Roblox is a disaster for kids... but not in the way everyone thinks

[BLueRibbon]

As a teacher of thousands of children over the years, and having been an AF to boys of a variety of ages and across two generations, I am now going to put on my ageing millennial cap and say... Roblox sucks.

https://www.brianribbon.com/short-takes ... one-thinks

[Bookshelf]

I think the way Roblox games are developed reflects how people are generally willing to accept the exploitation of children as long as it's not sexual.

Games on Roblox are the very definition of predatory. They are often made with reused assets with limited but repetitive goals and objectives, and are filled with FOMO content. Grow a Garden, for example, is a very simple gardening game. However, the rare items are locked behind rng shop content that resets every 5 minutes, and some of the best items are locked behind limited event-based unlocks (which are also often rng). Make no mistake however, you can spend real money to bypass these restrictions, and it's almost a requirement to make any real progress.

This kind of style is prevalent across the whole site. Simple games filled with FOMO content. Rewards locked behind randomization rather than skill based or progression based unlocks.

You'll find the odd person feigning concern over this sort of thing but won't really take significant action to do anything about it. It highlights how society is actually kinda okay with manipulating kids, so long as someone is making money from it, and it doesn't involve any icky acts. They'll lose their mind at some 20 year old developer sleeping with a 16 year old, but won't care one second that this same developer made millions by exploiting kids through his game.

Edit note: Not that I want kids or anything to be banned from these kinds of games. Just pointing out there's a level of exploitation that's seemingly allowed, and Roblox games are an echo of it.

[BLueRibbon]

Excellent comment, Bookshelf. May I add it to the article?

[Bookshelf]

Excellent comment, Bookshelf. May I add it to the article?

Feel free

[Scorchingwilde]

I think the way Roblox games are developed reflects how people are generally willing to accept the exploitation of children as long as it's not sexual.

Games on Roblox are the very definition of predatory. They are often made with reused assets with limited but repetitive goals and objectives, and are filled with FOMO content. Grow a Garden, for example, is a very simple gardening game. However, the rare items are locked behind rng shop content that resets every 5 minutes, and some of the best items are locked behind limited event-based unlocks (which are also often rng). Make no mistake however, you can spend real money to bypass these restrictions, and it's almost a requirement to make any real progress.

This kind of style is prevalent across the whole site. Simple games filled with FOMO content. Rewards locked behind randomization rather than skill based or progression based unlocks.

You'll find the odd person feigning concern over this sort of thing but won't really take significant action to do anything about it. It highlights how society is actually kinda okay with manipulating kids, so long as someone is making money from it, and it doesn't involve any icky acts. They'll lose their mind at some 20 year old developer sleeping with a 16 year old, but won't care one second that this same developer made millions by exploiting kids through his game.

Edit note: Not that I want kids or anything to be banned from these kinds of games. Just pointing out there's a level of exploitation that's seemingly allowed, and Roblox games are an echo of it.

This is actually one of the biggest reasons (aside from foreign policy and shady business transactions) that I believe Epstein was a shitty person and abuser, despite agreeing somewhat with other pro-C people's defenses of him. One of the releases from this year's batch of files was an email exchange with the former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, where they're discussing how to extract more and more money from kids (particularly teens) in video games using microtransactions, gambling mechanics, and sex appeal. The only anti-MAP creator online whom I've seen care about economic exploitation in games (including of kids) has been Jim/James Stephanie Sterling, who's frankly the only reason I know any of this about Epstein at all. Everyone else complaining about 'grooming' in Roblox for clout is engaging in sexceptionalism and hypocrisy.