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Comment by weavie | Hacker News Reader

A large majority of this very loyal following are still < 16 years old. If MS play things right and can retain this following in about 5 years time it will be a very loyal following with a huge reserve of disposable cash then this could become a very profitable move indeed.

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I see it mostly as a long term plan to move as many people as they can find into the Xbox ecosystem.

edit: downvoted already, new record.

At least I didn't suggest that Microsoft would now have to re-write minecraft in C# rather than in the Java that they love so much there.

Noticing this aggressive downvoting trend quite alot on HN lately. Perfectly valid inoffensive arguments are downvoted just because the downvoter disagrees with them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

That was a comment made 2402 days ago, is it still HN's position? HN has evolved quite alot since then.

Unless you've got something newer to suggest otherwise, that's how HN operates. "Downvotes aren't for disagreeing" is an absurd redditism (everyone knows that they are, since upvotes are for agreeing).

It's a little different on HN due to how the comments are hidden quite quickly when downvoted. I frequently upvote people who reply to me but I disagree with, simply because it would ruin the comment chain and hey, they might just be right anyway ;)

I reserve downvotes for rudeness and demonstrably wrong/misleading comments.

I can understand a downvote with a solid reply, but downvote just for disagreeing doesn't add to the discussion, its more of a censorship which should only be used for offensive/misleading comments IMHO.

Personally, I use upvotes to reward new knowledge or an interesting argument in a comment, I don't upvote every comment I agree with, and downvote only if the comment is offensive.

So then the end result is that opinions/comments that a lot of people disagree with will get punished? Seems counter-intuitive if you're trying to have a reasonable argument/discussion/debate about something. It's one thing to express disagreement, but it's completely different to silence + punish someone because you disagree with them.

I think it's funny how HN likes to think of themselves as free-minded, creative individuals and yet there's a persistent cult of personality around here.

With all due respect, I don't find it particularly relevant what one guy said 6 years ago. I don't care whether he created HN or not. He's no longer an active participant.

I think it's funny how HN likes to think of themselves as free-minded, creative individuals

I'm not!

It happened again. -1 is the new 1 it seems. Pity.

I think people get way too bothered about downvotes (myself included). They affect nothing other than color. If someone disagrees with you, good. It means you've taken a stand on something.

"A large majority of this very loyal following are still < 16 years old."

I believe this to be a mythology that "everyone knows is true" although it isn't.

For similar examples, MMORPG players are all 13 year old boys, FPS players in general are all 13 year old boys, there is a perfect 1:1 mapping between WWII FPS and gaming in general...

I'll admit in public to relax I'll log in with my son and we'll work on the big base and rail system. Better than watching TV together. I find rail work to be relaxing exactly like working on a model railroad (obviously you need railcraft mod for this). I like building vast chemical refineries, like a fully automated system where you dump ore blocks in one side, all mixed together, and via AE and IC2 and compactsolars and all that, ingots of metal eventually plop out the other end. I also like multifarming and setting up automated ethanol plants.

From talking to other parents its very fight club where the first rule is we don't talk about it. Kind of like how legos seem to get played with by dad as much as kids, unofficially, although its a kids toy. Like many I have tried to sneak a lego imperial star destroyer past the wife "for the kids", unsuccessfully. Lego seems very expensive compared to when I was a kid...

I disagree with most of what you said. I don't see Minecraft as "for children" game. It was a game made for the full spectrum of the gaming community and its early success was as far as I'm aware primarily adults. The fact that children flock to this game as much as they do surprised me, but for what I hear from parents and teachers I would bet that a large majority of this very loyal following are still < 16 years old.

> but for what I hear from parents and teachers I would bet that a large majority of this very loyal following are still < 16 years old.

Well, yes, I'd expect parents and teachers to talk largely about < 16 year olds.

I have actually spoken with several people who were neither parents or teachers. What I concluded is that even among the game playing techies Minecraft is no where near as prevalent as is is among children. In addition to that parents and teachers also also talk to parents and most parents know little about Minecraft other than that it is a game their children play.

Of course this is all anecdotal.

Most of my kids' friends see Minecraft as a game for kids. Except for a few minecraft loyalists, they're moving on to "grown up" games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

It's a small sample size, but I think Minecraft is destined to be a kids' game with a minority of adult enthusiasts. (That's not necessarily bad--Lego and Pokemon fit that description, too.)

With an even smaller sample size of my 14 year old from time to time he grows up to more grown up games, but he keeps coming back to Minecraft. He loves the hackability aspect (setting up servers, installing plugins etc..) to it that you don't get from these other games. Now that he is starting to learn to code I am hoping he will start developing plugins as well.

If MS can nurture the hackers and enable them to create and maybe even monetize their hacks, then it should be possible to keep a core set of fans well into adulthood.

Has your son discovered KSP[1] yet? It's got a great modding community, and would, IMHO, suit a keen 14yo perfectly. It suits a keen 37yo perfectly as well :-)

[1] http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

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