Minecraft, Cyberbullying, and Encouraging Kids to Create: An Interview with Author Mark Cheverton

Do you think parents whose kids are seriously into Minecraft might enjoy playing it with their kids? What would you recommend as a good place/way for them to start?
It’s hard for me to be objective, because I’m an engineering geek, and anything that involves building, and programming…I’m all in. What I can say is this—when I started playing Minecraft with my son, and he was teaching me about redstone, he became the expert and I the student. With this role reversal, barriers seemed to drop between us. We were sitting next to each other, working on a redstone thing together and I asked him “What happened at school today?” Instead of the monosyllabic answer and perfunctory eye roll, we actually had a discussion about school while playing Minecraft. I was able to ask him questions about his classmates while at the same time having him teach me about the game. As a parent, I thought I’d discovered some kind of super-secret communication mode that maybe nobody else knew about. My son certainly gets his fair dose of me being the expert when I’m helping him with homework or stuff around the house. But for him teaching me, and my son being the expert, that opened up a whole new realm that we have explored in great detail. We still build things together in Minecraft, and I get his help with the redstone, which he’s really good at, and we talk…and it’s good. There is a lot of research out there in the science world, about playing video games with your kids. And all the research says that it is good for families, so I would recommend parents to play Minecraft with their kids. The way I started was to start playing in survival mode, and have my son teach me about mining and crafting. I quickly learned why you don’t dig straight down, and my son laughed. Play the game with your child and you will like what you see…in them.
As a former teacher, a parent, and a Minecraft enthusiast, you have a unique understanding of both the game and the culture among many of its younger players. Why do you think Minecraft has become such a hugely popular phenomenon?
I think Minecraft has become such a phenomenon because it is really three games in one, targeting 3 different age groups:

• Creative mode—This is fantastic for young kids. They finally have the power to make anything they want in a seemingly 3D world, and this gives them a feeling not only of power, but of pride in their creativity. On my Minecraft server, gameknight999.com, I see a lot of young kids (I assume they are young by how they talk in the chat. They are told to NOT disclose personal information on the server, and I harp on that as often as I can) creating things on their plots. They like making 3D statues of characters from my books, or making large roller coasters, or water slides. And after they make it, they bring their friends to see it. Everyone says it’s great and it reinforces their self-esteem…what’s better than that. Kids can do this and post their images on my website, or on Minecraft forums and they get lots of great feedback. What’s better than being able to make anything you want…even I like to do that.
• Redstone and command blocks—I see the older kids, 9-12 years old, fascinated with redstone and command blocks. I don’t allow command blocks on my server because those are a prime tool for griefing and bullying, but redstone is allowed. Kids are making great contraptions with their redstone, from creating defenses to protect their house from zombies and skeletons, to making a powered rollercoaster ride, to building security systems to thwart make-believe thieves. As with the creative mode kids, the redstone kids want to make some incredibly complex redstone contraption that will impress their friends, that they can put up on Youtube and get lots of views, and in turn, they get lots of positive feedback…again, good for the self-esteem. But now, we’re actually developing logic and programming skills, even though the kids don’t know it. They are making AND-gates and OR-gates, which are the building blocks for all digital circuits and computers. This kind of play mode really offers kids a unique challenge that is only limited by their imagination, but as they play, they develop new ideas on how to move a piston, or active a dispenser. As a programming geek, I know how satisfied I am when I build a redstone contraption and it actually works!!! It’s the same when I’m programming a machine vision system at work, I get the same kind of satisfaction seeing my robotic system work in real life as I do with my redstone contraption in Minecraft…that’s pretty cool, and it is a great confidence and self-esteem boost for kids.
• Modding—The last sort of game mode I see is the Modding. People can use Java to modify Minecraft, so that they can make their own flavor of the game, and create a new game mode. This is where the high school and college age kids are at. They are creating incredible mods that will create unicorns, or make pigs fly, or have lightning shoot out of their swords. You can see from the many modding videos on YouTube that there are tons of these out there, showing how strong of a gameplay mode this is in Minecraft. Last Christmas, we purchased an online programming class for my son, so that he could learn Java, so that he could make his own mods as well. He was 11 at the time. Can you imagine learning how to program at 11. Getting him hooked on programming at this age is going to open up countless opportunities to my son and all the kids out there that are learning programming through Minecraft.

So the real secret to Minecraft is that they didn’t create just a game, if they had, the bubble would have burst and we wouldn’t be talking about it. What Mojang did was to create an operating system that makes it possible for kids to create their own games. Of course, survival mode is fun when you start, but the creative aspect is what really keeps kids playing, in my opinion. And with the constant updates and new features being added to the game, Minecraft will likely stay part of the gaming vernacular for year sand years.
Do you think that playing Minecraft teaches real-world skills?
I know kids can learn real life skills. If you look up on YouTube MinecraftEDU, you’ll find tons of examples of schools using Minecraft as the vehicle to teach lessons. And it’s brilliant. You are using something that the kids are obsessed with to teach them. I’ve sat with my son, looking through his social studies book for answers to a worksheet, and let me tell you, that is a less-than-inspiring experience. Certainly, it would be difficult to teach some things with Minecraft, but project management, cooperation, economics, geometry…there are a lot of things you could teach with Minecraft, and it would get the kids’ attention, and it will stick.
Why do you think your fans enjoy reading books about the Minecraft experience so much?
From what I hear from my fans is that they feel like they are inside Minecraft with Gameknight999. I spend a lot of time thinking about what the world of Minecraft would look like, and sound like, and feel like, and smell like, and I put all that into the book. I believe that really draws the kids into the story. I want to kids to feel the wind on their cheeks, and hear the clicking of the spiders as they scurry near, or the shuffling of little green feet through grass just before the hissing sound of the creeper cuts through the silence. I want kids to not just read my books, but to experience them.

I also spend a lot of time developing the characters. My books probably have the highest page count. The typical book is 60,000 words or greater, and I get a lot of compliments on this, that the parents feel there is real value in this length of book. But more importantly, I use all those words to make the reader really care about the characters. At the beginning of my first book, Invasion of the Overworld, I want the reader to really dislike Gameknght999. He’s a bully who just wants to ruin everything for everyone, because he has no friends. And at the end of the book, I want the reader to cry when they think…I won’t spoil anything here. When I write, I think of it as not just telling a story, but manipulating emotions. I try to make the reader feel sad, right before something great is going to happen. This makes the happy part feel even greater, and many readers have commented on this with respect to the ending of Invasion of the Overworld. I can’t remember how many emails I received from kids saying they cried at the end, then laughed and cheered so much that they woke up the household…Victory!
These days, when you and your son play Minecraft, are you approached online by fans of the game who recognize your now-famous user names?
This actually happened on a few servers right after my first book made it to #29 on the top 100 list in 2013. My son and I both thought it kind of funny, but cool as well. Now, we spend most of our time on the Gameknight999 server (IP: mc.gameknight999.com) mainly because we have set it up how we like it, we’ve put in a lot of controls to keep it safe for kids, and have a good staff that will kick people out that are misbehaving. As a result, I think because the server is filled with my readers, and the books are based on anti-bullying, there is a very communal environment on the server. Kids choose to build their houses near each other so that they can help each other and share resources rather than just going out into the desert somewhere and playing alone. We have a creative server, a survival server, a mini game server, and a hardcore survival server, so there is something for any mood or temperament. As a result, we tend to play on Gameknight’s server. That being said, it’s fun to see a new kid come onto the server, because they will type in the chat “OMG—it’s Gameknight999!!!” or “WOW, it’s my favorite author!” How many kids get to play their favorite game with an author or the character in their favorite book? This offers the readers of my books a unique opportunity that they do not waste. The kids always want a screenshot with myself, Monkeypants_271, or Gameknight999, or both of us…and we are happy to do it for them.

You wrote your first book, Invasion of the Overworld, as a way to teach your son about cyberbullying. Have you received responses from fans who have appreciated and learned from those particular elements of the story?
Originally, when I wrote this book, my main focus was to teach my son why the bullying on his server wasn’t his fault…he didn’t deserve this treatment and what those two boys did was wrong. I received a lot of great emails from kids and parents after I self-published the books. But after they were published by Sky Pony Press and really took off, I received a lot of messages, many about bullying and how helpless some kids felt, and about the bullies and how they realized that they were behaving poorly. But it really hit me when I received the following tweets.

I cried when I received this, because it made me feel so good to know that Gameknight999 and Crafter and Hunter and Digger and all the characters in my books had made it into the hearts of my readers, and they were really listening to the message. It was fantastic.
Do you write your books in part to encourage kids who love to play Minecraft to love reading as well?
I didn’t intentionally try to inspire kids to want to read. I actually don’t know how you would do that. I just wrote the story I had in my head, and tried to add as much emotion and feeling and sensory input so that the reader could experience the book as if he were actually right next to Gameknight999.
But I did notice that emails were coming in from parents saying “Thank You” their kids were reading every night, and it wasn’t a battle…they wanted to read. I think my favorite email was this one:
From: Kyle
Subject: Son LOVED your book.
Message Body:
Please tell me there are more books planned for the Minecraft series. This was an Xmas gift for my 11-yr old son. Out of all of his presents this was his favorite. I’m not kidding, he started reading the book right after opening it. I had to verbally remind him when it was his turn to open his next gift. When all the presents were opened he went to the bedroom and finished the book in one sitting. In an age when kids are glued to a myriad of screens and gadgets, I cherish the moments when mine opts for a book instead. Really hoping there’s a series evolving here. Thanks again.

I have a hard time imagining not wanting to read. I read all my life, from Jules Verne, to Edgar Allan Poe, to Arthur C. Clark, to Frank Herbert, to … I loved sci fi and fantasy, and couldn’t get enough of it. As an educator, I know the statistics of what happens with boys in middle school with respect to reading…they stop. You can see the evidence of this by looking at the young adult market in the book store. More often than not, you’ll find a female protagonist because the market there is mostly girls. So it’s important to get boys at this age to pick up a book again. The thing that we have in our favor is that more boys play Minecraft than girls. So they were willing to pick up my books and read it…after all, there’s a guy with a sword on the cover…it can’t be that bad, right?
I am always gratified when I receive the emails or messages through YouTube or Twitter from parents saying that their kids love to read again.
If you are willing to poke through the comments on my YouTube channel, you can find Aidan’s comment [that he loves reading again thanks to these books]:

I can’t fully describe how happy this comment made me feel. Getting kids to read…what bigger victory can there be! But there’s more…

In your GameKnight999 series, the titular character, who has your son’s Minecraft user name, starts out as something of a bully—remorselessly trolling other less experienced players. What did your son think of this?
My son was a little concerned about this at first, though anyone that knows him is certain that it’s the opposite of him. However, I still had the publisher add something on the publication page, which has since been removed. But in a nutshell, it said that Gameknight999 is a thoughtful and caring individual, not like the Gameknight999 at the beginning of the book…wow, that was a pretty big nutshell.
On our Minecraft server, he does get a lot of kids that want to challenge him to PvP combat (player vs. player). We’ve set aside an area where kids can fight with each other without it being a surprise or unwanted. Kids who read the books think that my son will be some kind of ninja that will pull out two swords and fly through the air. He usually just says that it’s only a book and he usually doesn’t like doing PvP. The kids do like to fight with me, mainly because I’m terrible and they always win, no matter how hard I try. Maybe it’s a generational thing???
Do you think the setting of a multiplayer online game like Minecraft makes it easier for players to be less kind to one another than they would be in real life, and also crueler than they might be in a face-to-face setting?

I think you nailed the problem of online cyberbullying on the head. The anonymity of the Internet makes it easy to be mean, because you don’t to see the person’s face or see their tears when you do something or say something mean. It is a problem, not just in Minecraft, but in many online games. If you search on the Internet, you can find numerous articles about the industry trying to police this somehow. But when you consider that there are over 100 million registered users of just Minecraft, and I bet twice that many for World of WarCraft or Halo or Battlefield, and every one of these games has countless servers with kids playing at all hours of the night…it can’t be policed, it is just too big of a problem. I’ve noticed on our original server, before we figured out how to control the permissions and rights, that when you have a universe just populated by kids 8-12, things quickly degrade and become like The Lord of the Flies. With restrictions, it can be controlled somewhat, but I still probably ban 3 or 4 players from our server every month because of language or being disrespectful or bullying. I’m very protective of the kids on our server, so I go on frequently to make sure everything is alright. I even have a secret account so they don’t know I’m there, so I can see what they are saying and doing, but it takes a lot of time, and most companies can’t do this and stay profitable. I don’t know what the answer is other than having parents educate their children on what’s OK and what’s not OK, but more importantly…it’s just a game, and we need to keep our perspective on it. This should be entertainment, and if people are being mean on a certain server, then go to another one…there are hundreds of them out there, easy to find with Google.
Do you think that teaching kids of the importance of being kind and helpful to one another in the Minecraft world carries over into influencing their behavior in the real world—and vice versa?
Just as racism is a learned behavior, so is bullying. We learn it from our friends, or maybe our older brothers, or maybe even our parents. Bullying is the lack of empathy. I just searched for “How to Teach my Child Empathy” and came up with pages and pages of links that talk about how to teach empathy. This is a learned behavior, and if we introduce it early in children’s lives, maybe it will carry through to adulthood. Imagine how fantastic that would be…if adults were all nice to each other. I think you can unlearn bullying, but it’s easier to teach kids how to care at an early age.
What is your favorite non-Minecraft game to play these days?
My son got me hooked on Plants vs. Zombies. I like the occasional Super Mario or MarioKart game, but PvZ is what I go to on my phone or if the Minecraft servers are down. I especially like their 1st person shooter, Garden Warfare…the graphics and game play are a lot of fun. Unfortunately I have little time to play it anymore, whenever I have free time, I write and write and write.

Who is one of your favorite authors, and why?
I think my favorite author is Frank Herbert. He wrote some fantastic books, but the Dune Saga is a masterpiece in my opinion. When I started to write, I went back to read Dune again, so understand what Herbert does that makes it so great, and I realized that he breaks all the rules in writing that all the writing books say you shouldn’t do. He will have pages and pages and pages of dialog that experts will say slows the book down too much, but his dialog is riveting. He will shift point of view from one character to another and then another on the same page, and you have no problem following along. When I read through the first three books in the series, I realized his secret…the characters. You can feel what Paul is thinking and feeling. You can almost see the rough whiskers on Stilgar’s face, and you can smell the cinnamon in the air when a sand worm comes near. His descriptions of Arrakis are legendary, and the depth of his characters are fantastic. Without a doubt, he is my favorite author.
You can find Mark Cheverton’s latest novel, Destruction of the Overworld (Herobrine Reborn Book Two) in stores today!