less you modify, the more impressive your build is.
Speaker 1: It's what they're called their builds. For example, one kid
Speaker 1: named Atmospheric Beats.
Speaker 2: This is incredible.
Speaker 1: Who may or may not be Travis Hicks. I found
Speaker 1: a YouTube video and a Reddit post. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: There's too many people running around making one to one
Speaker 1: scale models of Kansas City in Minecraft. Either way, there
Speaker 1: is a one to one scale model of Kansas City,
Speaker 1: every building, every tree, every street, and you can go
Speaker 1: inside every building. It's just completely true to life in Minecraft.
Speaker 1: Somebody built that.
Speaker 2: I want that for Atlanta because I would have fun
Speaker 2: running around there.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a whole group called Build the Earth where
Speaker 1: people around the world are creating like faithful to life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: creations of buildings. The point is to recreate every building
Speaker 1: on Earth. So you can do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe will one day. It gets even cooler if
Speaker 2: you're like, all right, Kansas City one to one scale
Speaker 2: model not bad. Scale model of the entire Earth not
Speaker 2: pretty impressive. There's an eighteen year old This is a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, so I guess he's twenty ish
Speaker 2: now a YouTuber named Christopher Slayton. I think his real
Speaker 2: name is Chris Decal. Yet probably the other way. I
Speaker 2: thought Slayton was the made up thing, not Decal Slayton.
Speaker 1: If it was like slay Tour, maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had that reverse. But he made a model
Speaker 2: of the observable universe.
Speaker 1: Did you see the video of this, of the explanation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like he was like, oh, I'm gonna draw
Speaker 1: this in Minecraft. The kid did the physics required to
Speaker 1: create the models of the universe. I mean, like everything
Speaker 1: from like nebula galaxies to the Sun, Like you can
Speaker 1: zoom into pixels on the Sun. It's just one of
Speaker 1: the most impressive things I've ever seen in my entire life.
Speaker 2: Would that be a photon?
Speaker 1: I guess so. It'd be a one kilometer square photon.
Speaker 2: If all that wasn't cool enough. In twenty twenty, the
Speaker 2: group Reporters Without Borders started a project called Uncensored Library.
Speaker 2: And this this is amazing. In places like Saudi Arabia
Speaker 2: and Russia where the real news is like censored or
Speaker 2: you don't have access to these news sites, they are
Speaker 2: burying news inside the Minecraft world. Because you can play
Speaker 2: Minecraft there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they write books or they create books that have
Speaker 1: these articles in them.
Speaker 2: And that's cool, unbelievably cool.
Speaker 1: There's another thing too. I mentioned a kid who made
Speaker 1: a calculator. You can arrange these Redstone like or basically
Speaker 1: and make things into logic gates on off if then
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff and if you make if you
Speaker 1: arrange different logic gates together, you can create computers. And
Speaker 1: there was somebody who created a computer that plays Minecraft
Speaker 1: in Minecraft. Like you go on to Minecraft, go over
Speaker 1: to that computer and play Minecraft on that computer that
Speaker 1: exists only in Minecraft. I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: it's totally clear what I'm saying here, and it actually works.
Speaker 1: It's not some it's not a drawing. It's like it's
Speaker 1: operating on logic gates that they created with arrangements of
Speaker 1: Redstone or incredible. So let's talk about this because I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty clear Chuck, that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of benefits to playing this, Like, yes, it would be
Speaker 1: really easy for a kid to become addicted, and that
Speaker 1: really can happen, and I've seen that that actually is
Speaker 1: an actual thing and you have to look out for it.
Speaker 1: But there's also some real benefits to this, to playing this,
Speaker 1: especially as a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're a parent, keep
Speaker 2: an eye on your kid. Monitor there there how long
Speaker 2: they're playing this game. Because it is great, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna talk about the benefits for sure, but like if
Speaker 2: they don't want to do anything but Minecraft, and if
Speaker 2: it seems like they're never satisfied with the amount that
Speaker 2: they're playing and they're lying about their playing, and if
Speaker 2: they don't have it, they're you know, experiencing you know,
Speaker 2: the withdrawal symptoms of anything else, and they're grumpy and
Speaker 2: irritated or depressed. Like, seriously, get involved because it's a
Speaker 2: real danger. The benefits, you know, been talking about how
Speaker 2: creative it is. It's not only is it going to
Speaker 2: encourage you to just use your creative brain, but you're
Speaker 2: problem solving, you're using math, you're working with other people
Speaker 2: like teamwork, potentially learning to code. Like there, this is
Speaker 2: the one game I believe. I asked Hodgman because I
Speaker 2: knew his son played, and I was like, Hey, is
Speaker 2: this Minecraft thing? And he was like, that's kind of
Speaker 2: the one game that it's it's okay for kids to
Speaker 2: start playing because it's got like plenty of good benefits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even more esoteric stuff that like managing resources.
Speaker 1: Like it's not like the kids like, oh, I'm learning
Speaker 1: to manage resources is great just by virtue of playing Minecraft.
Speaker 1: You have to learn to manage resources. You have to
Speaker 1: keep up with your sheep and make sure that they're
Speaker 1: breeding so that you can get enough wool, like like
Speaker 1: you have to know what to use, where, where to
Speaker 1: go get it, and then how to use it smartly
Speaker 1: so that you can get the most out of it.
Speaker 1: Like that's a huge part of playing Minecraft, and that's
Speaker 1: a great thing to learn. It also teaches kids to
Speaker 1: like focus on a you know, well you want to
Speaker 1: raise some sheep. I know, I keep going to that. Well,
Speaker 1: but it's a good one. Yeah, you have to go
Speaker 1: you have to farm the food to feed the sheep,
Speaker 1: and then you have to shear the sheep to get
Speaker 1: the wool, and then you use the wool that do
Speaker 1: god knows what with And you have a goal and
Speaker 1: it's not just that one goal. That goal is made
Speaker 1: up of a series of sub goals too, And that's
Speaker 1: a great thing to learn early on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know your kids aren't coming to you
Speaker 2: and asking you how to do it unless you happen
Speaker 2: to be a parent that really knew Minecraft, because I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know that exists now, it's been around long enough.
Speaker 2: But generally, like your kid's probably in the other room
Speaker 2: figuring this stuff out. Maybe they're asking friends for help.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're not. They're learning as they go and making
Speaker 2: like what they think are like smart decisions to do
Speaker 2: better in the game and real time. My advice to
Speaker 2: a parent is like, it's really easy just to sort
Speaker 2: of walk by anytime your kid is doing this with
Speaker 2: zero interest, but just maybe once or twice down and
Speaker 2: ask them to tell you about their world for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: Just like sit there with them while they played for
Speaker 2: like fifteen minutes and say show me your world. I
Speaker 2: did that a couple of times, and it's incredible to see.
Speaker 2: I mean she was like five or six at the time.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, to see a kid really like I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, and you figured out that, and you
Speaker 2: figured out you needed to do that to get that
Speaker 2: And to them, they're like, yeah, Dad, that's duh, that's
Speaker 2: the game. But I'm over here going like this is incredible,
Speaker 2: Like you're learning, Like, keep at it. That's cool and
Speaker 2: I'm glad you stopped playing it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I feel like we would be
Speaker 1: grossly reversed if we didn't give a shout out to
Speaker 1: our little friend from the Medford Show. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: who requested this. I don't remember his name, and I'm
Speaker 1: very sorry for that. But there was a kid, a guy,
Speaker 1: a young dude at the Medford Show recently, I think
Speaker 1: in May who during QA asked us to do an
Speaker 1: episode on Minecraft. The whole thing started with him asking
Speaker 1: us about mobs, and we're like, what is a mob?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of kicked the whole thing off. So
Speaker 1: that's why we're where we are right now.
Speaker 2: That's right. And if you hear this kid and parent
Speaker 2: and you want us to set the record straight and
Speaker 2: get that name on the air, like email, listen, we'll
Speaker 2: include that in a future correction for sure.
Speaker 1: And speaking of email, I think, Chuck, it's time for
Speaker 1: listening now.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, this is about salsa. We got a lot
Speaker 2: of good salsa emails. People love salsa. I like to
Speaker 2: say salsa, saying and eating. Boy that did you see
Speaker 2: the one woman who's sent in the black salsa from
Speaker 2: that restaurant in Chicago? No, I didn't see that it
Speaker 2: looked good. I think it was the last couple of
Speaker 2: days she posted a picture and it's like Charred Pepper's
Speaker 2: basically nice boy, did it look good? Hey, guys, great
Speaker 2: job on the recent episode on salsa. I was born
Speaker 2: and raised in northwestern Mexico, being Mexican, I was very
Speaker 2: interested on how you guys would tackle this. Josh got
Speaker 2: it right about the fact that salsa is a condiment mostly,
Speaker 2: but he did get it wrong that it is in
Speaker 2: fact served at most restaurants in Mexico along with tortilla
Speaker 2: chips called to topos or like the tostadas like Chuck
Speaker 2: mentioned being broken apart. It is not an appetizer, nor
Speaker 2: do you need to order it. It's just served. And
Speaker 2: you can also use the salsa as a condiment with
Speaker 2: your food. And I saw someone else wrote in a
Speaker 2: Mexican woman that said a lot of times, that's a
Speaker 2: good way to test the salsa, to test taste tests
Speaker 2: sort of the salsa or the different sauceas you get
Speaker 2: to see which one you do want to use as.
Speaker 1: A coe, which makes sense.
Speaker 2: Sorry, but the only thing that that was innovated in
Speaker 2: the US was to charge for something that comes free
Speaker 2: with your meal.
Speaker 1: Of Mexico boo.
Speaker 2: Indeed, also guys tortilla chips go back to the pre
Speaker 2: Hispanic era with the Mexican word for tortilla chip again
Speaker 2: to topo coming from a nahuato where meaning to toast
Speaker 2: or brown, and finally for chuck. Pico degao Mexico's any
Speaker 2: sort of mixed or chopped fruits and vegetables. Pico digao
Speaker 2: that he referenced in the US is usually called salsa
Speaker 2: fresca I don't know, I didn't say it, or salsa
Speaker 2: bendero bendera meaning flag and the chilies, onion, and tomato
Speaker 2: are green, white and red like the Mexican flag. Very nice,
Speaker 2: great email. That's from Ricardo Lamas Vidales.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Ricardo. We appreciate that. It's nice to
Speaker 1: hear from a local expert. And if you want to
Speaker 1: be like Ricardo and set us straight on some stuff,
Speaker 1: we would love to hear that. You can send it
Speaker 1: off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,