I agreed completely until I started playing Minecraft with kids. Once they taught me how to play, I got to see the amount of creativity within the game. From my perspective, it's a really amazing way to start instilling mathematical literacy in kids and the best part is that they have so much fun they don't even realize it. As an example, thanks to Minecraft, my five year old already has an understanding of exponents. I didn't do that.
... Think about it. Blocks are cubic. You lay 2 blocks by 2 blocks down, that's 4 blocks. If you add a second layer, you have 8 blocks. He probably meant something like this.
You are correct- but they do complement each other very nicely, and Minecraft as a game has many properties that encourage both creative and analytical thought.
