I’m looking for educational software; it’s difficult to find anything comparable to what existed when I was growing up.

I’d definitely pay $10’s for games comparable in quality to turtle, number munchers, the one with the cups and the fluids where you had to measure out exact volumes, etc.

This industry reminds me of what happened to atari: the ecosystem got flooded with $1 garbage, and the quality developers got pushed out.

The game industry recovered due to a technology transition combined with a business model innovation (more powerful consoles with severe licensing restrictions to keep quality up).

It is a shame that recovery hasn’t happened for educational software.

Kerbal Space Program probably qualifies.

Every Minecraft guide is trapped in a YouTube video made by someone who sounds like a teenager or younger, so the answer is probably yes.

I believe Minecraft is something parents play with their children, but that's anecdotal.

I have had younger coworkers tell me that they got started programming using Minecraft.