The Roblox Microverse
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Eg my youngest likes the clicking simulators. Many of those are awful "pay to win" schemes but some actually have fun game dynamics (not unlike the Paperclip Simulator html game that's an HN favorite[0]). Those are the ones he returns to.
These are the games that are more creative in nature, the games that are more challenging and so on and so forth. I feel that at least 7 out of 10 times I check on them, they're doing a game that involves creation, economics, collaboration, and often multiple of those.
I'm advocating for picking all the VC-funded (and user-generated) freebies off the platform and giving nothing back. It's like using YouTube with an ad blocker.
That said, I'm not sure I parsed your comment right, so just to clarify: when I say "economic" I mean stuff like "Pizza Tycoon" where you run a restaurant and need to buy stuff with fake money to get more customers etc etc. That's not Robux money, that's 100% in-game fake money that you earn by selling pizzas. Even the better clickers have this dynamic, where you click to get some kinds of points and then you can use the points to buy/build stuff that auto-generates clicks etc. It's not unlike the economies in Starcraft (yeah I'm old) and the likes.
My fault. Resummarizing, you shouldn't take your kids finding "Pizza Tycoon" competitive or even preferable to Roblox (with or without Robux power assists) as applicable to the general population.
I'm sharing something that worked for us, which seems relevant when the thread is full of parents complaining about how Roblox is full of "pay to win" scams. I did not run a scientific study, my sample size is 2. Why are you even assuming that I think my anecdote is generally applicable? I suggested no such thing.
I had that to start with, but now he's older and using the platform to interact with his friends (especially during lockdown), we have relented and now use Robux as incentives for doing chores etc.
It could be skins or abilities or anything else that is part of the world.
Other times it is a shortcut to stuff that you could get by grinding. $5 gets you twice the XP (experience points) so you can unlock new weapons, levels, etc. Individual games sometimes take this to extremes, I once calculated I would have to play an hour a day for a week to get an item I could unlock for a buck.
The worst ones (Epic Mini-Games, I'm looking at you!) are the ones where you can outright pay to win by breaking the game mechanics. Turn yourself invisible, big honking sword that you can't earn, double your chances of being selected for something special.
For the most part the games are truly free to play. You can play in all the modes that are available to paying customers.
Doesn't make it right though.
Educate your kid as to what happened and what they can do about it then let your kid figure out how they want to respond.
If they are going to come across it for the rest of their life they might as well know how to deal with it.
https://www.roblox.com/catalog?Category=11&Subcategory=20&Cu...
https://www.roblox.com/catalog?Category=4&Subcategory=37&Cur...
Also you can just go bald for a LEGO-like look, which has always been my favorite.
Obviously any major expense was out of the question and he knows that, but seeing as they "run around" their Roblox worlds just like they might run around a playground or wood, it felt a fair compromise. And he learns about having to work for a reward in the process.
ed: I should say I believe there are public groups on Roblox that you have to pay Robux to join. He's not allowed that.
Could you recommend a few titles that are worth checking out?
Then again, the 9 year old also has a steam account, and they buy all their games from their $5/week allowance. It's their choice. We do not control what they spend money on.
They made a couple of bad purchased, and cried, and regretted it, but it taught them to be careful. So I guess, you can say, there are ways to letting kids play Roblox and controlling their spending.
And to be fair, it really depends on the kid. Some resist buying impulsively better than others. Also, as an aside, they try to add kids that they know in real life.
They get their video time from 6:15pm until 7:15pm on weekdays. They pick their video time. Whether watching Planet Earth, Youtube, Steam, Roblox, it doesn't matter. BUT, they get 1 hour. Essentially we are trying to give them power of choice, and ability to fail. It's not perfect, but...I guess we're just learning as we go along.
Either way, they only play a few times a week, so maybe 3 hours a week. They usually play other stuff as well.
It is and it isn't, that's one of the points the linked article is trying to make, yes, it's an ecosystem but, at the same time, it's highly consistent because many aspects such as assets/mechanics/moderation/currency etc. are consistent across all games. In fact they are so consistent that you can immediately identify a game as being a "Roblox game" in the same way that Skyblock or Bed Wars[1] are clearly "Minecraft games" (I made this comparison because most people think of Minecraft as a single game, not as an ecosystem).
[1] In case you don't know what those are, they are "minigames" that run on modified Minecraft servers, many features of "vanilla Minecraft" are retained but the game mechanics are modified heavily, here is a link with more info: https://hypixel.net/play/#games
Then I realized that this is literally the only game they play, and it's free. Compare that to me at that age, buying Nintendo games for $50 a pop, why am I hesitant to support these creators with a $2 hat?
I still limit purchases just for general personal finance lessons, but otherwise let them spend money here like they would on actual paid games.
I still have the cards, they have a resale value. More than I spent on the game, as some have become difficult to find. Of course, this could change (I don't really think they'll become worthless because MtG is not just any CCG, it's quite iconic due to its history, but it could happen), but at the very least they are a physical item that remains there and can be played with. When my son grows, he will probably enjoy them, regardless of their value.
Loot boxes for games that give you a virtual item that you can't even sell or gift and will probably be worthless in 4 years when the server closes... now that's a scam, unless in exceptional cases (small one-time purchase to support devs, etc.). I don't spend money on that and I wouldn't let my kid either.
The thing missing from these virtual items are a framework to ensure they can actually carry value.
And that could be NFTs or something similar. It makes sense to me, even if some of the “valuable” assets so far do not.
But then again what does my almost-tournament winning goblin grenade deck mean to a roblox player now? Presumably, little.
In roblox one plays build a boat and the like. We had a hard time with adopt me but that fad seems to have faded thankfully. They certainly learnt about scams the hard way.
I think the reason they like minecraft is because of the crafting table. They have all the rules memorized and they talk about it with kids in their classes online.
These games are designed on emotional responses in kid's brains just as much as FB's algo for its feed is.
I'm not sure if there is any grand meaning to this, I just thought I'd share a thing I noticed.
On the other hand I have no problems paying children for games with honorable practices of one time purchase or reasonable subscriptions (which usually end in a month in any case when children get bored)
The devil's advocate may be that, given the parallels to regular social challenges (and that 'digital' challenges may actually become more important in the future), Roblox offers a decently monitored, low-risk space to explore.
The game itself doesn't and doesn't have to incentivize social buying pressure. I believe it's just the natural order of things that can be considered signs of status. Because you have complete control over the avatar unlike your body, perhaps the condition is worse. As VR or 'microverses' evolve it's something to observe.
I suppose I was interested in having a powerful status symbol. I can't imagine why else I took so much time as a kid to learn the Roblox 'economy', how to trade, and then get scammed out of it in the end (the greatest lesson). I don't know if this what you meant by toxic or not, but it seems I've been drawn to that same experience with our fun little stonk market this past year.
If peer group is snoby or normalized paying, issues like this happen. It is very naive to think that kids don't bully other kids because of issues like this.
But what should the proper response be? Give in, throw some few dollars?
Doesn't make it right though.
iPhone vs Android, Mac vs PC, Car vs Car, sportsballer vs sportsballer... so inane.
https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-defa...
The point of the game isn't to have the most expensive outfit but to design an outfit that best matches the given theme.
All Roblox games are made the same way. Those should be what sets your impression of the system, not looking at the screen and curling your upper lip.
Second Life, The Sims Online. We’ve been here before. Those platforms didn’t nail it like Roblox, but Roblox did not transform anything.
And it's full of scams. Kids spend $10 for a hat or something in the game and it doesn't end up working in all the games and there's no recourse. It's a true free-for-all wild-west.
What we can learn from it is: 1. Making games easy to make and distribute. It's honestly amazing what kids are doing these days. I give Roblox a lot of credit for this. 2. Roblox has become an awesome way for kids to communicate with each other, they share their username at the playground.
My small kids requested: Minecraft, Roblox, Among Us, tik tok , Hogwarts Mystery and the list goes on. My due diligence process is overbooked.
If you search for "roblox parents" you'll find several good resources.
It's run by a Christian org but to their credit they seem to be the only group that actually cares about what kids see and hear in movies and tv. And they cover the most popular movies and tv really quickly.
But I have been learning Godot, and it makes creating games extremely easy and fun. And Godot now has https://gotm.io/, you can easily upload games there to be played in the browser. It's really amazing how simple this is.
I imagine that this could be the future of game creation and distribution. We used to have flash, then it went away, and now we'll have something much much cooler.
Shameless plug, some of the games I've made: https://gotm.io/godotacademy
(playable only on desktop, I still haven't figured out what's necessary to make them work well on mobile, but that should be easy as well)
In terms of scams, I'd rather they learnt using their pocket money than their wages when they are older.
[0]: https://naval-warfare-roblox.fandom.com/wiki/Battleship
"Islands" is mostly a Minecraft ripoff but you're building air castles (you can fall off an "island" and die). This lets the kids do all kinds of invented in-game games, such as building an obstacle course for one another, playing hide and seek etc.
"Fishing Simulator" starts out as a pretty dull pirate-themed fishing game but turns out to have a lot of depth, adventure game style. It also has amazing content for Roblox standards.
"Build A Boat For Treasure" is a lot less fancy than the above, but it has a very cool concept. You design & build your own boat, then go sit in it, and take it through a river full of obstacles. The way you build it determines how it deals with the obstacles because when you sail away you can hardly navigate it anymore. So you need to design for robustness etc, which turns out to be pretty hard.
A lot of the games are shit, but also a lot of the games look shit but have super original ideas. Eg there's a game that you're in a building and then some disaster happens (tsunami, volcano eruption, whatever) which slowly destroys the building and whoever survives the longest in the collapsing building wins. I'm really not sure if that's a ripoff of anything, it strikes me as genuinely original. It's not very deep, but it's good fun.
"Famous Fashion" was funny - a theme is set and you have to dress up your character to suit, and then everyone votes. I thought I'd be bored in 5 minutes, played it for about 90.
"Universal Studios" was the theme park. Amazingly done.
"Pinewood Space Shuttle" was good fun - particularly if you fall off the shuttle while it's in orbit.
"Starcourt Mall" (Stranger Things) was nice to go there, as we've watched the series together.
"Ragdoll Engine" - as the name implies, just mucking about with the physics of your character.
"Epic Minigames" and "Lab Experiment" have small games in them and they were both pretty fun, plus you're playing against other people. I actually won a round, which the kids never expected, so I became a legend. For 38 seconds.
That's also not mentioning how different aspects of a game can be fun or unfun. It could be that kids just want some item in aspirationally in a game but actually have no interest in playing the game itself. Much like how kids can have zero interest in the Pokemon card game but desperately crave spending $4 for the pleasure of 1 minute of unwrapping new cards.
That's also not factoring in the social pressure and envy kids feel when their friends talk about things they have.
I must have because I don't remember being at all "gutted" when I obsessed over the one $20-or-less item my parents allotted me each Christmas. This is quite contrary to what I see amongst kids today who spend all of a couple hours with their physical gifts and go right back to the Minecraft/Roblox marathon.
They are learning that the world is a cruel place and people are out to get them. (I'm only partially joking)
Somebody who understands product, gaming, and devrel could really knock this out of the park. Please do it, so I can go back to making games with my kids.
If you're interested you can learn more about the company and project here: https://controlzee.com/
Apple gets to pick winners and losers by selective enforcement of their own rules. Pretty nice for Roblox if Apple prevents anyone from releasing a competitor!
The games available inside Roblox are impossible to ship as an independent app on the App Store without re-implementing the entire Roblox platform. It's a middle ground between Minecraft selling maps and an actual app store.
A third person character running around with virtual joysticks: so clunky.
Roblox has been around longer than smartphones have, it has always been a port, much like Minecraft. Which sure, kids play.
Roblox is probably setting back the arrival of the metaverse, not advancing it. Whatever that means.
If you actually make and play games you don't talk about things that way. You're more aware of stuff like Dreams or Garry's Mod, you've touched stuff like Unity and Unreal and Flash. You kind of get that Roblox isn't competing with Grand Theft Auto but with YouTube Poop. Literal puppet shows. Like what are we even talking about.
As an aside, the biggest threat to Roblox is if parents spent money. I don't mean in Roblox. Surely, you guys understand, that the appeal of Roblox compared to Disney+, arguably the finest destination for 8 year olds, is that, on the face of it, Roblox is "free." It's a catch 22 really: the audience where they would anticipate all their revenue growth would never waste money on Robux, they would just get a Disney+ subscription.
Why do you assume that? My nephew is obsessed with Roblox and has asked for Robux for his birthday, which he will probably get.
This doesn't bother kids, it's all they know. I cringe watching my niece and nephew playing Minecraft and Roblox on their phones with touchscreen controls but they don't care and can use it fine even if it looks clunky and painful to me.
IMO, we should be teaching the next generation, by example, that the safest spaces on the Internet are the small, decentralized spaces that we create for each other, not the large, centralized ones created by companies that aim to exploit us.
Um, no. Roblox is a gaming platform with a somewhat kid-friendly social network. You're comparing going to the movies vs. going to the arcade.
You should also check out Phantom Forces on Roblox. Really impressive game play IMO and not clunky at all.
A true metaverse is predicated on utility.
It helps people get the things they want to get done, done.
That's ultimately been the failure of the majority of attempts.
Social, yes, easy. Entertainment, yes, easy.
Anything else?
Do we really want another generation addicted to consuming big-budget media? Especially now that most of that media is encumbered by DRM that makes free computing platforms much less attractive?
Mind you, I'm not sure that Roblox is the answer. But it might be better, since it at least puts more focus on creating rather than consuming.
My point is, there's no focus on creating. You're imagining Minecraft, but you don't make stuff in Roblox. You can make stuff in Roblox Studio, but there are hardly any 8 year olds doing that, because you have to write Lua, and 8 year olds categorically cannot do that. Unless they're prodigies, in which case, they will thrive doing many things, and creativity expressed in Roblox is the symptom and not the cause of their gifts.
What do kids actually do? There's a lot of "casual" role playing games, clicker games, shooter games and things that feel like Counter-Strike custom maps from the early 2000s. It feels a lot like a Steam Workshop page. Clunkiness abounds, stuff that even older children will not play.
How do we know this is true? How many more 8-year-olds would program if they had been given a chance? My guess is that most are never given a chance to try.
I learned Applesoft BASIC on an Apple IIGS when I was 8. But I was lucky to be in a home with a computer that came with a disk that had an intro to programming on it. I think that's more relevant than any innate skill I had.
Meanwhile my sons pocket money gets split between V-bucks for Fortnite and Robux, because that is what he wants to spend money on. He could've funded that Disney+ subscription several times over with what he spends on Robux.
I think the things he buys are idiotic, but here's the thing: Over several years, he's never once expressed regret at these purchases. He continues to get enjoyment from it.
A lot of the hate for Roblox I see here feels like parents trying to impose their own preferences on their kids, instead of considering just how idiotic their parents would have found the things they spent money on as kids.
Basically if you followed HN purely for investing advice you would probably have missed out on all of the major social media and new media platforms of the last 10-15 years.
That said, there are games my son's circle of friends have kept coming back to longer than pretty much all games I played as a kid. I think you seriously underestimate the stickiness of the platform.
Edit: and don't even get me started on the Bedrock/Java Edition schism!
Plus, it is many different games, not just one that is not for everyone. Minecraft was popular, but there were many kids that found it boring.
Yet plus, all kids that I know who play minecraft had it explained by someone. It could be other kid, but basically, game is not self explanatory and is difficult to figure out at first.
Kids need to be told how to move around, how to select blocks, etc.
Anecdotally, the elementary school crowd my son plays games with play both with regularity.
I think that's spectacular.
It seems like a solid platform for young creators. They never played the classics anyway, so the million clones is probably not an issue.
As a parent with two kids who play Roblox a lot (and have played some myself), the quality varies widely but there are many good games. Part of the fun is talking with friends and watching YouTube to find the best ones.
This perspective can also give us a sneak peek into will replace Roblox in the future. If you look at the YouTube --> TikTok transition, the main differences are that TikTok's content is entirely recommended, and that the content itself is more shorter (i.e. faster to trigger the dopamine response). The new gaming platform will likely be similar - a faster, quicker experience that will initially cater to kids but will eventually capture adults as well (and the content will evolve to support that).
Side note: It's absolutely incredible how much the comment section here is filled with parents either complaining or seeking validation for their ways of raising their kids. It shows how the transition to digital consumption is polarizing and challenging to our conventional wisdom.
She is no longer allowed to play the game at our home. I would have to spend all my time policing her online play and dealing with her disappointment at not being able to play specific games.
I don't see how parents can allow their kids to play Roblox. It is wide open to exploitation - there is no restriction, control or protection offered for children. And to top it off, 99% of gameplay requires purchasing virtual items.
Just bleh, shock and a big nope for my family. Roblox should be ashamed at the platform they have created.
Why can't I?
it supposedly works on ChromeOS
In short, not enough demand that requires more support for players.
There has been repeated demands for this but every year is a no.
Here is one of those threads https://devforum.roblox.com/t/proper-support-for-the-linux-p...
ChromeOS works because it uses the Android version of Roblox.
Roblox Hellreaver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tMpXnRG19U&ab_channel=Popta...
and
Waterloo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS4KBNTocQY&ab_channel=Pixel...
One of the benefits of Roblox is it's extremely unopinionated in aesthetics and gameplay mechanics, which is quite different from Minecraft. Combined with zero upfront cost developing/publishing/operating and large platform user base, it opens up lots of possibilities for developers.
I might still have the Roblox Studio tool (circa 2012/13) installed on an old Pentium 4 laptop.
This is just a near-NCAA tier play by the company to make money off child labor. Change my mind.
At least the money is out in the open and explicit, unlike TikTok's questionably-declared influencer payments.
He's 15. He acknowledges he could be pulling in a lot more money if he spent 2x or 4x the time on it. Or dropped out of high school, perhaps.
Makes you think - what if someone had figured out a way to run games on PCs? Or even on those 8-bit micros we all had back in the day.
I've generally been under the impression Roblox is basically Second Life for kids.
Plus, competitive online pc gaming is something I dont want my kids near to. Mostly because of culture and addictive nature of it.
Speaking of addiction, worst are MMO like games, things like league of legends or world of warcraft. I dont want my kids to play any of that, these games tend to consume whole person.
Roblox is safe and age appropriate.
Also, assuming your child plays with real life friends I don't know how much sense it would make to suggest alternatives to Roblox (group dynamics, network effects and all), but something like Terraria, Starbound, Minecraft or even Garry's Mod would fit here.
See also searching by tags on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=3859,3810 (here: Sandbox, Multiplayer)
youtube.com / googlevideo.net / 1e100.net banned