For Saritha Arellano, the calls began in February, when summer is nearly five months and 50 degrees away.
Arellano runs the Naperville outpost of Bricks 4 Kidz, which offers after-school programs, birthday parties and summer camps devoted to Lego-based activities.
In the summer classes, children can use Legos to build a Himalayan base camp or create a superhero fantasy world. But it’s the camps devoted to Minecraft, a block-building video game that’s the digital equivalent of Legos, that stir the most interest — and desperation among parents.
Arellano said some parents will go so far as to fudge their child’s age or beg her to make an exception if the child is younger than the recommended age of 8 to 11 for the Minecraft camps.
“The kids who don’t meet requirements, the parents will do a hard sell with us and do everything they can to get them in,” Arellano said.
Welcome to the competitive world of Minecraft camps. Though Minecraft is played year-round in classrooms, libraries and living rooms, hundreds of Chicago-area kids each year choose to forgo the best weather Chicago has to offer to spend their summer indoors in a virtual Minecraft world.
Camp directors told the Tribune they’ve heard stories of frantic parents pleading to pay extra tuition to get their kid into full Minecraft camps. Arellano said parents with kids on the waitlist for her Minecraft classes have offered to find and sign up a dozen other kids so Bricks 4 Kidz can open up additional sessions.
Chicago-area camps say they have added extra courses to keep up with the demand, and some organizations such as the Chicago Architecture Foundation are starting to offer summer classes this year because of the building popularity of Minecraft, even though the game has been around since 2009.
Despite the sometimes fickle nature of gamers, Minecraft has staying power. It is the most-watched game in the 10-year existence of YouTube based on total viewing time, the video service announced last month. There are more than 42 million videos about Minecraft on YouTube, a YouTube spokeswoman said.
When Microsoft acquired Minecraft in September through its $2.5 billion purchase of Swedish video game developer Mojang, analyst James McQuivey wrote that Minecraft is a favorite among kids because its creative tool set is so simple to use and they have the freedom to build anything: “Minecraft, with its low-resolution blocky characters and landscape, offers up a truly pointless world in which people build and explore. And that’s precisely the point. The Minecraft world could, with modest investment, grow to become as many things as people choose to make it.”
Camps are trying to keep up with the enthusiasm for the game. It’s unclear when the first local Minecraft camp was held, but the camps appear to have gained steam in the Chicago area in 2013. They target kids from kindergarten through high school but most often are meant for 10- to 12-year-olds who play Minecraft at home and want to expand their coding skills.
California-based iD Tech offers 60 summer tech courses nationwide, of which eight are Minecraft-focused. Classes are held at Northwestern, Benedictine and Loyola universities and Lake Forest College, starting at $429 for one week of half-day sessions at Benedictine for students age 6-9 and topping more than $3,600 for a two-week overnight program at Lake Forest for students age 13-18.
Nationally, nearly 50,000 children sign up for the 60 summer courses annually, and an additional 3,000 children are sitting on iD Tech’s waitlists for this summer’s Minecraft classes, said Karen Thurm Safran, iD Tech vice president of marketing and business development.
Safran said at least one parent with a child on the waitlist offered to pay three tuitions to get the child into a Minecraft class: two tuition payments to a child already in a Minecraft course to cover his/her original tuition and to switch the child to a different course, and one tuition payment to iD Tech to register the parent’s child in the newly available slot.
“Of course we don’t do it,” Safran said.
The key to getting into Minecraft camp (and all camps) is to start early and plan ahead. Jenny Yang, of Oak Park, sent her son Charles, then 9 years old, to a Minecraft camp for the first time this winter to teach him coding skills.
Yang said she did her research before registration opened at Code Play Learn in Oak Park and asked Code Play Learn founder Wil Greenwald to let her know when registration opened for the weekly winter seminar, which began in January and lasted into March.
“When it was offered, I signed up within the week. Within a week-and-a half, it was filled up,” Yang said.
When it came time for summer, though, Yang said she had scheduling problems and her son won’t be attending Minecraft camp this summer.
The Code Play Learn Minecraft camps for July filled by April, while most of the other Code Play Learn camps, including those that teach Android app creation and Lego robotics, were 85 percent full by May 1, Greenwald said. Each class has a cap of between 15 and 17 students.
“They are a very popular camp,” Greenwald said. “I’m certain we had a couple of Minecraft registrations in January.”
You don’t need to tell Kelly Esposito Reina, of Naperville, that it’s difficult to get into a Minecraft camp.
Reina said she tried to get her son, then 9 years old, into a Minecraft camp a few years ago only to find it full in the spring. Her son has never been to Minecraft camp, she said.
“I was kind of hopeful they would open up some other classes that year,” Reina said. “It just seems like all of the camps … if you’re not thinking about the summer in the wintertime, then you miss out.”
A few area camps
Want to join the summer block party? The Tribune rounds up a list of upcoming Minecraft camps in the Chicago area with spaces open as of Wednesday afternoon.
Bricks 4 Kidz
http://www.bricks4kidz.com/naperville
Camps are held in Lisle, Naperville and Wheaton.
Dates: The weekly half-day camps are offered June through August.
Cost: $180
Geared to children ages 8 to 11, campers build elements of the Minecraft game and motorized creations.
Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 S. Michigan Ave.
Minecraft Builders Unite!
Dates: Aug. 3-7
Cost: $450 for non-members, $380 for foundation members
Students ages 10 to 14 develop skills in the Minecraft virtual world then take walking tours of downtown Chicago to explore buildings first-hand.
Minecraft Studio
Dates: Aug. 24-26
Cost: $270 for non-members, $225 for foundation members
Students ages 8 to 11 collaborate on a Minecraft challenge and take walking tours of the Loop.
Digital Media Academy
https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org
University of Chicago
Dates: Classes will be held from June 29 to July 31.
Cost: Prices start at $945 for the weeklong camps.
Courses range from Java Programming for Minecraft Modding (ages 10 to 12) to 3D Game Design with Minecraft (ages 12 to 17).
Emagination Computer Camps
Lake Forest College, 555 N. Sheridan Rd., Lake Forest
Dates: June 28-July 10
Cost: Costs range from $1,695 for the day camp to $2,995 for the overnight camp with weekends included.
Teenagers ages 13 to 17 learn to code in Java while creating custom modifications for Minecraft in this two-week day or overnight camp.
GreenApple Campus
http://www.greenapplecamps.com
Courses are held at the British School of Chicago, DePaul College Prep, GEMS World Academy and DePaul University’s Naperville campus.
Dates: Some Chicago-area courses start as early as June 15 and run into August.
Cost: MinecraftEdu is $350 while MinecraftModding is $700.
MinecraftEdu is a half-day program offered to children entering grade 2 up to grade 6 that uses Minecraft as a platform to teach coding. MinecraftModding, for children entering grades 4 to grade 8, teaches Java and creating modifications in Minecraft.
iD Tech
Courses are held at Northwestern, Loyola and Benedictine universities and Lake Forest College
Dates: Chicago-area courses start as early as Monday and run into August
Cost: Costs vary depending on whether it’s a half-day, full-day or overnight camp but prices tend to run about $900 for a weeklong camp
Courses range from Adventures in Minecraft Game Design (ages 7 to 9) to Intro to Java Programming with Minecraft (ages 10 to 12).
The Whole Child Learning Company
(630) 743-8082
St. John Lutheran Church, 7214 S. Cass Ave., Darien
Dates: There are weeklong camps from June into August.
Cost: $250 for the weeklong camp
Children, from kindergarten through sixth grade, build their own worlds and learn strategies to improve survival skills.
Twitter @tracyswartz
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