Minecraft videogame should be banned, Turkey’s Family Ministry concludes

ISTANBUL

The Family and Social Policies Ministry has concluded the probe it launched into Minecraft, calling on the authorities to ban the popular videogame on the grounds that it encourages children to resort to violence, according to local media.

The report prepared by the ministry’s Children Services General Directorate was sent to its legal affairs department with an instruction for the legal process to ban the game to be started, according to daily Habertürk.

Minecraft is a videogame that allows the player to make designs with cubes in 2D or 3D. The game has several modes and in some of the modes, the player needs to survive in order to proceed.

“Although the game can be seen as encouraging creativity in children by letting them build houses, farmlands and bridges, mobs [hostile creatures] must be killed in order to protect these structures. In short, the game is based on violence,” Habertürk quoted the report as saying.

Some children may confuse the real world with the game world after playing Minecraft, leading them to believe that torturing animals would not give them pain, added the report, which was based on the game experience of a nine-year-old child.

It also suggested that the game could lead to “social isolation,” while exposing children to social risks in the multiplayer form, such as abuse and bullying.

The Family Ministry, which initially launched its probe to find out whether violence against women was encouraged in Minecraft, is expected to file a legal complaint soon. A court will then decide whether to impose a ban or not.

Minecraft, which was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, also caused debate in the U.S. for containing elements of violence.

“There is not a single country that has banned Minecraft,” Habertürk quoted Önder Kaplan, the Chamber of Internet Cafes in Ankara, as saying in the report.

More than 67,000 websites have been blocked by the Turkish authorities, according to Engelli Web, a monitoring website.

A book on Minecraft is one of the best-selling children’s books in Turkey, with 80,000 copies selling out in seven months.