MAYHEM has erupted in Bahrain over a series of handbooks to help youngsters fine-tune their computer gaming skills playing Minecraft, an internet block-building challenge which has become a global phenomenon, writes Stan Szecowka.


Hundreds of the handy manuals have been snapped up by eager children from stores and school book fairs on the island and in one incident sparks flew when two mums jostled over a remaining book that had been returned.
Two hundred copies of the series featuring a beginner’s guide plus handbooks on combat, construction and a magical element called redstone were plucked from the shelves at The Bookcase on Budaiya Highway and snapped up at a series of school book fairs in the past fortnight.
“That’s it, they’ve all gone!” said Adithya Venugopal, 24, who was helping to run a book fair at St Christopher’s School as she packed up the last manuals for an orderly line-up of children during their playtime break.
The scene had not been so serene at an earlier event in the kingdom when two mums tried to buy the final copy of Minecraft: the official combat handbook after it was returned after a parent and a child had both earlier purchased the same book for a cut-price BD5.400 (normally sold with a BD6 in-store price-tag).
Of course, the team had no hesitation giving a refund and taking one of the books back but they had no idea a mum on the left would shout ‘I’ll take it now’ only for a mum on the right to instantly reply ‘and I’ll take it once it’s placed back on the table’.
A white flag was waved; the assistant turned her back on the bickering pair and told the ladies to sort it out amongst themselves. “It got quite tense for a moment,” she said. “I suppose I can understand the pressure parents are under because I’ve never known such demand for a set of books, it’s worse than Harry Potter!
“I’m sure if we had had 100 more we could have easily sold them.”
The Bookcase has already ordered a further 150 copies which should arrive by today.
Teacher Gillie van der Eyken admitted her son, Ben, 11, has all the books, was obsessed with Minecraft and would play it all the time, if she let him. “It’s taken over the world of many 11-years-olds in particular,” she said. “They just seem to love the freedom they find in the game and the problem-solving it involves.”
Ben has even started uploading his videoed creations on YouTube so other players can check them out.
Schoolgirl Maddie Harrison-Mirfield, 11, from Riffa Views, tried to explain the game’s attraction. “It is fun and a great way to create completely different worlds.”
The four handbooks currently occupy the top four in the Children’s Overall Chart in the UK. Daniel Downham, export sales manager of publishers Egmont UK, said: “Minecraft is an internet and global phenomenon. We have translated Minecraft into 30 languages already with many more to come.
“We have also printed six million copies across the four handbooks and the annual, including 1.2 million copies for export territories (it is Number One in Australia and a huge success in Canada as well). These figures do not include the Slipcase and the Block-o-pedia still to come, both of which have initial print runs of 200,000 each.”
Minecraft is now one of the world’s biggest computer games attracting around 15 million purchases.
Trying to define the objective of it isn’t easy and the developers, Mojang, define it as ‘a game about breaking and placing blocks’.
“The pixelated-style might appear simple but it masks a huge amount of depth and complexity,” Alex Wiltshire, former editor of Edge magazine and author of the forthcoming Minecraft guide, Block-o-pedia, told one UK newspaper. “Its complex nature doesn’t lie in detailed art assets, but in how each element interrelates.”
The game has been championed for its educational possibilities, with some schools in the US already using it as a tool to teach maths and science.
Psychologists have suggested Minecraft offers some strong positives for children. It works on a cognitive level in that it involves problem-solving, imagination, memory, creativity and logical sequencing. There is a good educational element to the game, and it also requires some number crunching.
Unlike lots of other games, there is little violence, with the exception of fighting off a few zombies and creepers. This is perhaps one of the reasons why it is fairly gender neutral and girls enjoy playing it as well as boys.
One of the appealing things about Minecraft is that there is no obvious start and end; it’s a game of infinite possibilities, which is why it’s often compared to Lego. But the addictive nature of the game is concerning some parents.
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