Parents worried about children's safety shouldn't let them play Roblox, company boss says
Parents "not comfortable" about children's safety shouldn't let them play Roblox, company boss says
I've never let my kids play and luckily my kid's friend's dad also understands games and does research for things we don't know and we stuck together on this decision and on fortnight for our kids that are too young for it.
It also helps that I'm staunchly against micro transactions and lecture my kids about how spending real money on a skin is stupid every chance I get.
I'll never forget a post that i read here where someone told the story about he and his cousins got like 50 dollar steam gift cards. The older ones said that it's a good idea to buy cs2 crates or some shit. And they burned through all their money in minutes with nothing to show for.
My nephew did the same. 25 buck PlayStation card, spent on some FOMO skin sale.
Although i think you're right, you too where once a kid.
And. Tell me. What did you do with your money back then? Everything you bought was well thought out? You still use day to day everything you bought back then? Or where you just a child and did you buy candy, fireworks, some comics, that game console you sold 2 years later for not even half the price, that cheap rc car which broke after 1 day?
Its a slippery slope. Just because something doesn't have value to you does not mean the same applies to someone else.
Stuff like this can give kids a certain social standing in the brutal world of the classroom. That's something to consider also, group pressure, wanting to fit in. The need to be part of the group.
Allowance is a learning experience. My son did the same, for years bought only fortnite skins with his allowance. Like you i warned him against it. But i never forbid it. He's 14 now and regrets it.
He doesn't buy fortnite skins anymore. That's the end goal, isn't it? To learn and move on?
I'm not discounting that kids are kids and are still learning impulse control, but I'm trying to teach them good spending habits or at least consider the value of what they are spending money on before they buy. When I was a kid I didn't have much money so I did carefully consider purchases ( to an annoying degree sometimes my wife says still). I haven't forbidden them from buying anything, within reason, but they mostly have my frugality. I'm sure this is a journey lots of parents are on.
Did not enjoy having to explain the idea that it's a child labour scam to a five year old, but I was able to get the point across.
Me too.
I was actually impressed by how easy it was. He still complains about it, but there are no meltdowns and no "I'm the only kid."
Basically "you take their work, you get all the money and maybe give them a little. But the ones getting very little are the kids. The ones you enjoy playing the games of . That's the same as stealing."
Child labor?
A good deal of people making games experiences on Roblox are minors. They're being promised revenues, but of course they're paid with bogus money that they're encouraged to spend back on the platform, since cashing back is subject to an absolutely ridiculous rate, and to a minimum amount. Only the very few at the top can pretend to get anything back as real money. But all of the games, even the ones that never makes a cent for their creators, are the content Roblox milks indefinitely.
Roblox development is a jungle, completely unregulated and managed outside of the platform by design, since they want to deny all responsibility for any of that shit. They kill the platform forums so dev teams are being formed outside, on discords and stuff. Teams with minors working with adults. Yes, there were cases of exploitation, and worse.
Most if not all the content in that game is created by the players. Which they can then sell. And the company profits from it. And a big part of the playerbase is underage. 50% or so of players are sub13, afaik.
so they admit its not safe for kids to play it?
Any game that is online (ie. Fortnight, Roblox, Minecraft servers) are not, never where, and never will be safe for kids to play.
apart from the littlebigplanet servers. Man I played that all the time as a kid with my friends. The nature of the game (creating levels and the ablity to share creations and give them to other people) made it one of the most wholesome gaming communities I've been in. I made genuine friends in that community. But it wasn't the money maker Sony wanted so they canned it. I genuinely can't think of one person that had a bad experience in that community.
That's why I set up a local Minecraft server. My kids can play together as much as they want, and I'm happy to open it up to their friends if they get the Java version.
You'd be surprised (or not) how many parents just don't have a clue. I hope the quote and headline but plastered everywhere though so it might get through to some.
Or how many parents just kinda suck.
Joined a random game of Helldivers recently. Two guys and a kid are playing, one is the dad. I'm the random on the team.
Cool. Kinda wholesome at first. Kid is easily under 10 though and it's the highest difficulty and you can tell that when things pick up they have no clue what's going on.
Totally cool. Part of what makes the game great is a little co op goes a long way and dying isn't really serious. And they got that, there was light hearted team killing, everyone seems focused on the most important aspect of the game: having fun.
But when the dad died and gets stuck spectating his kid, he keeps calling him a retard when he's not understanding some gameplay mechanic.
Ugh.
Like the whole point of having fun with Helldivers is the absolute bullshit you wade through and how all you can do is laugh sometimes.
Squishing bugs and blowing up scary looking robots should be relaxing and funny.
Or how many parents just kinda suck.
Yes also that. Takes the fun out of it for everyone, especilly the kid, and has lasting damage that they are oblivious to.
Kids playing unsuitable games is a whole other topic though that I despise.
My daughter went through a phase where she REALLY wanted to play Roblox. Probably word of mouth from school. I'm not THAT old (only mid 30's) but I didn't really understand the concept of Roblox or how you buy more games. That probably led to me telling her no. Glad I stuck to my gut.
My kids don’t play it, but the whole model is so exploitative to both the “game makers” (the ones who make the various experiences) and the players.
Basically every second of every game you are being bombarded with a prompt for a microtransaction that lets you skip to the end, or buy a pet, or buy ways to grief the other players.
It’s then marketed by YouTube’s who acquire $1000s worth of in game currency and spend it on every single thing in the game. I don’t see how any of those things are fun but it makes me sad that these are the kind of games the next generation have as there foundational games.
Anyone who thinks gaming isn’t shit now and was better 20 years ago is kidding themselves. And thanks to Roblox and Fortnite it’s only getting worse
Most of these things have a free tier. I would be hardly suprised if roblox doesn’t.
As someone who does know a lot about the industry i simply cannot recommend roblox. However i can recommend the following:
Make an account tougher with your daughter and let her play in the living room, streamed to the tv if you can and let her guide you trough what this game is and what she finds fun about it.
Bonding aside there is a good chance that the free tier is all she needed and the real fun is connecting multiplayer with her real life friends.
Sooner or later you will face some examples of the traps and dangers, but those are generally the same ones that exist everywhere online, at which point you can let your daughter explain the supposed purpose of em while directly complimenting it with your parental insight. This helps you set and explain boundaries in relation to the game and helps build resilience to the inherent risks of the digital age.
This is good advice, but I think Roblox is a game marketplace/platform, which makes that more difficult. It’s a harder sell to explore the social features as a family than a game.
That's sad. You could have played with her.
Roblox is a game store like Steam where most games are free instead of Steam where most are paid.
A unique feature of Roblox is the default install comes with the free tools to make your own games so it's a great way for techie parents to teach programming to their kids.
Roblox's tooling is so particular to Roblox that it is hard to transfer the knowledge out of the game.
Microsoft MakeCode can use Scratch or Python and connect with Minecraft, Lego Mindstorm, and a few other things. The same style of visual coding system shows up in a lot of other devices and their software, like the Makey Makey, Makeblock's educational robots, etc.. I think those are better choices personally.
Maybe but I don't see that as an argument that will be compelling to many of the less involved parents. Most people don't even see how their own data can be used to harm them, much less data on how their kids behave in games.
That says they are minority and it seems like it was before IPO. Google doesn't even show them in the top 10 owners so it's less than 5% ownership.
No, you dont understand, if a Chinese company owns 1 share, it is spyware!!1!1!!1!!!
Roblox is only interested in the kids of hands-off parents. Preferably the ones with good credit.
Roblox is a platform like Steam. If you don't want your kids to spend money on games, don't give them a credit card.
Roblox and Steam shouldn't even be used in the same comparison.