Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers

The one being exploited is the developer. From the article: > I spent $100 on advertising after publishing the game More information: < ▶ this video >

The YouTube channel "People Make Games" has a couple of reports that I'd suggest parents consider watching first before going down that road: * "Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers": ▶ this video * "Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper.": link

People Make Games is one of the YouTube channels that I respect in this domain... Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - ▶ this video Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - link

Some interesting related investigation (I think they mention this girl in the second video) related to roblox is anyone is interested. I had never used it, but after seeing these I don't think I would ever use it or encourage anyone to use it. ▶ this video link

To add, there is a nice documentary here[1] which also has a followup[2] that show even more of the issue at hand. Kids making games and only getting 24.5% of the profit is one thing, but everything else that Roblox does is much worse. [1] ▶ this video [2] link

Roblox turns a blind eye to child exploitation (whether being creeped on by adults, or being exploited by teens/adults to make games) and makes a fortune out of it. If it weren't online, it'd be illegal and people would be in jail. ▶ this video link

Remember, Roblox is toxic and exploits young people. - Roblox Isn't a Game | Psychology Today // link - Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - YouTube // ▶ this video - Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - YouTube // link Roblox is Darker Than You Think (ft. Ruben Sim) - YouTube // link

From what I have seen about Roblox, it is a game which parents should be extremely critical of and if I had children I would absolutely not let them play it. Not only are there repeat allegations of unfairness towards the player, Roblox also contains a stock market so that children can start gambling early. (See ▶ this video ) Besides that and far more disturbingly there are repeat and ongoing accusations of child abuse and child sexualization, which the company behind Roblox is ignoring. These accusations are bad enough that they have caused short selling of the company stocks.

Roblox has been on a constant downward trend. They’ve been doing some pretty awful stuff, including exploitation of children developers [0], unregulated market which encourages kids to gamble, lackluster moderation allowing kids to be harassed or worse, [both 1] and allowing manipulative and predatory games on their site [2]. [0] ▶ this video [1] link [2] link

Roblox in particular has a ... storied history of exploiting children [1, 2] for both direct and indirect profit. [1] link [2] ▶ this video

But the consumers in this case are the ones generating content with a heavy dose of programming. It sounds exploitative on the part of Roblox, but they're doing game development. ▶ this video

> in this dota case, if the modders wanted to charge for content, they shouldn’t have modded a game that prohibits charging for content. It's a too easy to use of an argument, reality is more complex, ▶ this video