What Can Minecraft Teach You About Housing Economics?

Since its launch in 2009, the phenomenon that is Minecraft has transfixed players of all ages, from toddlers to full grown adults. 

The “sandbox” game – a term referring to a video game medium involving significant flexibility of play and encouraging almost limitless creativity in the pursuit of certain goals – is not only pretty addictive, but it’s also highly educational – providing life lessons to players at any stage of life.

In this article, we’ll look at just a few of the ways in which playing Minecraft can help you – as well as your younger loved ones and family members – to develop valuable skills that are applicable to the real world when it comes to matters of housing economics and the property market.

The Basics

The learning opportunities begin early in Minecraft. When you first enter the world of the game, you have no tools, equipment or valuable items – and no instructions either. 

Starting with so little information may sound like a challenge, but it’s great preparation for the real world. 

Of course, it’s helpful if you have friends who have played before, as they can show you the ropes, but you’ll still need to decide how you’re going to approach the game – considering different goals and deciding how you will approach them.

Throughout the game, you’ll find materials and resources that can be used to make tools, build structures and undertake a range of other interactions. There is no real way to “win”, so players can gain a sense of achievement by setting and achieving goals that are individual to them.

There are single and multiplayer modes, which will make a difference to how you approach the game.

Young children can benefit intellectually from the need to “work things out” for themselves and make their own decisions, something that will help to develop both their practical and creative capabilities.

Older players will also find this approach helpful – particularly as mental practice for entering a field of work or taking on a project of which they have no experience whatsoever.

Resource Management

Minecraft players can only progress towards their goals using the resources they have collected, including wood, coal, stone and iron. In order to build structures, you need to actively seek and collect specific quantities of these resources.

Once items have been collected, they can be managed in Chests or Inventories where their levels can be tracked. Players can choose to store items or carry them around on their person for extra security.

It’s also possible for items to be lost or stolen, so players must learn to protect what they have collected.

This element of the game teaches players the importance of protecting and keeping track of their resources in the “real world” – whether those resources be money, materials, manpower or otherwise – using them wisely or trading them intelligently.

This is a valuable life skill that can be demonstrably applied to work in the construction and real estate industries.

Supply and Demand

Supplies of resources are finite – and this includes food items. Players must grow food to sustain their character throughout the game.

It is also possible to grow food to support other players, thereby becoming a “farmer” and monetizing this particular skill. In this way, small communities can grow, with farmers, builders and others bartering services or trading them for gold, diamonds and other valuable goods.

Players can also work together to pool resources, speeding up certain processes and enabling them to build better structures.

According to Ruban Selvanayagam of UK-based ‘fast home selling’ company Property Solvers: “This element of the game helps players to develop the ability to work as part of a system or chain of delivery.”

Finance

Minecraft requires its players to plan carefully in order to ensure that resources last – which is a great way to learn about careful budgeting when undertaking a project.

Items such as gold, diamonds and emeralds take on the role of “currency” in Minecraft, and each resource has its own specific value – being worth “so many” or another material. This helps explain the nature and operation of conversion rates.

Currency can be saved in order to build up a significant amount that can be spent on better tools and assets later on, or it can be divided between teams of players to help fund a particular adventure.

It’s even possible to take on the role of a banker, whereby a player can offer loans to others and even charge interest. In this way, virtual small-scale economies are built and players can “climb the ladder” to be able to afford more and better items.

Planning

It’s worth noting that each day in the Minecraft world lasts ten minutes in the “real world”, which helps hone quick thinking and situational analysis skills and teaches techniques for making calculated decisions fast.

Minecraft’s “night time” presents its own challenges. Not only is it harder to see, but mobs of zombies, spiders, skeletons and other “bad guys” will emerge and attack. Players can “sleep” through the night, but only if no mobs of this kind are nearby. 

It’s much more difficult to achieve things at night in the Minecraft world, so planning is important. Players quickly learn to calculate how many minutes of “daylight” are left and work out what they can do in that time.

There are plenty of other elements to plan too – from the amount of space required to build certain structures to the quantity of food and supplies that are required to support a team of players as they head off for an adventure.

All of these skills are vital when it comes to understanding the ins and out of housing economics and the property market – from making investments and paying or earning interest to planning and budgeting for projects.

These learning opportunities, coupled with the sense of independence and creativity that Minecraft offers, makes the game a great educational resource for future developers and realtors.

Selvanayagam concludes: “it will be interesting to see how VR and AR’s integration into Minecraft’s core software changes the face of the game in the coming years.”