We Investigated Roblox: Your Kid’s Favorite Game Is Exploiting Them | Hacker News Reader

We Investigated Roblox: Your Kid’s Favorite Game Is Exploiting Them

perfectunion.us

31 pointsjlpcsl9 comments

Christ, nothing to see here. This is as exploitative as Mechanical Turk.

Kids could pay Microsoft for the privilege of making Minecraft worlds for free. Or they can make Roblox stuff and earn a few bucks. Sure, Roblox takes a hefty cut. This doesn't amount to child exploitation; they're not allowed to work in the first place and nobody is forcing them to do any of this.

Roblox has a huge problem with predators grooming kids, but this "investigation" ignored that exploit completely.

> That’s because there are more than 50 million games on Roblox, but the section where most users find a new game to play — the Discover section — only shows the couple hundred most popular games. To get your game to show up there you have to bid for advertising. To be clear, you’re bidding money just for the chance to get views…it’s essentially gambling for advertising. And if your gamble doesn’t pay off, your game won’t even show up in the Discover section.

I walked in on my 9-year old bidding on ads for a level she made. I was impressed with her for having the business acumen to figure this out. She doubled down when I saw her teaching herself Blender so she could make hats. I don't work in 3D art and had no insight to provide, but was proud of her for taking the initiative.

She's writing Lua scripts, learning how to monetize a product and doing 3D modelling-- skills with real-world applications and no vendor lock-in. And she's getting paid for it (pennies, but enough to let her buy silly hats).

Not seeing the harm here. I came away from the article with a new respect for the platform.

> When we asked Antonio, the 15-year-old game developer, what changes he’d want to see Roblox make, he said:

> 1. Lower how much Robux you need to cash out.

> 2. Increase how much Robux are worth

> 3. Lower the cut Roblox takes

So, basically:

1. Deregulate the ForEx markets

2. Decrease inflation

3. Lower taxes

Maybe they need to introduce politics into the game, because this sounds like a perfect platform for a Roblox presidential candidate. Antonio, you game?

This got mentioned extensively back in 2008. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034

The issues are still basically the same, the expose is basically the same, and Roblox has made almost no changes in response.

Issue 1) Buy / Sell difference

- Buy Roblox: 100 Roblox = $1.00 ($0.0100 / Roblox)

- Sell Roblox: 100 Roblox = $0.35 ($0.0035 / Roblox)

Issue 2) Large Roblox cut in-game

- Sell Item: Roblox / Player, ~70% / ~30%

- Ex: 10000 Roblox item, Roblox / Player, 7000 / 3000, $24.50 / $10.50

- Worse with Buy / Sell rate difference.

- The large cut also drives children toward black market sales and auctions to get a better percentage.

Issue 3) Large barrier for withdrawls (slightly better than last article)

- Google Youtube: $20, you can withdraw

- Roblox: 30,000 Roblox (Looks like $300 @ buy-rate, really $105 @ $0.0035 cash-out rate)

Issue 4) Cannot trade / sell / barter existing content (make more stuff)

- "No. Robux acquired from trading/selling virtual items that you did not create are not considered earned."

Issue 5) Advertise to be seen.

- You have to pay money to Roblox to get your game to appear in the Discover section to even have players who will pay money for "your" items. 50,000,000 games, only top few 100 are shown.

Issue 6) Roblox Talent Hub

- Creators can effectively hire child labor at wildly below market rates.

- Ex: 200 Robux, as payment to direct production design for a game. ($2.00 at buy rate, or $0.70 at sell rate)

Issue 7) They're pre-teen children

- These are not adults. In many cases they're not even pre-teens. Other than an allowance, almost none have any experience with: economics, ROI, relative worth, appraising, information asymmetry, monopolies of knowledge, adverse selection, double bind traps, tragedies of the commons, gambling mechanics, slow-drip rat feeders, or any of the vast number of similar predatory ideas. Guess they'll learn fast, or their parents bank accounts will.

This video has more interesting points to make than TFA: https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY

It's weird because TFA actually credits your link as being the authoritative speaker on the matter/original person to bring it to light, then proceeds to repeat the same content, even showing clips of your linked videos. I suspect given TFA's agenda, theirs was meant to be more about getting the kids fair compensation vs your linked video was more about exposing the exploitation in general. Definitely second your link though, it was a super illuminating watch, and there's a part to from the same creator for those that get hooked by the first that's also worth checking out.

Remember that video were that twelve year old was interviewed and sounded like the average burned out developer.

How much does Roblox exploit the kids if they instead go and play outside?

Super interesting article and implications

Quite contrary to the above take I find the article quite bad and uninteresting. Most of it is bad takes spinning rather mundane things in the most nefarious light possible. The only part of the entire article that was actually potentially damning was the accusation that children can be gambling for real money that they can cash out of the game. That is so damning that I find it hard to believe but would want the entire game shut down and prison sentences if it’s true.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com