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The Roblox Microverse

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Re: The Roblox Microverse

#111

Post by villasv »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #95

> In short, Roblox isn’t a game at all: it is world in which one of the things you can do is play games, with a persistent identity, persistent set of friends, persistent money, all disconnected from the device that you use to access the world. That is the transformational change. Second Life, The Sims Online. We’ve been here before. Those platforms didn’t nail it like Roblox, but Roblox did not transform anything.

Second Life and The Sims Online are wildly different from Roblox. You're right that the particular sentence you've picked doesn't capture what Roblox did different, but it did transform the building of virtual experiences.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#112

Post by villasv »

modeless wrote: post #105

Can someone explain to me how Roblox doesn't violate Apple's "no app stores in the App Store" rule? And the rule against running non-JavaScript code not bundled with the app? And probably a bunch of other rules too? The article mentions it but has no sensible explanation. It seems impossible to justify. Apple gets to pick winners and losers by selective enforcement of their own rules. Pretty nice for Roblox if Apple…

> Can someone explain to me how Roblox doesn't violate Apple's "no app stores in the App Store" rule?

The games available inside Roblox are impossible to ship as an independent app on the App Store without re-implementing the entire Roblox platform. It's a middle ground between Minecraft selling maps and an actual app store.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#113

Post by Scramblejams »

marianov wrote: post #24
guidoism wrote: post #13

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.

If you go for Roblox, I recommend using the parental controls to enable curated games only. It wasn't on by default for my <13 yo, which annoys me to no end. If you don't turn it on, you'll end up with your kids in games with freeform sketching and all sorts of questions you weren't planning to answer until later. :-)

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#114

Post by ambicapter »

discardedrefuse wrote: post #78
juskrey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter have asked me several times if I can spend at least something because other children somehow see she is not a paying user and segregate on that basis

This is a well known occurrence on Fortnite. If you were online wearing a "default" you were mocked by your friends and sometimes targeted for griefing. And not just online, because kids are using the game as a virtual hangout space, this bullying would play out IRL too. https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-defa...

If I were into competitive Fortnite I would never leave the default skin and get extra gratification from stunting on "gamers" who don't know better than to pre-judge skills based on cosmetics...

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#115

Post by rkalla »

kitd wrote: post #89
skrebbel wrote: post #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 t…

> I made a hard "no Robux" rule I had that to start with, but now he's older and using the platform to interact with his friends (especially during lockdown), we have relented and now use Robux as incentives for doing chores etc.

Out of curiosity (I have 2 that are into it) what did they 'get' by you relenting and allowing them to spend Robux? Is it just cosmetics or are there certain games/modes/experiences that are only available if you pay?

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#116

Post by colecut »

rkalla wrote: post #115
kitd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made a hard "no Robux" rule I had that to start with, but now he's older and using the platform to interact with his friends (especially during lockdown), we have relented and now use Robux as incentives for doing chores etc.

Out of curiosity (I have 2 that are into it) what did they 'get' by you relenting and allowing them to spend Robux? Is it just cosmetics or are there certain games/modes/experiences that are only available if you pay?

Every Roblox game is different, the developer is free to monetize their world in any way they want to..

It could be skins or abilities or anything else that is part of the world.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#117

Post by dzdt »

rkalla wrote: post #115
kitd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made a hard "no Robux" rule I had that to start with, but now he's older and using the platform to interact with his friends (especially during lockdown), we have relented and now use Robux as incentives for doing chores etc.

Out of curiosity (I have 2 that are into it) what did they 'get' by you relenting and allowing them to spend Robux? Is it just cosmetics or are there certain games/modes/experiences that are only available if you pay?

Not the OP but my kids (8,9) spend allowance on robux. Mostly it lets them build a big house for their friends to come over (in game) and play with them. They pair Roblox with video chat as their online hangout.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#118

Post by robocat »

joezydeco wrote: post #17
antidaily wrote: post #6

Is anyone making money off Roblox? Tried to make some gear so my son could make money and stop asking me for Robux. Failed miserably. Anyway, I'll be buying stock.

My son's best friend is pulling down $1K/year doing Lua scripting and object modelling for people on a subcontracting basis. He's 15. He acknowledges he could be pulling in a lot more money if he spent 2x or 4x the time on it. Or dropped out of high school, perhaps.

Any pointers to where they find the paying work?

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#119

Post by nomel »

rkalla wrote: post #115
kitd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made a hard "no Robux" rule I had that to start with, but now he's older and using the platform to interact with his friends (especially during lockdown), we have relented and now use Robux as incentives for doing chores etc.

Out of curiosity (I have 2 that are into it) what did they 'get' by you relenting and allowing them to spend Robux? Is it just cosmetics or are there certain games/modes/experiences that are only available if you pay?

There are per game purchases (thousands of games) and system wide cosmetic purchases.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#120

Post by antiterra »

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #58
guidoism wrote: post #13

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…

You've clearly forgotten what being a kid means. Any game kids want to spend money on is inherently "good" and not "sh_t" according to the one metric that matters: is it fun or not?

You've clearly forgotten how disappointing things can be when you're a kid. How you waited for Christmas or saved for weeks only to find the thing you got is garbage. I've heard plenty of stories about kids being absolutely gutted for not getting what they thought they were getting for virtual currency in Roblox and Minecraft.

That's also not mentioning how different aspects of a game can be fun or unfun. It could be that kids just want some item in aspirationally in a game but actually have no interest in playing the game itself. Much like how kids can have zero interest in the Pokemon card game but desperately crave spending $4 for the pleasure of 1 minute of unwrapping new cards.

That's also not factoring in the social pressure and envy kids feel when their friends talk about things they have.

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