Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers

Roblox turns a blind eye to child exploitation (whether being creeped on by adults, or being exploited by teens/adults to make games) and makes a fortune out of it. If it weren't online, it'd be illegal and people would be in jail. ▶ this video link

Remember, Roblox is toxic and exploits young people. - Roblox Isn't a Game | Psychology Today // link - Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - YouTube // ▶ this video - Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - YouTube // link Roblox is Darker Than You Think (ft. Ruben Sim) - YouTube // link

From what I have seen about Roblox, it is a game which parents should be extremely critical of and if I had children I would absolutely not let them play it. Not only are there repeat allegations of unfairness towards the player, Roblox also contains a stock market so that children can start gambling early. (See ▶ this video ) Besides that and far more disturbingly there are repeat and ongoing accusations of child abuse and child sexualization, which the company behind Roblox is ignoring. These accusations are bad enough that they have caused short selling of the company stocks.

The one being exploited is the developer. From the article: > I spent $100 on advertising after publishing the game More information: < ▶ this video >

Roblox has been on a constant downward trend. They’ve been doing some pretty awful stuff, including exploitation of children developers [0], unregulated market which encourages kids to gamble, lackluster moderation allowing kids to be harassed or worse, [both 1] and allowing manipulative and predatory games on their site [2]. [0] ▶ this video [1] link [2] link

Roblox in particular has a ... storied history of exploiting children [1, 2] for both direct and indirect profit. [1] link [2] ▶ this video

The YouTube channel "People Make Games" has a couple of reports that I'd suggest parents consider watching first before going down that road: * "Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers": ▶ this video * "Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper.": link

> in this dota case, if the modders wanted to charge for content, they shouldn’t have modded a game that prohibits charging for content. It's a too easy to use of an argument, reality is more complex, ▶ this video

But the consumers in this case are the ones generating content with a heavy dose of programming. It sounds exploitative on the part of Roblox, but they're doing game development. ▶ this video

I don't like that Nintendo does this. I don't care who does it, it's wrong. That said, of all the people doing this, it seems to me Nintendo is among the worst targets to go after. They were, to my eye, dragged into this almost against their will, and if anything they've been backing off from it. It certainly hasn't wormed its way in to their mainline games the way it is well into worming its way in to almost every other major publisher out there's games. Again, I don't say this to defend them. It's wrong for everyone. What I am saying though is that this is not a very target rich environment, and there are target-rich environments elsewhere. There are companies that seem to be entirely based not only on exploitative mechanics, but exploitative mechanics specifically targeted at children, like Roblox. ▶ this video and link , the People Make Games investigations into them, for instance. Although there is an interesting strategy for Nintendo to pursue here where they get sued, and then basically deliberately construct a precedent-setting loss to knee-cap their competition on this front. There's a lot of competition for Nintendo out there surviving on the basis of these cheap drug hits of monetary injection whose ability to develop good games on their own merits are clearly well into the process of atrophy, and Nintendo would probably stand to benefit even if they have to pay some millions of dollars in settlement payouts to impose those restrictions on them. If those mechanics wer

Cool, sell your soul to a corporation that literally exploits minors [1][3]. Of course they can afford to pay Silicon Valley salaries, given that most of the game development is done by sub-subcontracted child labour [2]. [1] link [2] link [3] ▶ this video

Remember that robblox investigation, were they interviewed that 12 year old that already talked like a burned out developer, feeling cheated out of the revenue. The children yearn for the mines.. ▶ this video

People Make Games is one of the YouTube channels that I respect in this domain... Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - ▶ this video Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - link

Even that isn't an unmitigated good - Roblox's encouragement to write games for them has come with a huge downside - labor exploitation and grooming: ▶ this video

Some interesting related investigation (I think they mention this girl in the second video) related to roblox is anyone is interested. I had never used it, but after seeing these I don't think I would ever use it or encourage anyone to use it. ▶ this video link

Here's more than you wanted to know: - People Make Games: Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers. ▶ this video - People Make Games: Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. link I think you're right that it's something that can be used in good or bad ways, and the thrust of the argument is that there aren't the kind of safeguards you'd hope for to stop kids falling to one of the bad ways. Like how we keep kids out of Casinos (or used to at least, now we just ship casinos to kids in their FIFA games).

Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers ▶ this video Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. link

I was just getting at the illusion of choice. At the end of the day it's all owned by the same handful of small groups. Found out yesterday that Blizzard apparently owns King. Tencent owns a cut of Activision Blizzard, as well as a slice of basically every gaming company. link Note that I'm not even criticizing or otherwise knocking these business practices, I'm simply making some observations. My use of the term bullshit was particularly to describe the illusion of choice. Not that it's anything new. link I think the world would be just fine without fortnite, but I will say unreal engine is pretty nice to have. Probably just a matter of time until Microsoft owns unreal engine as well. Tangentially relevant due to Tencent involvement: ▶ this video link

To add, there is a nice documentary here[1] which also has a followup[2] that show even more of the issue at hand. Kids making games and only getting 24.5% of the profit is one thing, but everything else that Roblox does is much worse. [1] ▶ this video [2] link

The video this article is reporting on is ▶ this video . Normally we'd change the URL to the original source but I think most HN readers probably prefer to read a summary even if the article is cribbed.