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Hi everyone we have been asked to look into buying this game at the request of a 10 year old who has seen it whilst round at a friend's house. He's a budding engineer & just loves the craft side.
Before we go ahead, we'd love to hear from anyone already involved with Minecraft how they got into it & why, how long they spend on it each week, best bits, etc. Also what are your thoughts on how complex it is for a 10 year old?
He says the monsters can be 'turned off' which he's banking on as he wants to focus on building - has he got that right?
many thanks! 
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Hi, Minecraft is an excellent way to grow your engineer! As a 19 year old student who's majoring in mechanical engineering, i must certainly say it has let me build basically anything i can think of. And in an easy, simple environment. Definatly easy enough for a ten year old once he gets the hang of it!
Minecraft is a great way to help expand young kids minds. Think of it as legos for the next generation. But to start, try having him go to minecraft.net and playing the singleplayer, or even multiplayer classic modes. Classic is completely free, and is focused on building things much more then the bought game is. Classic also has no monsters in it, building is unrestricted.
The only thing you have to worry about on multiplayer servers, is other people. I suggest trying out the server here, World of Minecraft Realms, because it gives you your own world, or realm, that you can build in and modify as much as you would like that is saved whenever you leave it. However, as with all multiplayer and online games, you are exposed to other people, and while World of Minecraft does its best to police the chat and make it appropriate for kids of all ages, there are still times when language or subject matter might become an issue. If you're worried about this, then have them play singleplayer classic. The only problem with this mode is that builds are not saved when you log out, so each time you have to start over.
Buying the minecraft games allows you to not only have more variety of blocks and materials to build with, but also lets you create as many, infinitely large worlds to build in as you would. Here, singleplayer builds are saved, and singleplayer here is in my opinion the best choice for a young person who is interested in building. If they want to play on a multiplayer server, there are lots of servers for the full game as well. However, most of these have monsters, that can't be turned off, and it is much harder to build and create thing
Minecraft can be bought/downloaded, and the classic mode can be played at www.minecraft.net, Feel free to comment here with any more questions or concerns and i'll do my best to help.
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Im 10 and my friends taught me how to play and i now play 3-5 hours when i get home from school its a good friend builder.. LOL get it BUILDER just kidding that was a stupid joke 
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Thanks so much for all the info & links. Really appreciate your thoughts on this.
He'd spend all his time on creative build anyway - well I guess until he hits teenage & starts finding that his mates are all on multiplayer. :-/
Our challenge is that we don't understand all this stuff about servers & additional packs that people mention. So he'd have to wise up on that himself. But I guess if we just download the game first of all and get him set up on the single player creative mode then that would be the best place to start? (And at least it would be more constructive than playing the stupid Annihiliation game that he keeps going back to.)
Oh by the way, we also asked some parents via twitter what they though about their kids playing Minecraft. They generally said that they found their kids were spending way too much time on it and it was making them very aggressive!! - it had started some actual fights due to use of servers or something.
Thanks again. Of course when we were young we had a pack of felt tip pens and some paper, and drew stick men armies, or pictures of hills and trees or something. If we were lucky we had an Etch A Sketch. Or even - wait for it - played outside! gasp. Such fun.
Back to my Words With Friends now. ;-)
cheers everyone
WoM Coins: 2369
Minecraft is a great game, especially for younger people. Most of the fan base is made up of children. I have had the game for about 2 years now so I think I have a decent idea of what I am talking about. I highly reccomend this game to anyone young or old. Minecraft has actually become a teaching tool in some class rooms for younger people.
Minecraft.net now has a demo of the game and I also suggest that you watch some YouTube videos about it to get a better idea of what your thinking of buying.The game is updated regularly with new items and blocks which would add a lot of long term fun for children.
I mainly spend 2-3 hours of my day on Minecraft and the majority of the rest of my time is devoted to Minecraft stuff in general.
Great game overall 10 out of 10.
If you are interested in more specifics let me know and I would be happy to fill you in.
Helpful links:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/
http://www.minecraft.net/