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The Roblox Microverse

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Re: The Roblox Microverse

#41

Roblox pisses me off so so much as a parent. There are some good games but it's mostly wading through an ocean of shit. And the vast majority of games that are popular are clickers that incentivize children to pay money to get more for each of their clicks. And it's full of scams. Kids spend $10 for a hat or something in the game and it doesn't end up working in all the games and there's no recourse. It's a true free…

related: is there some resource to know what a game/social network concerns may be? My small kids requested: Minecraft, Roblox, Among Us, tik tok , Hogwarts Mystery and the list goes on. My due diligence process is overbooked.

I have always used https://www.pluggedin.com/

It's run by a Christian org but to their credit they seem to be the only group that actually cares about what kids see and hear in movies and tv. And they cover the most popular movies and tv really quickly.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#42
Does anyone know why the game for kids switched from Minecraft to Roblox? I remember both of them being around when I was younger, yet everyone chose Minecraft. Today, it’s the opposite.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on how the experience is targeted to make children judge each other? Has this been something your kid(s) experienced on the platform? Just curious.

There's a fashion show game where kids judge each other's outfits.

People are missing that you need to pay money for the outfits in Roblox.

Real outfits are already an expense to keep kids from being judged in school. Why add digital ones?

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#45
We have Roblox (kids age 5 and 8). From the start I made a hard "no Robux" rule, which has worked out well so far. This has had a very nice and totally unintended side effect: the kids self select against games that are only fun if you pay.

Eg my youngest likes the clicking simulators. Many of those are awful "pay to win" schemes but some actually have fun game dynamics (not unlike the Paperclip Simulator html game that's an HN favorite[0]). Those are the ones he returns to.

These are the games that are more creative in nature, the games that are more challenging and so on and so forth. I feel that at least 7 out of 10 times I check on them, they're doing a game that involves creation, economics, collaboration, and often multiple of those.

[0] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#46

I'm also a parent who's child plays Roblox a lot. I don't know much about PC games, so can the parents here suggest some better alternatives?

My kids play Minecraft on the switch (creative mode), and they absolutely love it. I think it's a bit addicting, but I don't mind since it's essentially virtual legos.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#47

Roblox pisses me off so so much as a parent. There are some good games but it's mostly wading through an ocean of shit. And the vast majority of games that are popular are clickers that incentivize children to pay money to get more for each of their clicks. And it's full of scams. Kids spend $10 for a hat or something in the game and it doesn't end up working in all the games and there's no recourse. It's a true free…

I'm not very familiar with Roblox.

But I have been learning Godot, and it makes creating games extremely easy and fun. And Godot now has https://gotm.io/, you can easily upload games there to be played in the browser. It's really amazing how simple this is.

I imagine that this could be the future of game creation and distribution. We used to have flash, then it went away, and now we'll have something much much cooler.

Shameless plug, some of the games I've made: https://gotm.io/godotacademy

(playable only on desktop, I still haven't figured out what's necessary to make them work well on mobile, but that should be easy as well)

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#48

I now have 5 or so years experience with Roblox in the house. I've helped my kids make games and I have to say, VC is missing out big time. Roblox (or the concept) has an enormous TAM. Roblox corp is struggling with DX DevRel and moderation. It's an absolute fucking zoo and the tools are shit. Major game publishers have had their accounts taken over by scammers, or just shut down by Roblox because of scammers trying…

There's a heap of new products in the space. We're building dot big bang (https://www.dotbigbang.com) which is web based so you can play and make multiplayer games on your smart fridge amongst other devices.

If you're interested you can learn more about the company and project here: https://controlzee.com/

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#49

Roblox pisses me off so so much as a parent. There are some good games but it's mostly wading through an ocean of shit. And the vast majority of games that are popular are clickers that incentivize children to pay money to get more for each of their clicks. And it's full of scams. Kids spend $10 for a hat or something in the game and it doesn't end up working in all the games and there's no recourse. It's a true free…

I disagree that the games are mostly crap... I have 4 step kids who game, and 3 do on roblox a lot. Some of the games may be objectively poor, but they enjoy playing in them anyway, and some of them are spectacular. I spent quite a few hours playing with them during the original UK lockdown,which was doubly good as I don't live with them so didn't see them for 3 months. In that time we "did" many things,including "going" to a theme park, and spent many hours exploring and seeing how bad I am at it. Without roblox we wouldn't have had that experience.

In terms of scams, I'd rather they learnt using their pocket money than their wages when they are older.

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