It's bad and it's kids. Like, the game is no better if you doin't aim it at kids, but the fact they intentionally employ child labor as a gamified device is just disgusting.
It's a game designed for kids with not enough moderation/limitations for a kids game. There's literal porn games if you look in the right places (called 'condo games')
Yeah, the other problem with these kinds of open-ended social games that are heavily aimed at children is that adults who want to exploit children will play those games for that express purpose.
Same issue with games like VRChat, and to a less extent, Fortnite.
At least he cares about Palestinians. Unlike Kamala. Mrs. “Shut up, I’m talking”.
And I could say at least Kamala doesn’t have all her political opponents locked up. I wouldn’t do that though because boiling a politician down to a single issue doesn’t make any sense.
Maybe not to you, but when 15,000 children have been murdered and an entire population is starving, then boiling a politician down to a single issue does make sense to me.
Typical American apathetic to genocide.
I’m not apathetic, I’ve actively contacted my representatives demanding a cease fire. I’ve donated for aid for Gaza. Considering what Erdogan has done to the Kurds I find you argument extra rich. By all means continue to act all self righteous when I will be the one who has to deal with the other guy if you keep carrying water for his campaign.
Done more than the user just spreading hatred
Typical tankie lying about what they care about.
Would you have an idea about what they would care about? Like are they just virtue signaling hard? Why not?
Like I could see Russians or Chinese or Republicans pushing this point just to sow division on the Israel point. But why “tankies”? Maybe I should just google it
people claiming to care about Palestinians but then encouraging votes against them. Voting any way but for Harris will harm them and that's easy to reason through but they don't care. Ergo they do not give an actual flying fuck about any Palestinian, they just want to be seen as doing so.
I think there's a lot you should google.
Oh, it’s not sarcasm
To be fair to you, yes. But, also. Why?
You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons and this is a classic case. He’s an ethno-nationalist. Ask him how he feels about Kurdish minorities or the genocide of Armenians.
Tankie bullshit
You asked Joe Biden to step down and you got what you wanted. Good job, be happy.
Is this sarcasm? This feels like sarcasm.
most people are focusing on the free labour roblox is extracting from kids but from the article:
Further claims stated, according to Turkish media, that Roblox hosted virtual parties promoting pedophilia and that “robux,” the platform’s virtual currency, was being distributed by bot accounts to encourage children’s involvement in these activities, and excess presence of gambling sites and their predatory tactics.
so it looks like roblox was banned because of bad moderation in regards to gambling and sexual predators, both of which are massive issues of the platform. overall i think this is a good move which hopefully will push roblox to do better.
thanks for that. not gonna let the littles get on roblox until they are older
It is the single most difficult thing as a parent to put my foot down about. Or it was at first.
My son LOVES watching the YouTubers playing the (horribly developed) games and enjoys making pretend games based on what he watches (some of it, sometimes we have to skip a video). He has a lot of friends at school that play it.
I will not let my son play it. Minecraft? Sure. Minecraft has a very different system, plenty of it crap, but it's much easier to supervise and much less exploitive.
But he does let me know that he feels left out when his friends play it and he can't. He doesn't have any siblings, so I understand how it's difficult to lack that connection to peers. He has other ways he gets to connect - mine craft, local playgyms, events for children, sports.
As a parent part of the empathy is feeling that sadness that comes from his disappointment in not being allowed to play it. But I think he has started to understand as he's gotten a little older, that adults making money off of what a kid makes isn't nice, or fair, or safe.
Turkey did well here. I don't think we'll ever have something similar in the states, but I hope regulation can come about eventually.
I straight up told my kid that he will not be playing that game. So you're not alone out there and you're doing well by taking an interest in your child's activity and monitoring them appropriately. I wish more parents would do the same.
If he likes the idea of making games, just find a playlist of Godot or Unreal 5 game building on youtube. Most of that stuff can be done low-code, and would be perfect for someone who wants to click around and make something. It can be frustrating at first… but if you find something that actually works, I bet it’d click
There's also a block coding plugin for Godot now too!
Damn, superstar. Save some A++ parenting for other people! Seriously, you must be raising a top-quality person...
I wish. There are things we have been unable to change, even with the assistance of a couple of child psychologists.
When he gets upset with other kids, particularly when they break rules, he is absolutely convinced he needs to be the executive of the rules and often hits or pushes the other kids.
He was doing it before my ex and I separated. It only seems to happen during the summer at the day care program, so it's likely something more going on there.
Kids are still humans, and honestly I have to remind myself I'm doing the best I can. Because if I knew a better way to do things, I'd be doing that instead.
To me it's not about raising a superstar, it's raising someone who shares my values, and is capable of caring for themselves as an adult. Socializing and play is the most vital part of childhood development, so I do everything I can there.
Well put. I exaggerated, and not to minimize their issues, but the fact you clearly care and are willing to work at it makes me less worried for them.
All you can do is encourage good behavior/perspectives and discourage the bad. At some point, every child growing up will have to decide if they want to be like their parents or not. You're clearly doing great, just keep going! And take care of yourself as well...
If he likes making simple games, consider introducing him to Scratch. It's not monetized at all and last I checked, was much better moderated than other online platforms for kids.
Yeah the same conversations have occurred in my household. I think you made the right choice here. I'm a huge gamer myself and developer, not on Roblox. Usually if anything it's me being the lenient one when it comes to games in our home, vice my wife. This is one that I did not allow from day 1 regardless of the age of the kid. It was apparent to be a bad apple to me from my initial looks at it, and has only proven that point over the years. I can't imagine though how hard it is for most parents who are not entrenched in that industry to navigate decisions like that.
Now do it everywhere else
Roblox is just knockoff exploitative gmod. Only reason it keeps going is because its free to download.
More annoyed it hasn't been banned or sued under other consumer protection laws.
You are smoking crack if you think Roblox is a gmod knockoff, but everything else, unfortunately, yeah. I played Roblox in 2012 and it was pretty fun at 11 years old but the pay2win stuff was out of control even back then.
There were a few weird roleplay servers but back then it really just felt like "playing house" online, but the fact that anyone regardless of age could hop in at any time and send socials was fucking weird to me even as a kid.
It needs a serious rework of how the platform works if they want to continue marketing themselves as for children. The game has seen barely any safety improvements from what I've seen of current gameplay and mfs are wilin on the internet nowadays
Ngl roblox kinda sucks and their moderation is awful
Ngl roblox kinda ##### and their moderation is #####
Roblox chat filter
This is actually about the "condos", private ERP instances where children are exploited for robux.
Lol when you agree with a ban that turkey made thats a strange day. Maybe a ban is a bit too much but roblox is shitty and they should be pressured to change... and this applies to most large companies
I've always thought roblox was dumb, but its kind of just a playground. Kids need a playground where their imaginations are free to grow and thy're in control. Somewhere they can interact and learn how to socialize safely with other children. When i was a kid, that was a walk to the park with friends to kick a ball around, riding a bicycle somewhere, exploring, and working out some dumb activities to do... Honest question: how comfortable are you with the idea of just letting your kids go to the park by themselves for hours on end?
For better or worse, it seems like sandbox creativity games like roblox are filling that void for some kids. Not saying roblox is an answer to a problem, just that kids seem to be utilizing it as a playground where they get to be creative and in control. Not sure why I'm bringing this up. It's just a thought that occurred to me recently.
Kids deserve to have games like Roblox, but they don't deserve to be exploited financially by them by child labour and gambling mechanics.
As always, the answer to child welfare is to prevent them interacting directly with capitalism and markets. Children should always be given a communist upbringing with free food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, education, and recreation.
Nice.
I regret to inform you that this news is: BASED
W
FYI, Instagram was blocked in Turkey a few days before Roblox ban. Both are still blocked.
Based Turkey.
So this sounds like a parent problem.
lol I can see why they would do that
I hate being tuekish man. Thks is my last year in this country.
I mean, in this particular case, they're right. Roblox is predatory AF.
they banned instagram a week prior. They wil ban more
Based.
No. It isn't abouf if I personally liked these services or not. This is cencorship. Even my mail service proton is banned in turkey it's impossible to use the internet without a vpn here it's a cencorship state.
If they ban a service without a guideline off what laws the companies should abide or either not giving a national alternative is totally fucked but otherwise I hope more countries start to limit what big companies can do within their territories.
it definetly is the first thing you mentioned. they ban shit on a whim
To Roblox: Being "child friendy" gives you controversies. You reap what you sowed.
Can someone tell me how the kids are being forced to make video games. I have read several of these articles and can’t understand the logic. My kids played Roblox and created games on the platform they were never forced or coerced to make anything. Maybe it’s our messed up capitalistic society that expects everybody to monetize anything that’s fun.
Not coerced, but tricked into thinking they would get money for it while roblox or some other adult creator takes 90% of it.
At least in my day when we made some small rpg maker 2000 thing for free there wasn't anyone above me getting rich while I got zilch.
I watched a video a while back about this, but the details are fuzzy. I think it was the one I linked below if you want to look more into it. In essence, there aren't a ton of cases where kids are actually being forced to work. However, there are strong incentives for kids to work on Roblox projects that the developers themselves push. The devs want a constant stream of content and money coming in, but they don't want to pay adult workers at adult wages, so they offer Robux to players who make games. It is difficult for people to convert Robux to actual cash, and the money they receive is often significantly less than they would if they put the effort into any other form of work, so many of these kids are essentially making content for the developers for free or significantly less than they should earn. If there was no payout for content creators and the kids were doing that development just because they had passion for the game, it might be a different situation, but there are quite a few kids that believe they can make serious money doing this and don't understand that the developers are exploiting them and paying very little. Adults can probably do more research and better understand the situation they are getting into, but kids often don't have the same critical thinking skills as adults and will accept the lie being pushed by the developers and community that they can get rich by contributing to the game they love.
The details are too much to go into here in a simple comment. For a full investigation into Roblox check out this video by People Make Games, a games journalism site:
Essentially, Roox makes billions off the free labour of children. The entire eco system is set up to funnel kids into a cycle of consuming others content and producing their own. It's also completely unregulated which has allowed some shady people, some of whom are, or directly work for, the owners of the platform to set up quasi developer studios where children are subjected to the same appealing treatment and exploitation of the regular games industry, while earning none of the revenue.
Well none of these sources tell me how the kids are forced into this. All these services are free, so I still don’t see the exploitation. Are you saying the kids are tricked into making games for Roblox, if so then maybe that’s on the parents. As a software engineer and having kids who played Roblox their entire lives, I still can’t make the leap of exploitive practices over just capitalism. Maybe show me another platform that kids can learn how the basics of game design while hosting the game at the same time.
More perfect union did a really great video about the exploitation. From what I can remember the crux of the argument goes roughly like this:
Kid plays game, kid is encouraged through game to create content for game. This content created by kid is sold through game to other kids. Kid who put the work into creating this gamemode is not compensated fairly.
The video goes on to explain a lot of other exploitative practices of roblox.
Awful. A government should not be allowed to block websites.
What about websites providing CSAM, hosting livestreams of animals being tortured for payment, selling drugs, etc...
Blocking a website is the only way for a country to stop these kind of illegal activists, short of shutting down the physical servers.
That statement doesn't really make sense. Especially in this case, the website is a business and a store. A government definitely has the right to take legal action against a physical store operating within it's jurisdiction, so why would the same not hold true for an electronic one?
Will someone please explain to me how a video game exploits children.
Kids make maps. Stuff in the maps is sold for Roblox bucks. Roblox bucks cost money to buy. The kid who makes the map gets the Roblox bucks, and can sell them. The problem is you only get 30% back when you sell a Roblox buck.
So kids spend time making big maps and servers, buying ads, getting shoutouts on YouTube/whatever, and Roblox takes a 70% cut from all of it
Isn't it more like 20%
Sounds like a normal business that gives kids a chance to make money.
Its exploiting child labor and the impulsive brain chemistry of adolescence.
Fair enough, but couldn't the same be said about YouTube? They also take the biggest cut of the ad money for creators.
Yes. Using kids to drive engagement on YouTube is exploitative. Parents who do that are exploiting their children
But what about…? Doesn’t excuse the first thing!
Why did anyone read my comment as an excuse? I was pointing two fingers instead of one on Roblox.
Probably the “but”. I agree that both are exploitive and they should all be called out on it.
My bad. English is not my first language.
"labor" 😂
What would you call it when a child does work that you profit from?
Doesn't matter what you call it. It's profitable and you know that's what's meant.
Is labor. There is a whole market of Roblox related things, there are job sites, freelance sites that employ kids to work on design/programming/marketing of these game modes. To pay them the game currency that maybe later can be traded for real money.
Is not just kids tinkering with the game.
The children yearn for the mines
A normal business, yes. Normal businesses are highly and cruelly exploitative, which is why we decided 80 years ago (in the US) that children, at the very least, should be protected from them.
I said explain. It's this old school thing we used to do where we JUST TELL A PERSON SOMETHING
I get what you are saying, and actually agree with out. But you don't have to be an asshole about it. No one has the obligation to attend your tantrums.
Children make games on Roblox (real games, the thing people do working in the industry), Roblox makes money off those games and pays close to nothing to the children. Therefore, exploits children.
The video is an explanation, none of us want to regurgitate multiple 30-45 minute videos that already explain exactly what your asking.
Sometimes, there are already resources explaining more clearly and thoroughly than we could. And although I'm unsure if this case qualifies, there are definitely topics that can't be reduced to a few sentences. Thus, a reputable link is often worth more to both sides: it saves the explainer time and effort while informing the target far better.
If you don't want to engage with the content, I believe there are better ways to go about it than being rude to people who were likely trying to help.
The video is an explanation.
Obvious bad faith argument
This comment is such a beautifully concise argument for the existence of block buttons. Toodles~
No we didn't. Telling people something was invented in 2016 by russian bots in Kamchatka on Twitter.
Watch the video or feed it into ChatGPT for a summary or Google a pre-existing summary.
Get a life, guy
I'm not the one going around begging peeps for explanations
Read the article and find out
Just give me the broad strokes
Stop expecting handouts with 0 effort especially when the answer is one tap away.
Jeeze, he must work for Roblox with that level of expected free labor...
Lemme compile it all into a 20 second tiktok video
You must not be just a troll... but a mountain troll
Broken clock moment for Erdy
Seriously.
Now let's do it everywhere.
Why? I don't know anything about the game, is it bad for kids?
They exploit kids for free labor among other things.
https://www.eurogamer.net/roblox-exploiting-young-game-developers-new-investigation-reports
Investigation: How Roblox is Exploiting Young Gamers
Roblox Pressured us To Delete our Video. So we Dug Deeper.
It's bad and it's kids. Like, the game is no better if you doin't aim it at kids, but the fact they intentionally employ child labor as a gamified device is just disgusting.
It's a game designed for kids with not enough moderation/limitations for a kids game. There's literal porn games if you look in the right places (called 'condo games')
Yeah, the other problem with these kinds of open-ended social games that are heavily aimed at children is that adults who want to exploit children will play those games for that express purpose.
Same issue with games like VRChat, and to a less extent, Fortnite.
At least he cares about Palestinians. Unlike Kamala. Mrs. “Shut up, I’m talking”.
And I could say at least Kamala doesn’t have all her political opponents locked up. I wouldn’t do that though because boiling a politician down to a single issue doesn’t make any sense.
Maybe not to you, but when 15,000 children have been murdered and an entire population is starving, then boiling a politician down to a single issue does make sense to me.
Typical American apathetic to genocide.
I’m not apathetic, I’ve actively contacted my representatives demanding a cease fire. I’ve donated for aid for Gaza. Considering what Erdogan has done to the Kurds I find you argument extra rich. By all means continue to act all self righteous when I will be the one who has to deal with the other guy if you keep carrying water for his campaign.
Done more than the user just spreading hatred
Typical tankie lying about what they care about.
Would you have an idea about what they would care about? Like are they just virtue signaling hard? Why not?
Like I could see Russians or Chinese or Republicans pushing this point just to sow division on the Israel point. But why “tankies”? Maybe I should just google it
people claiming to care about Palestinians but then encouraging votes against them. Voting any way but for Harris will harm them and that's easy to reason through but they don't care. Ergo they do not give an actual flying fuck about any Palestinian, they just want to be seen as doing so.
I think there's a lot you should google.
Oh, it’s not sarcasm
To be fair to you, yes. But, also. Why?
You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons and this is a classic case. He’s an ethno-nationalist. Ask him how he feels about Kurdish minorities or the genocide of Armenians.
Tankie bullshit
You asked Joe Biden to step down and you got what you wanted. Good job, be happy.
Is this sarcasm? This feels like sarcasm.
most people are focusing on the free labour roblox is extracting from kids but from the article:
so it looks like roblox was banned because of bad moderation in regards to gambling and sexual predators, both of which are massive issues of the platform. overall i think this is a good move which hopefully will push roblox to do better.
thanks for that. not gonna let the littles get on roblox until they are older
It is the single most difficult thing as a parent to put my foot down about. Or it was at first.
My son LOVES watching the YouTubers playing the (horribly developed) games and enjoys making pretend games based on what he watches (some of it, sometimes we have to skip a video). He has a lot of friends at school that play it.
I will not let my son play it. Minecraft? Sure. Minecraft has a very different system, plenty of it crap, but it's much easier to supervise and much less exploitive.
But he does let me know that he feels left out when his friends play it and he can't. He doesn't have any siblings, so I understand how it's difficult to lack that connection to peers. He has other ways he gets to connect - mine craft, local playgyms, events for children, sports.
As a parent part of the empathy is feeling that sadness that comes from his disappointment in not being allowed to play it. But I think he has started to understand as he's gotten a little older, that adults making money off of what a kid makes isn't nice, or fair, or safe.
Turkey did well here. I don't think we'll ever have something similar in the states, but I hope regulation can come about eventually.
I straight up told my kid that he will not be playing that game. So you're not alone out there and you're doing well by taking an interest in your child's activity and monitoring them appropriately. I wish more parents would do the same.
If he likes the idea of making games, just find a playlist of Godot or Unreal 5 game building on youtube. Most of that stuff can be done low-code, and would be perfect for someone who wants to click around and make something. It can be frustrating at first… but if you find something that actually works, I bet it’d click
There's also a block coding plugin for Godot now too!
https://github.com/endlessm/godot-block-coding
Perfect tool to get kids into game creation.
Damn, superstar. Save some A++ parenting for other people! Seriously, you must be raising a top-quality person...
I wish. There are things we have been unable to change, even with the assistance of a couple of child psychologists.
When he gets upset with other kids, particularly when they break rules, he is absolutely convinced he needs to be the executive of the rules and often hits or pushes the other kids.
He was doing it before my ex and I separated. It only seems to happen during the summer at the day care program, so it's likely something more going on there.
Kids are still humans, and honestly I have to remind myself I'm doing the best I can. Because if I knew a better way to do things, I'd be doing that instead.
To me it's not about raising a superstar, it's raising someone who shares my values, and is capable of caring for themselves as an adult. Socializing and play is the most vital part of childhood development, so I do everything I can there.
Well put. I exaggerated, and not to minimize their issues, but the fact you clearly care and are willing to work at it makes me less worried for them.
All you can do is encourage good behavior/perspectives and discourage the bad. At some point, every child growing up will have to decide if they want to be like their parents or not. You're clearly doing great, just keep going! And take care of yourself as well...
If he likes making simple games, consider introducing him to Scratch. It's not monetized at all and last I checked, was much better moderated than other online platforms for kids.
Yeah the same conversations have occurred in my household. I think you made the right choice here. I'm a huge gamer myself and developer, not on Roblox. Usually if anything it's me being the lenient one when it comes to games in our home, vice my wife. This is one that I did not allow from day 1 regardless of the age of the kid. It was apparent to be a bad apple to me from my initial looks at it, and has only proven that point over the years. I can't imagine though how hard it is for most parents who are not entrenched in that industry to navigate decisions like that.
Now do it everywhere else
Roblox is just knockoff exploitative gmod. Only reason it keeps going is because its free to download.
More annoyed it hasn't been banned or sued under other consumer protection laws.
You are smoking crack if you think Roblox is a gmod knockoff, but everything else, unfortunately, yeah. I played Roblox in 2012 and it was pretty fun at 11 years old but the pay2win stuff was out of control even back then.
There were a few weird roleplay servers but back then it really just felt like "playing house" online, but the fact that anyone regardless of age could hop in at any time and send socials was fucking weird to me even as a kid.
It needs a serious rework of how the platform works if they want to continue marketing themselves as for children. The game has seen barely any safety improvements from what I've seen of current gameplay and mfs are wilin on the internet nowadays
Ngl roblox kinda sucks and their moderation is awful
Ngl roblox kinda ##### and their moderation is #####
Roblox chat filter
This is actually about the "condos", private ERP instances where children are exploited for robux.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cr76k3-Zak
Good.
Lol when you agree with a ban that turkey made thats a strange day. Maybe a ban is a bit too much but roblox is shitty and they should be pressured to change... and this applies to most large companies
I've always thought roblox was dumb, but its kind of just a playground. Kids need a playground where their imaginations are free to grow and thy're in control. Somewhere they can interact and learn how to socialize safely with other children. When i was a kid, that was a walk to the park with friends to kick a ball around, riding a bicycle somewhere, exploring, and working out some dumb activities to do... Honest question: how comfortable are you with the idea of just letting your kids go to the park by themselves for hours on end?
For better or worse, it seems like sandbox creativity games like roblox are filling that void for some kids. Not saying roblox is an answer to a problem, just that kids seem to be utilizing it as a playground where they get to be creative and in control. Not sure why I'm bringing this up. It's just a thought that occurred to me recently.
Kids deserve to have games like Roblox, but they don't deserve to be exploited financially by them by child labour and gambling mechanics.
As always, the answer to child welfare is to prevent them interacting directly with capitalism and markets. Children should always be given a communist upbringing with free food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, education, and recreation.
Nice.
I regret to inform you that this news is: BASED
W
FYI, Instagram was blocked in Turkey a few days before Roblox ban. Both are still blocked.
Based Turkey.
So this sounds like a parent problem.
lol I can see why they would do that
I hate being tuekish man. Thks is my last year in this country.
I mean, in this particular case, they're right. Roblox is predatory AF.
they banned instagram a week prior. They wil ban more
Based.
No. It isn't abouf if I personally liked these services or not. This is cencorship. Even my mail service proton is banned in turkey it's impossible to use the internet without a vpn here it's a cencorship state.
If they ban a service without a guideline off what laws the companies should abide or either not giving a national alternative is totally fucked but otherwise I hope more countries start to limit what big companies can do within their territories.
it definetly is the first thing you mentioned. they ban shit on a whim
Personally like/dislike =! Perpetuates child abuse.
Lol nice
This org needs a revival so that people can move away from roblox
To Roblox: Being "child friendy" gives you controversies. You reap what you sowed.
Can someone tell me how the kids are being forced to make video games. I have read several of these articles and can’t understand the logic. My kids played Roblox and created games on the platform they were never forced or coerced to make anything. Maybe it’s our messed up capitalistic society that expects everybody to monetize anything that’s fun.
Not coerced, but tricked into thinking they would get money for it while roblox or some other adult creator takes 90% of it.
At least in my day when we made some small rpg maker 2000 thing for free there wasn't anyone above me getting rich while I got zilch.
I watched a video a while back about this, but the details are fuzzy. I think it was the one I linked below if you want to look more into it. In essence, there aren't a ton of cases where kids are actually being forced to work. However, there are strong incentives for kids to work on Roblox projects that the developers themselves push. The devs want a constant stream of content and money coming in, but they don't want to pay adult workers at adult wages, so they offer Robux to players who make games. It is difficult for people to convert Robux to actual cash, and the money they receive is often significantly less than they would if they put the effort into any other form of work, so many of these kids are essentially making content for the developers for free or significantly less than they should earn. If there was no payout for content creators and the kids were doing that development just because they had passion for the game, it might be a different situation, but there are quite a few kids that believe they can make serious money doing this and don't understand that the developers are exploiting them and paying very little. Adults can probably do more research and better understand the situation they are getting into, but kids often don't have the same critical thinking skills as adults and will accept the lie being pushed by the developers and community that they can get rich by contributing to the game they love.
Video: https://youtu.be/_gXlauRB1EQ
Follow-up: https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY
The details are too much to go into here in a simple comment. For a full investigation into Roblox check out this video by People Make Games, a games journalism site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
Essentially, Roox makes billions off the free labour of children. The entire eco system is set up to funnel kids into a cycle of consuming others content and producing their own. It's also completely unregulated which has allowed some shady people, some of whom are, or directly work for, the owners of the platform to set up quasi developer studios where children are subjected to the same appealing treatment and exploitation of the regular games industry, while earning none of the revenue.
Well none of these sources tell me how the kids are forced into this. All these services are free, so I still don’t see the exploitation. Are you saying the kids are tricked into making games for Roblox, if so then maybe that’s on the parents. As a software engineer and having kids who played Roblox their entire lives, I still can’t make the leap of exploitive practices over just capitalism. Maybe show me another platform that kids can learn how the basics of game design while hosting the game at the same time.
More perfect union did a really great video about the exploitation. From what I can remember the crux of the argument goes roughly like this:
Kid plays game, kid is encouraged through game to create content for game. This content created by kid is sold through game to other kids. Kid who put the work into creating this gamemode is not compensated fairly.
The video goes on to explain a lot of other exploitative practices of roblox.
Awful. A government should not be allowed to block websites.
What about websites providing CSAM, hosting livestreams of animals being tortured for payment, selling drugs, etc...
Blocking a website is the only way for a country to stop these kind of illegal activists, short of shutting down the physical servers.
That statement doesn't really make sense. Especially in this case, the website is a business and a store. A government definitely has the right to take legal action against a physical store operating within it's jurisdiction, so why would the same not hold true for an electronic one?
Will someone please explain to me how a video game exploits children.
Kids make maps. Stuff in the maps is sold for Roblox bucks. Roblox bucks cost money to buy. The kid who makes the map gets the Roblox bucks, and can sell them. The problem is you only get 30% back when you sell a Roblox buck.
So kids spend time making big maps and servers, buying ads, getting shoutouts on YouTube/whatever, and Roblox takes a 70% cut from all of it
Isn't it more like 20%
Sounds like a normal business that gives kids a chance to make money.
Its exploiting child labor and the impulsive brain chemistry of adolescence.
Fair enough, but couldn't the same be said about YouTube? They also take the biggest cut of the ad money for creators.
Yes. Using kids to drive engagement on YouTube is exploitative. Parents who do that are exploiting their children
But what about…? Doesn’t excuse the first thing!
Why did anyone read my comment as an excuse? I was pointing two fingers instead of one on Roblox.
Probably the “but”. I agree that both are exploitive and they should all be called out on it.
My bad. English is not my first language.
"labor" 😂
What would you call it when a child does work that you profit from?
Doesn't matter what you call it. It's profitable and you know that's what's meant.
Is labor. There is a whole market of Roblox related things, there are job sites, freelance sites that employ kids to work on design/programming/marketing of these game modes. To pay them the game currency that maybe later can be traded for real money.
Is not just kids tinkering with the game.
The children yearn for the mines
A normal business, yes. Normal businesses are highly and cruelly exploitative, which is why we decided 80 years ago (in the US) that children, at the very least, should be protected from them.
Can't tell if you're kidding.
You could start with this People Make Games video from a couple of years ago. https://youtu.be/_gXlauRB1EQ?si=Ttg4-Bust1K-X-22
I said explain. It's this old school thing we used to do where we JUST TELL A PERSON SOMETHING
I get what you are saying, and actually agree with out. But you don't have to be an asshole about it. No one has the obligation to attend your tantrums.
Children make games on Roblox (real games, the thing people do working in the industry), Roblox makes money off those games and pays close to nothing to the children. Therefore, exploits children.
The video is an explanation, none of us want to regurgitate multiple 30-45 minute videos that already explain exactly what your asking.
Sometimes, there are already resources explaining more clearly and thoroughly than we could. And although I'm unsure if this case qualifies, there are definitely topics that can't be reduced to a few sentences. Thus, a reputable link is often worth more to both sides: it saves the explainer time and effort while informing the target far better.
If you don't want to engage with the content, I believe there are better ways to go about it than being rude to people who were likely trying to help.
The video is an explanation.
Obvious bad faith argument
This comment is such a beautifully concise argument for the existence of block buttons. Toodles~
No we didn't. Telling people something was invented in 2016 by russian bots in Kamchatka on Twitter.
Watch the video or feed it into ChatGPT for a summary or Google a pre-existing summary.
Get a life, guy
I'm not the one going around begging peeps for explanations
Read the article and find out
Just give me the broad strokes
Stop expecting handouts with 0 effort especially when the answer is one tap away.
Jeeze, he must work for Roblox with that level of expected free labor...
Lemme compile it all into a 20 second tiktok video
You must not be just a troll... but a mountain troll
These guys explain it well, let them:
Investigation: How Roblox is Exploiting Young Gamers
Roblox Pressured us To Delete our Video. So we Dug Deeper.
It's not hard to use a search engine.