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Roblox is minting teen millionaires

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Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#161

Post by Brybry »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #142

My grandsons would come and stay, bringing tablet devices with them, and would prefer to stay glued to them the whole time. Since we banned their use, they now play outside with my other grandchildren, on the rope swing, the zip line, or exploring in the woods making dens and forts, using their imaginations. Children should not be playing computer games, or scrolling on any social media, IMO.

I think a fair number of us here got into computers because of playing computer games as kids.

The issue is setting limits.

Now obviously banning is easier and lower friction but limiting to an X time per day routine can also help with self-discipline. Depends on the person.

Kids can have the same issue with TV. I had an issue as a kid with books. My parents had to limit my reading time because I would stay up all night under my covers with a flashlight reading.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#162

Post by fhennig »

Brybry wrote: post #161
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #142

My grandsons would come and stay, bringing tablet devices with them, and would prefer to stay glued to them the whole time. Since we banned their use, they now play outside with my other grandchildren, on the rope swing, the zip line, or exploring in the woods making dens and forts, using their imaginations. Children should not be playing computer games, or scrolling on any social media, IMO.

I think a fair number of us here got into computers because of playing computer games as kids. The issue is setting limits. Now obviously banning is easier and lower friction but limiting to an X time per day routine can also help with self-discipline. Depends on the person. Kids can have the same issue with TV. I had an issue as a kid with books . My parents had to limit my reading time because I would stay up all n…

I agree with the 'setting limits' bit.

But also maybe the parent post and you refer to kids of different ages?

I didn't have access to a computer until I was 9, and then also we didn't have tables and smartphones, so there computer was only available at home as well.

I think below a certain age the limit is fine to be set as 'not at all'.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#163

Post by jonasdegendt »

isolli wrote: post #141
jonasdegendt wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were dozens of ways to make money off of RuneScape back in the day. Selling bot scripts, running bot farms (this is still very lucrative to this day), running gambling rings, bulk buying gold and reselling, the list goes on. The ecosystem was incredible and it was basically a crash course in Anarcho-capitalism, I'm pretty immune to any kind of scam because of having been in that environment. I made close to 20…

I probably lack imagination, but how would gambling work in this game?

The whole game is basically one giant random number generator, so there was a lot to gamble on.

E.g., two players put one million gold pieces in their inventory, equip no equipment (so no attack bonuses), every hit on each other is now an RNG roll with identical odds for each player. Battle to the death and voila.

That one's quite basic but there were more elaborate games such as flower poker. The game had a flower seeds item which when planted would spawn a flower on the floor. The flower would be of a random color (e.g. red, blue, white, ...). People would bet on which color flower would pop up, or plant plant five flowers sequentially and try and get something akin to a poker hand (e.g. three of a kind, full house).

Quite silly, in retrospect, as I'm typing this out.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#164

Post by jiggunjer »

sghitbyabazooka wrote: post #158
stavros wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a secondary market for Robux that then sells for much better prices?

that also has a cap, you're not getting more than $6 per 1000 robux there, which is a little under double the official rate but still only 2 thirds of what users actually paid for said robux. not including the risk of the platform banning you.

You're implying I can buy 1000 rbx for 10 usd. But I have been paying 5 times that in my country... So is the cash out rate also variable by country?

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#165

Post by microtonal »

Brybry wrote: post #161
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #142

My grandsons would come and stay, bringing tablet devices with them, and would prefer to stay glued to them the whole time. Since we banned their use, they now play outside with my other grandchildren, on the rope swing, the zip line, or exploring in the woods making dens and forts, using their imaginations. Children should not be playing computer games, or scrolling on any social media, IMO.

I think a fair number of us here got into computers because of playing computer games as kids. The issue is setting limits. Now obviously banning is easier and lower friction but limiting to an X time per day routine can also help with self-discipline. Depends on the person. Kids can have the same issue with TV. I had an issue as a kid with books . My parents had to limit my reading time because I would stay up all n…

There is a big difference between games now and games then. E.g. an SNES game was made to be fun, but not to be intentionally addictive, you would never buy a new game if it was.

Many online games are designed to be as addictive as crack to extract as much revenue as possible. Our kid is in the typical video gaming age, almost every kid of her age is stuck in Roblox and some in Fortnite.

Setting limits helps, but more broadly, games that require a monthly subscriptions or buying in-game currency should just be outright forbidden for anyone under 16 or 18. Yes, kids need to learn to recognize and suppress abusive patterns, but these addictive games, together with social media, and Youtube Shorts is destroying their mental health and normal, healthy exploration of the world.

I think parents are also failing in general. It's insane how many use tablets as a pacifier, some give 2 year-olds an iPad to play with. Or setting bad examples like using phones themselves at the dinner table.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#166

Post by microtonal »

taberiand wrote: post #153
dyauspitr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate it. What a waste of a perfectly good generation.

The generation that's going to enter adulthood in the age of unchecked climate change and AI taking over their careers? I say let them enjoy themselves while they still can.

The generation that's going to enter adulthood in the age of unchecked climate change and AI taking over their careers?

You forgot the part where they also became addicts to games that only exist to funnel money to tech feudalist overlords.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#167

Post by kgwxd »

foobarian wrote: post #80
2001zhaozhao wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. For the last ~4 years I have been working to turn my Minecraft server into a free browser game on a custom engine. Though in Roblox's case, there's two additional factors helping the success of games on its platform besides being free to play - Roblox has become the de-facto portal from which lots of people play games by default, especially on mobile devices like tablets where discovery for other g…

I would also add it's easier to download and set up than Minecraft. I still have nightmares about setting up various Microsoft and Xbox accounts and trying to help my kid play with her friends. IMO that Roblox doesn't have this friction is huge

My 9 yo has alt accounts I didn't setup, that's how easy Roblox is. I have MC/Microsoft account info for like 10 people, mostly family/friends kids, in my password manager because their parents were fine with them playing, but didn't want to deal with account management. Every sleep over starts with me logging everyone in on the various available devices, with their parents on standby to help with the multi-factor shitstorm that ensues.

Roblox is getting pretty bad though with age verification, and they will NOT help recover a lost/hacked account no matter how much money was spent on it. 5 year account, likely thousands of dollars in robux spent on it, kid clicked a bad link and it's gone. Roblox just responds they can't help, even though the original email address was verified, and used 2 factor auth through its history. They used to be helpful, they don't care anymore.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#168

Post by microtonal »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #132
userbinator wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting them to accept the normalisation of surveillance while they're young? And then people wonder why authoritarianism is on the rise...

Getting watched by your parents is far different than getting watched by the government. It's no different than parent watching out of the window on kids playing in backyard > And then people wonder why authoritarianism is on the rise... It's on the rise because of utter failure of progressive govt to do what people want them to do. People want country to be more prosperous, not to have bleeding heart activists impor…

Getting watched by your parents is far different than getting watched by the government. It's no different than parent watching out of the window on kids playing in backyard

Maybe it's a cultural difference, but after age ~8-9 or so, we would just roam around our town/village without our parents knowing where we were. You just had to be back home at 17:30 for dinner.

Yes, there was some mischief (we were kids), but you had to own up to it if you got caught and there weren't smartphone cameras around everywhere, so if you did something dumb, it would not be on the internet the next day.

The problem with modern games and social media is that they are like giving crack to a 10 year-old. They are made for dopamine hits that leads to addiction. Kid's brains are not fully developed until well after 18, so they have limited capability to recognize and deal with addiction.

People want country to be more prosperous, not to have bleeding heart activists import immigrants or other leftist bullshit. Authoritarian turn is knee jerk reaction to that beacuse they are only ones promising the country for the citizens of the country.

Oh my...

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#169

Post by latexr »

sys32768 wrote: post #39

My youngest has played Roblox half her life, but is very angry about recent decisions like requiring ID to chat in-game. Still, if she's anything like other players, she's spent countless hours playing some of the most mindless Roblox games, and we've spent a few $100 on Robux gift cards over the years.

> she's spent countless hours playing some of the most mindless Roblox games

It sounds like you disapprove, or at the very least recognise it’s not harmless, so I’m struggling to understand why you allow and incentivise it (by pouring hundreds of dollars into it).

Would you expand on that? I have no intention of judging you as a parent—if you say you approve of her time on Roblox, that’s that. I’m only asking because it seems you might not.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#170

Post by microtonal »

sys32768 wrote: post #39

My youngest has played Roblox half her life, but is very angry about recent decisions like requiring ID to chat in-game. Still, if she's anything like other players, she's spent countless hours playing some of the most mindless Roblox games, and we've spent a few $100 on Robux gift cards over the years.

I hope she is 30 because playing Roblox half your life for anyone under 18 (which means you started at 9) does not sound healthy.
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