Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Roblox Microverse

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 210 posts

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#181

Post by _carbyau_ »

watwut wrote: post #96
mmkos wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if it's true then that's such a vile design, particularly for a game designed for children. However, I'm more inclined to believe that it's just something your daughter may have said to convince you to buy something.

More of, it depends who kids in her class etc are. If majority of parents in peer group don't buy, all is OK. If peer group is snoby or normalized paying, issues like this happen. It is very naive to think that kids don't bully other kids because of issues like this.

This is true.

But what should the proper response be? Give in, throw some few dollars?

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#182

Post by ManifestTendy »

juskrey wrote: post #84
mmkos wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was unnecessarily vague. What I meant was that it could have been something your daughter made up, just so you'd buy her something.

I understand what you have said here. If lies happen, that likely mean things are much much worse than they look. You don't teach children how to properly intake drugs, you teach them how to properly avoid toxic things in general.

Ditto on liking this comment.

The devil's advocate may be that, given the parallels to regular social challenges (and that 'digital' challenges may actually become more important in the future), Roblox offers a decently monitored, low-risk space to explore.

The game itself doesn't and doesn't have to incentivize social buying pressure. I believe it's just the natural order of things that can be considered signs of status. Because you have complete control over the avatar unlike your body, perhaps the condition is worse. As VR or 'microverses' evolve it's something to observe.

I suppose I was interested in having a powerful status symbol. I can't imagine why else I took so much time as a kid to learn the Roblox 'economy', how to trade, and then get scammed out of it in the end (the greatest lesson). I don't know if this what you meant by toxic or not, but it seems I've been drawn to that same experience with our fun little stonk market this past year.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#183

Post by _carbyau_ »

fumar wrote: post #128
mwcampbell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a safe space on the internet IMO, we should be teaching the next generation, by example, that the safest spaces on the Internet are the small, decentralized spaces that we create for each other, not the large, centralized ones created by companies that aim to exploit us.

Agree but kid trends are hard to fight. There is a lot of kid baggage that comes with pushing children to adopt non-mainstream ideals or games or clothes or content etc. There has to be a nice middle ground.

Also, it is easier to teach kids about something they have experienced.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#184

Post by bredren »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #145
TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think of collectible card games. If I hadn't spent my own pocket money as a kid on MTG, Star Trek CCG and Pokemon, there's no way in hell I would let my kid buy into an obvious scam CCGs are. But I did spend money on them and enjoyed it, so I'm not so sure now.

Why do you think it's an "obvious scam"? I played MtG for many years. I spent money, sure, but nothing obsessive and I got a lot of enjoyment out of it: the game is interesting and always changing, I went to tournaments, met people, and then there was the economy: trade, trying to predict cards whose price would go up, etc. I remember doing arbitrage at some point when a card appeared in a preconstructed deck for €X…

I too, played Mtg, starting at 3rd edition, playing through fallen empires. I have some of them still, but nothing very valuable.

The thing missing from these virtual items are a framework to ensure they can actually carry value.

And that could be NFTs or something similar. It makes sense to me, even if some of the “valuable” assets so far do not.

But then again what does my almost-tournament winning goblin grenade deck mean to a roblox player now? Presumably, little.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#185

Post by ManifestTendy »

guidoism wrote: post #143
jimmyvalmer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've clearly forgotten how disappointing things can be I must have because I don't remember being at all "gutted" when I obsessed over the one $20-or-less item my parents allotted me each Christmas. This is quite contrary to what I see amongst kids today who spend all of a couple hours with their physical gifts and go right back to the Minecraft/Roblox marathon.

My kids are so much happier on Minecraft because there's no built-in pay-money-to-get-better mechanism. Minecraft has a HUGE value in the price you pay to the amount of awesome gameplay you get. Even with Realms it's cheap compared to what you get out of it.

Well there's no beating Minecraft for value. Except you are aware that Roblox is a completely free game? Not all of the player-made content has PTW elements forced into it.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#186

Post by jackson1442 »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #178
crooked-v wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may shock you, but kids do exactly the same kind of thing in regards to clothes, food, and even inanities like brands of pens and pencils.

Hell, when it comes to social signalling via "stuff" much of society does this. Doesn't make it right though.

But I'd say an instant canceling of your child's account for a frequent societal phenomenon is a bit overdramatic, even if it's not right.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#187

Post by spaceisballer »

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…

Not disagreeing with what you did there. But I gave my kids Robux and talked with them about what they wanted to spend it on and let them learn if it was worth it or not (something persistent like an avatar item or some in game item). It was good for them but honestly they spent a couple of bucks each and stopped asking and just keep looking for games that are fun.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#188

Post by asdff »

watwut wrote: post #99
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #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.

Multiplayer for free. You don't have to run server. Plus, it is many different games, not just one that is not for everyone. Minecraft was popular, but there were many kids that found it boring. Yet plus, all kids that I know who play minecraft had it explained by someone. It could be other kid, but basically, game is not self explanatory and is difficult to figure out at first.

Minecraft experienced severe feature creep over the years. It started as a very simple game: place or break different colored blocks which all have the same properties on a finite sized map, and in a few years got to the point where people were making CPUs in game with redstone. It got too big and overwhelming for people new to the franchise who haven't been dripped these updates over the years, imo.

Re: The Roblox Microverse

#189

Post by vidarh »

an_opabinia wrote: post #175
vidarh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have Disney+ and Roblox, and my son has hardly any interest in Disney+. It wasn't because of him we got Disney+. Meanwhile my sons pocket money gets split between V-bucks for Fortnite and Robux, because that is what he wants to spend money on. He could've funded that Disney+ subscription several times over with what he spends on Robux. I think the things he buys are idiotic, but here's the thing: Over several year…

I don't know. Roblox isn't like, the Grateful Dead, the Super Mario of our time. It's hard not to sound like an ass, but its games will feel as culturally irrelevant today as all but one or two Warcraft 3 Custom Maps feel today. Trust me, you're not wrong, it's idiotic.

None of us spent all of our money as kids on things that still feel culturally relevant today. It's not an interesting metric.

That said, there are games my son's circle of friends have kept coming back to longer than pretty much all games I played as a kid. I think you seriously underestimate the stickiness of the platform.

Post reply on HN