Roblox: An unmoderated, exploitative platform unsafe for kids?

In a duology of videos from People Make Games, Roblox stands accused for being a platform that is unsafe for the children and their works that it hosts.

If you’re not sure what Roblox is, here’s a short overview from Google Play:

Roblox is the ultimate virtual universe that lets you create, share experiences with friends, and be anything you can imagine. Join millions of people and discover an infinite variety of immersive worlds created by a global community!

You can essentially consider Roblox a platform where anyone, from 7+ year olds (going by the app rating) to adults much older than them, can create “experiences” (games), potentially earning money depending on how popular their creation becomes. It sounds quite ideal, where young kids learn how to develop games using the free tools provided to them. Except, all is not well in paradise.

Here’s People Make Games‘ video from 19 August 2021:

Quintin Smith talks about how Roblox gives their young audience the idea that they can earn money developing games on the platform, where in reality, they would likely earn nothing. Discovering new titles is nigh impossible, at which point you’d have to “gamble” for an ad spot. Still, the idea of creating The Next Big Hit, sharing it with your friends, AND getting paid for it is certainly a very tantalizing prospect.

Should your “experience” be popular, you get “paid” in Robux. Robux can be cashed out to real life money, but has a minimum threshold of 100,000 Robux. The 100,000 Robux, theoretically worth $1000, will end up being $350 due to the exchange rate. A game on Roblox can’t be exported to a different platform, and there’s nothing stopping more experienced or bigger development teams from refining a successful formula they have the resources to advertise that smaller ones can’t capitalize on.

Then, we have the next update on 13 December 2021:

The Roblox forums have since been shut down. People have moved on to Discord or other platforms, presumably to coordinate their projects and whatever else. Without an official forum that people actually use, much less moderate, it’s probably hard to know what kind of issues that may be occurring.

Take for instance, the alleged abuse against a minor that is brought to light in this video. It would seem that the abuser can still monetize their works on Roblox despite getting the account banned. How many such cases remain unreported due to the apparent lack of action that the management is willing to take? That’s not even mentioning any legality involved from profiting off derivative works.

Things get even murkier with the Collectibles Market. The “limited” items can be exchanged between players at exorbitant amounts of real life money, with the process working similarly to a stock market. Items can be bought very easily too, so children could lose large sums without realizing it. Since Roblox takes a cut from these exchanges, black market trading is pretty much expected for even more grey – at best – territory.

How soon can an overhaul be done? Considering the staggering amount of behind the scenes work and interviews conducted with people within the system, where does one even begin to start unravelling the framework of a company that’s now worth even more than Nintendo?

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