this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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The details are too much to go into here in a simple comment. For a full investigation into Roblox check out this video by People Make Games, a games journalism site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
Essentially, Roox makes billions off the free labour of children. The entire eco system is set up to funnel kids into a cycle of consuming others content and producing their own. It's also completely unregulated which has allowed some shady people, some of whom are, or directly work for, the owners of the platform to set up quasi developer studios where children are subjected to the same appealing treatment and exploitation of the regular games industry, while earning none of the revenue.
Well none of these sources tell me how the kids are forced into this. All these services are free, so I still don’t see the exploitation. Are you saying the kids are tricked into making games for Roblox, if so then maybe that’s on the parents. As a software engineer and having kids who played Roblox their entire lives, I still can’t make the leap of exploitive practices over just capitalism. Maybe show me another platform that kids can learn how the basics of game design while hosting the game at the same time.
More perfect union did a really great video about the exploitation. From what I can remember the crux of the argument goes roughly like this:
Kid plays game, kid is encouraged through game to create content for game. This content created by kid is sold through game to other kids. Kid who put the work into creating this gamemode is not compensated fairly.
The video goes on to explain a lot of other exploitative practices of roblox.