Why is there an online game made for kids?

[zelld52]

Had lunch with my brother this weekend, and his son (7 y/o) wants to play Roblox. He was telling me how it's really difficult to keep saying no to him, and wanted to know if I'd heard about it.

I hadn't really heard much about it, but I was sitting with my bro looking at YouTube videos - and it's an online game built specifically for kids. Not teenagers, but kids.

Why, oh fuckin lord why, is there an online game built for 12 and under kids where they can join interactive lobbies with strangers?

Why does ANY parent allow their kid to play this, regardless of "Safety Measures?"

Can anyone with experience in the game shed light as to how Roblox keeps kids safe? Or is it as I assume, a cesspool of pedophiles who create accounts as kids and groom kids into online bullshit?

[Zadrian]

It's like anything else. Up to the parents to monitor their kids. The platform can only do so much. It's been in the news recently, I guess they're clamping down on some sort of safety concerns. No idea.

[Ekco]

the fix for it is creepy also, they're doing AI detected age verification of the kids iirc, and the preds are circumventing it also i assume.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by Ekco [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

the fix for it is creepy also, they're doing AI detected age verification of the kids iirc, and the preds are circumventing it also i assume.

The children are circumventing it as well. Lot of them figured out pretty quick how to game the system so as to not be flagged as children.

Roblox isn't so much a game in and of itself, it's more of a backbone and lobby from which which people can build games. I suppose it was probably inspired by Minecraft, but has since grown into its own thing. There are a great many different individual games accessed from it, varying greatly in quality, playerbase, and genre. Its popularity seems immense among today's youth. At least the large majority of my daughter's classmates seem to play various games on Roblox, even those coming from households that don't appear to make any other use of video games.

As with most everything involving parenting, adequate supervision is necessary. A lot of parents seemingly have not figured out that an online community is more akin to a public playground than to television. The same mediocre-to-poor parents who might plop their children in front of the T.V. for hours at a time do the same with the computer, seemingly unaware that they're very different technologies. For my part, I wouldn't even let my daughter watch television wholly unsupervised when she was small. I sure as heck didn't leave her on the internet unsupervised. Shocker--we haven't had any trouble with it.

[NopeNopeNopeNope]

^
Yea pretty much this

I have talked to dozens and dozens of kids through my work and it’s almost always either Minecraft or Roblox they play, usually as they get older (still pre-teen though) they tend to drift to either Roblox or Fortnite it seems

Roblox has all these custom fan-made games, some of which the kids show me and most of which appear to be complete garbage. Apparently it doesn’t take any coding skill to make a game, I’ve seen kids as young as like 7 or 8 doing it. But the most popular custom “games” which have millions of users across multiple servers were most likely made by older kids or adults who know how to code somewhat

There’s also its own economy called Robucks which I don’t know much about but seems shady as hell considering I’ve heard you can put kids to work moderating discord or doing other various jobs and pay them in Robucks lol

So far I haven’t heard any perv stories but bc I’m not an investigator and these are kids who still want to play Roblox they or their parents aren’t going to be telling me about pervs. But I’m sure the game is full of pervs, there are way more closeted pedos out there than we realize

[shovelquest]

Roblox is basically Second Life for kids. But there is no difference between the two except one says for kids.

[Ekco]

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shit must be more addictive than hookers n blow

[shovelquest]

Roblox was such a huge deal in the boomer social circles before it went public.

I know a bunch of boomers that thought that stock was gonna be HOT.

HOT HOT HOT.

They wanted it bad.