My kid plays Roblox, I prevent her from talking to others, and I police the Robux purchases. It really is a fun platform. The problem is for parents that aren't technical, or are negligent and don't know how to police it.
- You cannot prevent your child to login and play at least 15mn (without manually resetting the password in the kid account) - combine this with the fact you cannot prevent changing the password reset email on the child account, and in practice you cannot prevent your child from using roblox - You cannot prevent gift card to be used - There's no way to trace gift cards usage at all - Roblox will remove controls at some ages without warning you - Deleting your kid account is a fight (it's been two weeks and roblox is asking me proof of ownership I cannot give since they don't exist) - You cannot prevent fear of missing out - You cannot control pay to win games - You cannot prevent your child face to be scanned and shared for "age control" - Same for your own face - Probably more...
Oh and don't forget there's absolutely no way to prevent your kid to have multiple accounts, and have a parallel life you know nothing about.
determined resourceful kids will do what they want. so long as I talk about the risks and dangers and put up a modicum of effort to police it, I'm fine if they figure out ways around it. some people have to learn the hard way.
letting kids roam entirely free is a remnant of the 80s and a bit of the 90s.
I feel like this argument has become a cliche in itself. Sometimes things are worth panicking about, and limiting access to things like cigarettes or gambling for children has been a real benefit to society. The same could be true for the dark patterns listed above.
Restrictions are fine, to a point. Making something entirely illegal to save the children is a moral panic induced reaction, in my experience.
Anyone can make a Roblox game and publish it, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of moderations or verification going on. And you don't need to "talk", voice or text. You can emote, type on signs, and communicate in other ways.
Gambling and facilitating sexual predation is probably worth regulating, but I don't find tasteless jokes a sufficient cause for intervention.
Nor is this even a remotely new phenomenon. I was on Newgrounds as a pre-teenager when people were making wacky flash games about school shootings and 9/11.
Roblox do actually takes down violent content, in reality. But that is never the important part.
I had blocked chat on my kid's account and thought I was ok. Then I see her playing one game and ask her what she's doing. She says she's updating her character status (description etc) to talk to other players.
Honestly the voice comms have been a nice upgrade and I find I mind it a lot less than text. It's a lot easier to confirm the person on the other side is not some middle aged creep. It's also a lot more ergonomic for talking with friends (though they already tend to use facetime calls in the background)
The grooming going on there is a real problem. At least more awareness for parents would be a good thing.
In the same way if a casino advertised child roulette wheels, I'd want legislation to step in.
I do think people should push for voluntary limits on gacha mechanics, because they are awful when overused and are probably harmful for a small percentage of the population that’s prone to gambling. Steam would probably be fine with rating/age gating games that heavily rely on these mechanics, the hard part is getting Google and Apple on board. Micropayments from “whales” (high spenders) provide a lot of revenue for them.
I’m also not entirely sure that gacha mechanics alone are that bad, it’s when you combine them with currency (virtual or real) that it becomes a huge problem. Absent currency it’s usually a self-limiting problem, because overuse of the mechanic makes the game worse.
I think in general movement to direction where you know exactly what you will get is significantly more healthy. There will still be lot of people who cannot control their spending. But removing the chase sounds desirable to me.