[GNOMES]

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores.

I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get.

As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers play...

Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices. I imagine they can hide behind the fact users are making most of the mini games, and they are just providing a platform.

[mrmetanoia]

I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things.

The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic shooters. But then there are games that seem like they're some dark pattern mobile devs side projects lol Games where you do nothing but collect stuff or pets and there's lots of gratification devices happening and suddenly there's just a literal pay wall. Just the worst of f2p gambling addiction built right into player built roblox games over and over and over again.

But on to the adults, my favorite example was joining a 'shooter' game that was really just a shooting gallery of sorts but it had voice chat enabled and wtf there's some eastern european accent going off on gay people and talking about how the targets should have sombreros so 'we' can shoot "lazy" Mexicans.

That experience was replicated through a few games and I just wrote Roblox off completely as infested with people trying to help kids find hate based ideologies or get them addicted to gambling. I warned their mother, she didn't listen til she got her credit card stolen.

[draebek]

I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?"

There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that there are a surprisingly large number of assholes, much larger than I want to believe.

Are the number of racist idiots just much greater amongst Gamers™? (To be clear, I play a lot of video games myself. I prefer to believe I am not a racist.)

I'd love to say that there are a lot more young people playing video games, and they're just trying to be edgy, but I had a chat with some guy who was talking about getting his appliances repaired by "lazy [racial slur]" people. That's probably not a fourteen year old, right? I've seen that a lot.

I understand that it probably just takes one or two people per game to make the chat unbearable, but if I'm on a team with six or eight people, and I consistently get at least one of these fucking idiots per match, isn't that still an uncomfortably high percentage of the population?

[whoknew1122]

First thing I do when playing a multiplayer game with proximity voice chat is to turn voice chat off. Makes play sessions much more enjoyable.

Sure you may miss the 5% of chat that is actually tactical and relevant to the game, but it's a very small price to pay in order to avoid edgelords and other toxic people.

[wredue]

Games in general have been a target of hate base voice chat.

You get these people everywhere.

[stemlord]

To be fair when I was <10 years old my siblings and I had a lot of fun in AOL chatrooms and various forums full of people of all ages saying all kinds of things. Not that it makes it okay but that particular aspect of roblox isn't really something new when it comes to kids exploring the web.

[jspaetzel]

This is nothing new or exclusive to Roblox, I recall this sort of language in every online gaming platform.

[latexr]

> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play.

Considering how much you said your kid has spent, that money could’ve been spent on buying copies for all their friends and you’d still have plenty left over.

[nazka]

I upvoted you but after thinking about it actually, you will find that this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son. But your idea is right! Maybe he could have done gaming sessions at his house or who knows what to better spend this money on other games.

[jayd16]

That's like one console and a couple games so its not necessarily the most efficient usage.

Couch co-op is the way to go.... but as the dad be prepared to lose control of your living room.

[consteval]

Many games don't even require separate copies. This is a fairly new phenomenon.

I mean, I'm fully grown and I still get together with friends and play Mario Party and Smash. I just bought extra controllers and boom, good to go.

[whoknew1122]

> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers play...

If there's a paid game your kid really likes, perhaps you can talk to his friend's parents and buy the friend a copy of the game. ...I say talking to the friend's parents first, because just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy.

But buying friends copies of a game we want to play together is something my friend group routinely does and we're all adults with disposable income.

[neilv]

Excellent idea. Two additional reasons: (1) many parents would want veto power on what kids spent their time on and are exposed to, including video games; and (2) you could suggest quietly buying the game through the parents, to avoid complicating the kids' relationship with getting stuff.

Some other, more expensive, activities (e.g., tennis lessons together, when the family of one of the BFFs isn't affluent) are harder for more people to do this, but video games are relatively inexpensive.

[wavemode]

> just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy

lol well this certainly depends on how it's done. Walking up to them in a trench coat and handing them a disc? Probably creepy. But you could also just, like, send them a gift key on Steam...

[wmeredith]

I'm a gamer and I always play the games my kids are playing to see what's up. Roblox was banned in my house after I messed around with it on my own for 30 minutes. Most of the games on the platform are pay to win skinner boxes and they have a pedophile problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-pro...

[ciropantera]

As a new father that will eventually get into that situation: how do you ban Roblox in your house? I imagine it’s popular among your kids’ real world acquaintances (school etc). Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out?

Given the current state of gaming and where it’s heading I would love to ban gaming altogether but I feel social pressure from other kids makes it very hard.

[amerkhalid]

I am a gamer dad too. This is something I worry about. I have been playing Minecraft with my son but he is learning about these other games.

I have been using some of similar messaging to smoking and saying things like that playing too many video games will destroy the health. Of course, I am not a good role model when it comes to living healthy lifestyle. And kids probably don't even understand what health really means.

How does one protect their kids against these predatory practices?

[Muromec]

Saying we don’t play the casino scam works pretty good here.

Like strict zero money after buying the game. Not on custom skins not on early access characters. We just don’t .

Just don’t give the money and don’t argue about details.

Alternatively, that one custom skill gets unlocked after getting a good grade at the end of the year or for birthday/Christmas/whatever.

[hyperbolablabla]

> I am not a good role model

Maybe fix that?

[xyst]

Wild. You know there’s a problem but you continue to feed into your child’s addiction. This is known as “enabling”.

[astura]

Yeah, this post is legit insane - what child has $500 to spend on ANYTHING, let alone fucking Robux (which presumably requires a credit card)!?

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Buy him DRM free games on GOG.

I Do this for young relatives.

Ive been shown WhatsApp threads of the young teens who play the DRM-free games i upload - my google drive ID is effectively referenced as some kind of deity lol

Side benefit: No online play or interaction with the outside world, only with your own group (usually)

[strich]

As a game developer it's kind of sad to see such practices in stealing my or others hard work.

But I have to keep telling myself those kids or parents wouldn't have paid for them anyway.

Maybe consider buying a few copies at least in the future?

[onemoresoop]

Or buy him a MiYoo/Ambernic and add Pico-8 games. Pico-8 is a great platform, games are free and short and sweet. In addition, you can pry under the hood and read the code, modify it freely, etc. It's a perfect on-ramp for programming.

I personally got a Miyoo for my kid but ended up getting one for myself. The fun and nostalgia are there.

[_coveredInBees]

Eh, I dunno. My son plays a bunch of Roblox and has spent a net $10 for a few custom avatar mods. While there is certainly a pay to win aspect for some games within, there is also a ton of "free" games to sift through, and since all of them are competing for players, they still have to make the experience compelling enough at the free tier. We've had conversations about the pay-to-win aspect, and even though he has several hundred dollars saved up, he has never once asked to spend money on pay-to-win aspects of Roblox. I'd argue that almost any modern videogame / mobile game is equally if not more "predatory" with the pay-to-win side of things. Just look at the menu screens in any modern first person shooter / battle royale type game. Those look far worse than anything I have seen in Roblox.

[micromacrofoot]

both should be regulated, this type of predatory gambling-like behavior shouldn't be allowed for kids under a certain age

[Viliam1234]

> I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get.

That started at a certain moment in history, when paying online became trivial, so everyone who didn't produce pay-to-win was leaving a lot of money on the table. You need to find games that are older than that.

Some of the good old games are free, for example Starcraft or Wesnoth. There are many cheap games on Steam, but you need to review them first, or maybe find a review on YouTube. If the game is sufficiently cheap, for example up to $5, you could simply buy 5 copies and tell your kid to give donate 4 of them to his best friends.

[afloyd]

Former Roblox player that quit back in 2016, there used to be a free currency called Tickets which were a free currency you could get through various means, it was a lot more restrictive on what you could get, but it really boosted my enjoyment of the game. The moment they got rid of tix I quit, because I refused to spend any of my meager allowance on Roblox (also generally being bored of the game after years of playing.) Modern Roblox is really impressive, and really depressing. The things people make are incredibly cool, and they are rewarded incredibly poorly for it.

[Suppafly]

>As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play.

It'd be cheaper to buy games for his friends to play than to support his robux addiction.

[ToucanLoucan]

> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices.

Because if you held game companies responsible for deliberately fostering addiction in their customers to earn a profit, we'd have scores of industries behind them in line to be brought to heel the same way and the stocks for tech companies, game companies, tobacco companies, casino companies, alcohol companies, etc. etc. would all implode.

There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds, and that's been status quo for so long that I sincerely doubt there's any way to actually change it.

[riwsky]

We did that for tobacco, though? It was a huge public health win?

[drewcoo]

> we'd have scores of industries behind them

Not if they have good lobbyists. In the US we still have beer ads on TV though tobacco commercials have been gone long enough to barely be remembered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUY0w2cVAUQ

[GNOMES]

Understand your point, but Epic (Fortnite) and games like Fifa have gotten sued or major slap on the wrists for the same practices

[johnnyanmac]

You forgot the most important industry: the food industry. But they settled that battle long ago.

And on some level I agree. We shouldn't hold companies accountable for raising our children. Simply mitigate their ways to target them And exploit their data (something Fortnite got dinged hard for).

[throw10920]

> There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds

"We" did? Who's "we"? I certainly never agreed to this. Citation needed.

[mercenario]

> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices

Who gave to your kid the money to spend on Roblox?

[thomastjeffery]

Moderation is dead, and copyright is the knife.

[2cynykyl]

I think I will love this quote if I knew what it meant. Care to elaborate?

[AtlasBarfed]

You should find abandonedware games for him to network play on.

Right around the time of the mobile phone gaming took a very, very sharp turn to pure sociopathy. It had always been flirting with it, but now the mbas are full on putting as much sociopathic addiction rigging, social bullying, and manufactured demand as possible.