> Most of his friends seem to be obsessed with Minecraft, and Ultimate Chicken Horse
It's really difficult to compare creative multiplayer games like Minecraft with Super Mario Bros. I think it's perfectly natural for kids to prefer to play games they can actually play together. Especially sandbox games that allow people to play the same game with drastically different play styles. When I play Minecraft with my kids, I'll go hunting and scavenging with my son and we'll use the resources collected to build out and decorate a village with my daughters. They all have learned about redstone enough to start automating some of their own builds. This is all vastly more engaging than taking turns watching each other play a single player game.
When he plays minecraft he alternates between trying to build things he knows, or just wandering around and placing dynamite everywhere to blow things up.
It's really difficult to compare creative multiplayer games like Minecraft with Super Mario Bros. I think it's perfectly natural for kids to prefer to play games they can actually play together. Especially sandbox games that allow people to play the same game with drastically different play styles. When I play Minecraft with my kids, I'll go hunting and scavenging with my son and we'll use the resources collected to build out and decorate a village with my daughters. They all have learned about redstone enough to start automating some of their own builds. This is all vastly more engaging than taking turns watching each other play a single player game.