Parents worried about children's safety shouldn't let them play Roblox, company boss says
Parents shouldn't let their children play Roblox if they are worried about their kids' safety in-game, Roblox boss Dave…
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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.
Roblox uses luau, which is similar enough to Lua that it absolutely does teach you transferable skills. Knock the platform all you like, but it's not so dissimilar from other game engines that you come away with nothing.
Honestly, I like developing for it, and that's coming from unity.
Sure Python is better but getting interest is more important.
And makecode to Minecraft doesn't transfer to anything else either. -other than logic fundamentals which you get from simple lua programs too.
MakeCode and the other Scratch-based visual coding systems I included make for a good way to get the basics in a way that isn't tied exclusively to any platform or product.
Having python to use once you start hitting the limits of visual coding gives you those properly transferable skills without being tied to Roblox and its extremely abusive practices.
This whole ecosystem is much more approachable than just slinging random Lua scripts.
Yes my kids have done makecode and scratch. But getting a 3d model moving that can be played by others provides a motivation that makecode and scratch don't offer.
As to abuse, every platform takes a cut of profits. If you make a game for free on Roblox there's no profit and therefore no money lost. That's nicer than the Apple model where you have to buy Apple products and pay a yearly Apple license for the privilege of giving Apple 30%.
