Kal-El814 Posted December 14, 2021 Share Posted December 14, 2021 People Make Games is a group of people do journalism about games in general, but they have 2 recent ones about Roblox specifically that I think are worth watching: And its follow up, which came out recently: I knew Roblox was wildly popular, I knew the company was wildly profitable, and I knew that it was largely driven by community created content. Based on that I assumed that there must have been some problematic stuff given that the game deliberately targets young players, but I really had no idea how wild some of this stuff was. The second video goes into a bit of detail about Roblox’s digital marketplace, which I didn’t know existed. I have no idea how this game / company / platform is allowed to exist in its current state, as it seems like such fertile ground for practices and transactions that are inherently exploitative of children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost_MH Posted December 14, 2021 Share Posted December 14, 2021 I was just thinking about posting this after I finished got around to watching the second part. Roblox is the epitome of exploitative microtransactions paired with exploitative labor. It's wild that they've existed so long while unchecked, but I'm fairly certain that's mostly because "serious game journalists" overlook the franchise because it targets kids. There's no real media outlet that targets Roblox's demographic that is also interested in hard hitting journalism. I mean, even adult gamers can barely manage to deal with hard hitting journalism whenever it targets whatever shiny bobble has their attention at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted December 14, 2021 Share Posted December 14, 2021 46 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said: People Make Games is a group of people do journalism about games in general, but they have 2 recent ones about Roblox specifically that I think are worth watching: And its follow up, which came out recently: I knew Roblox was wildly popular, I knew the company was wildly profitable, and I knew that it was largely driven by community created content. Based on that I assumed that there must have been some problematic stuff given that the game deliberately targets young players, but I really had no idea how wild some of this stuff was. The second video goes into a bit of detail about Roblox’s digital marketplace, which I didn’t know existed. I have no idea how this game / company / platform is allowed to exist in its current state, as it seems like such fertile ground for practices and transactions that are inherently exploitative of children. Hey man just so you know, you're posting both videos twice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal-El814 Posted December 14, 2021 Author Share Posted December 14, 2021 31 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said: Hey man just so you know, you're posting both videos twice. Fixed, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted December 14, 2021 Share Posted December 14, 2021 6 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said: Fixed, thanks! No problem, I found the first video and just got finished watching it. THIS is videogame journalism... not the bullshit we see on big sites. I'm familiar with Roblox because my nephew loves and so do my buddy's sons. Gonna definitely spread these videos around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercury33 Posted December 14, 2021 Share Posted December 14, 2021 My son plays a ton of Roblox but I have an extremely strict NO MONEY EVER policy for that game. Even as like one off birthday or Christmas gifts. I’m not against getting him season passes or DLC that sticks around in game “permanently but this isn’t that. The way micro transactions work in that game is extremely predatory on the age group that game appeals to and I imagine a lot of parents don’t really bother checking on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 Maybe Kim Kardashian will be the one to take them down The Kardashian-Roblox scandal continues to be messy and dumb | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM A scene in which Kim Kardashian's son discovered a Roblox game promoting a new sex tape raised a lot of questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodyHell Posted April 24, 2022 Share Posted April 24, 2022 On 4/23/2022 at 9:37 AM, Keyser_Soze said: Maybe Kim Kardashian will be the one to take them down The Kardashian-Roblox scandal continues to be messy and dumb | PC Gamer WWW.PCGAMER.COM A scene in which Kim Kardashian's son discovered a Roblox game promoting a new sex tape raised a lot of questions. I mean, when you leak your sex tape, you should maybe consider that your future children will probably see it. Is it wrong that my first thought was that they put up the ad so it could be part of their show? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 Interesting interview, they're not even trying to hide it Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift WWW.EUROGAMER.NET Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza says that the game doesn't exploit children, and is instead "a gift". Quote In an interview with Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza at GDC in late March, where a new suite of AI-powered creation tools was demoed, I asked about the reputation Roblox has gained and the notion that it was exploitative of young developers, since it takes a cut from work sometimes produced by children. "I don't know, you can say this for a lot of things, right?" Corazza said. "Like, you can say, 'Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labour,' right? Or, you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income. So, I can be like 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now, with just a laptop, I can create something, make money and then sustain my life. "There's always the flip side of that, when you go broad and democratised - and in this case, also with a younger audience," he continued. "I mean, our average game developer is in their 20s. But of course, there's people that are teenagers - and we have hired some teenagers that had millions of players on the platform. "For them, you know, hearing from their experience, they didn't feel like they were exploited! They felt like, 'Oh my god, this was the biggest gift, all of a sudden I could create something, I had millions of users, I made so much money I could retire.' So I focus more on the amount of money that we distribute every year to creators, which is now getting close to like a billion dollars, which is phenomenal." At this point the PR present during the interview added that "the vast majority of people that are earning money on Roblox are over the age of 18". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eventide11 Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 Knowing first hand that my kids grew up on Roblox and how many times they've asked for Robux, having to monitor the games they play on it I can totally believe they would exploit kids and their being naive to how much money they can rack up unknowingly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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