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

Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

platformer.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 399 posts

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#21

Post by herbst »

endymion-light wrote: post #18

I looked at Roblox recently as a nostalgia trip as I was active in the community over a decade ago when I was a kid. Genuinely insane that it's legal. Full dark gambling patterns, insane access. I think the only reason it's not been regulated is that people haven't looked closely, but it's as if someone took the worst of gacha games and decided to base their childrens platform on it.

I am watching YouTubers showing these things for years to the public. Somehow people don't really seem to care at all.

Roblox is really really weird.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#22

Post by andsoitis »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #14
andsoitis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agree, in any other field if a product cannot be made safe for consumers, you just don't produce and sell it This is patently untrue. We are exposed to risk, incl. death, from products and services every day. Nothing can be 100% safe, nor would it be wise to aim for it. The benefits, as they say, often outweigh the cost.

the benefits of roblox?

> the benefits of roblox?

Roblox has tens of millions of daily active users. I'm guessing they would say it is a great way to entertain themselves and to spend time with others, amongst others.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#23

Post by [deleted] »

wslh wrote: post #20
iamnothere wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from a LAN party? I spent countless hours engrossed in DOOM deathmatches and Starcraft games as a kid. I don’t really see the difference. The problem outlined in the article is about moderation of spaces where kids are present. You seem to be trying to draw some broader conclusion that video games are harmful.

> You seem to be trying to draw some broader conclusion that video games are harmful. I never said video games are harmful. I talked about manipulation of people of all ages at a planetary scale.

[deleted]

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#24

Post by herbst »

iamnothere wrote: post #13
wslh wrote: post #11

I want to share a small story a close friend told me. His son is eleven. Every Saturday he goes to tennis class. He's good at it, sure, but the important part is that he loves it. One Saturday, though, he refused to go. Why? Because there was a special Roblox event happening at the same time. His father tried reasoning with him, the kid, agrees, a bit reluctantly. But when the father walks into the bar, he sees a doz…

How is this different from a LAN party? I spent countless hours engrossed in DOOM deathmatches and Starcraft games as a kid. I don’t really see the difference. The problem outlined in the article is about moderation of spaces where kids are present. You seem to be trying to draw some broader conclusion that video games are harmful.

Color me naive but we're there micropayments, sex and actual gambling in DOOM?

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#26

Post by zeroCalories »

hrimfaxi wrote: post #9
superkuh wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the parents. I wasn't aware the corporations were responsible for the raising of children. That said, I'm with you on reducing the abstraction of liability that is the purpose of corporations. I just don't think parents not parenting is the reason to do it. I also don't really think parents should be thrown in prison and families destroyed. The use of violent force in this situation, against the CEOs or the parent…

Our parents had problems figuring out how to program the time on the VCR. Technology advances faster than parents can keep up. If someone was selling drugs on the street on the way to school, would we be blaming parents who let their kids walk to school that they should parent better, or would we deal with the drug dealer?

Oh yeah, I remember 20 years ago when the Internet was fine for a child to brows unsupervised.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#27

Post by pjmlp »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #6

It's a nightmare managing all this stuff. Roblox, Minecraft, Meta Quest services, Fortnite, the list goes on and on. These companies are not helping us either. Thankfully my son and his friends have somehow iterated away from Fortnite. It's no longer cool so they just stopped playing it. That's one less thing I have to worry about.

Epic made a deal with Unity, apparently they intend to work around stores by turning Fortnite into a game store.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#28

Post by masfuerte »

tyleo wrote: post #7
crazydoggers wrote: post #2

We need to pass laws that can make these executives serve jail time. You’d quickly see these “impossible to moderate” platforms quickly clean up.

I don't understand why this is getting downvoted. As another response mentioned, we wouldn't tolerate this in any other industry. If a restaurant served food that harmed people we wouldn't say, "it's on the parents." I don't get why so many folks are willing to say that with harms caused by tech companies. Scale is no excuse either, "at our scale we just can't handle all the content." If anything it makes the problem…

> If a restaurant served food that harmed people we wouldn't say, "it's on the parents."

But we do! Acute harm is bad but chronic harm is, apparently, fine.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#29

Post by huflungdung »

tjungblut wrote: post #15

I'll probably get DV to oblivion for this, but I have to constantly wonder where those parents come from that need to forbid their children to roam freely on the internet. Didn't they grow up in an age unrestricted web either? By now we must have two generations of unhinged children grown up with unsafe World of Warcraft, MSN, Whatsapp and ICQ. Oh and the p0rn... I mean, seriously, do you guys have nothing else to do…

[dead]

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#30

Post by darkwizard42 »

tjungblut wrote: post #15

I'll probably get DV to oblivion for this, but I have to constantly wonder where those parents come from that need to forbid their children to roam freely on the internet. Didn't they grow up in an age unrestricted web either? By now we must have two generations of unhinged children grown up with unsafe World of Warcraft, MSN, Whatsapp and ICQ. Oh and the p0rn... I mean, seriously, do you guys have nothing else to do…

Because the internet is far more optimized at capturing your attention and encouraging terrible behavior (purchases, viruses, scams, etc.)

When you were younger the scariest thing was joining an AOL chat room on a 56k modem. Now you can mind rot yourself on YouTube shorts with the next video loading in milliseconds while being fed content full of sports gambling ads.

To act like the internet doesn’t have significantly sharper edges and dangerous loops which affect children is ignoring the reality around you. The downvotes are not because in principle folks disagree, it’s that the situation is different.

Post reply on HN