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

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

#211

Post by beeflet »

hedora wrote: post #191
foota wrote: post #158

It's interesting to me to think about a possible system where people in say roblox can only chat with each other by exchanging physical keys somehow. This way, they would be able to chat with their peers from school etc., without the danger or need for as much supervision. I don't necessarily think this is technologically feasible or something that would be accepted, but I think it's an interesting idea.

This would be trivial to implement well. Give the parents a console where they can paste in usernames. Most classes already have parents whatsapp groups or similar, so it’s easy enough to broadcast the usernames, or create a shared google doc. Console access could also be required to create new accounts. The article says it is currently trivial for kids to just create an adult account and bypass all the parental cont…

I don't think it's a terrible idea. You could make the keys some sort of amiibo-like NFC device or trading card.

There is probably some way you could toy-ify it and sell a lot of units

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

#212

Post by iamnothere »

Ekaros wrote: post #139
endymion-light wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, gambling for underage children is already illegal due to a myriad of reasons. I'd argue the psychological design of gacha games should be limited. Building patterns that get adults addicted, and advertising them specifically to children is the problem. In the same way if a casino advertised child roulette wheels, I'd want legislation to step in.

I would not be against banning sale of any type of mystery or lootbox mechanics to those under age of 18. Including all digital and physical products. Yes, some things will be lost, but I think it will be for better.

It’s tough to put into law because this could easily cover innocuous things like gas station gashapon machines, school raffles, and Pokemon cards. Most people aren’t going to support a ban on those. And when you try to try to target the law too narrowly, you can run into problems with loopholes or legal precedent that prevents discriminatory and targeted legislation (there is precedent around equal protection).

I do think people should push for voluntary limits on gacha mechanics, because they are awful when overused and are probably harmful for a small percentage of the population that’s prone to gambling. Steam would probably be fine with rating/age gating games that heavily rely on these mechanics, the hard part is getting Google and Apple on board. Micropayments from “whales” (high spenders) provide a lot of revenue for them.

I’m also not entirely sure that gacha mechanics alone are that bad, it’s when you combine them with currency (virtual or real) that it becomes a huge problem. Absent currency it’s usually a self-limiting problem, because overuse of the mechanic makes the game worse.

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

#213

Post by HaZeust »

akho wrote: post #96
iteria wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing, my parents did forbid me: by denying me access. Kids have way, way more access to the internet than I ever did. When I was a kid, the only computer was in a communal area ans needed explicit permission by virtue of mandating that no one be using the phone. And then when I was older and we had broadband, it was still banned by virtue that my parents didn't think it was great for me to spend all my ti…

Your kid has that private device because you gave it to them.

I left this [1] comment a few weeks ago, and I already knew people like you would have dogged on GP for giving their child this level of access and autonomy, just like I knew the HN thread from the other day about homeschooling was going to dog on people who allow their child to go to public school - because teaching children self-sufficiency, self-assurance, and confidence to deal with bad influences is a relic of a time gone by.

Parents would rather justify to themselves the act of building, end-to-end, what their child is exposed to and around - even when that's not how the world works, rather than building a child that knows how to handle themselves when exposed to, and around, anything - because that's ACTUALLY how adult life works.

There's levels to it, and I understand a child can have all the tooling in the world about how to deal with bad influences, and neglect its application solely due to naivety; but it's still a lot more fruitful than just hand-picking a child's exposure to any and all things during their most formative years - when they're SUPPOSED to be learning how to deal with exposure to as many things as possible, good and bad for them.

1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45852694

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

#214

Post by astroflection »

ACCount37 wrote: post #81
acedTrex wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats wrong with Minecraft, that seems like an odd inclusion in the list?

Minecraft by itself is benign, but online servers? Oh boy. Full tilt P2W servers, ran by low key cybercriminals, with I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling mechanics targeting children. And Mojang itself is adding fuel to the fire by selling paid mods - for Bedrock only, which is the version most children play. Then there's the usual boon of online gaming - getting to interact with the shadiest characters you've ever met…

> And Mojang itself is adding fuel to the fire by...

You mean Microsoft.

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

#215

Post by whyenot »

pixl97 wrote: post #197
whyenot wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that helicopter parenting is a much larger contributor than physical isolation. We have had sparse suburbs in the US since at least the 1950s, and generations of kids grew up in that environment and did just fine.

1950s was the baby boom so is not a great example. Children per adult has been falling ever since and suburban areas growing.

I wrote starting in the 1950s. It was certainly true for other generations like gen X (me) and also for older millennials.

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

#216

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

oezi wrote: post #187
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Minecraft you know and love is a fantastic game, especially for kids. Top 10 all time, IMO, in terms of creativity and education and development. And you can easily set up a personal friends and family server/realm, and there are tons of free mods and maps. The problem is that malicious actors can build Roblox in anything. It's not hard to get kids hooked and begging their parents for lucrative in-game gambling c…

I am probably not the right generation but all attempts to engage with Minecraft with my children have always ended badly. It seems very tedious and clunky. The learning curve seems steeper than playing factorio casually.

Yeah, I tried playing it with my son, but I've never quite understood what you're supposed to do.

I grew up on RPGs and adventure games where you usually had an objective out there in the world. In comparison, Minecraft is extremely solipsistic; there are no structures in the world to meaningfully interact with, and it seems one is supposed to simply treat the world as a sort of Lego set.

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

#217

Post by pixl97 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #133
lenerdenator wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're people, but they're not politicians or regulators with the ability to do anything about it. At a certain point, you need to have a statute that says "thou shalt not offer cybersex and online gambling to children", and you need someone with the statutory authority to charge Roblox with doing so and penalize them after due process. Either we don't have that statute, or the people with the statutory authority do…

> you need someone with the statutory authority to charge Roblox Roblox didn't put up the content. Some user did. The user should be charged.

Cool then, to post robox content you need to have a verified ID.

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

#218

Post by tantalor »

ed-209 wrote: post #207

Putting aside my personal concerns and frustrations with the state of parental controls (it’s hell), what does the author propose here? By his own admission the controls which companies have been pressured to implement thus far are incomplete / can be bypassed. There is of course only one, complete solution that comes to mind - universal digital ID for all humans on the internet - which is a different kind of nightma…

> author won’t stake out their position

Casey Newton is a journalist - it would not be appropriate for him to have a "position" on this topic.

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

#219

Post by kulahan »

recursive wrote: post #200
prophesi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but for me I'm wary whenever I see in-game currency (Minecoins). Thankfully there are no gambling mechanics tied in to Minecoins directly, but the server ecosystem is still rampant with gambling just the same[0]. [0] https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600...

I agree regarding in-game currency. I find it distasteful. But in my mind, paid mods are a different thing that can exist independently. I don't find those distasteful. I find their existence slightly positive.

If it's made by randoms, then Microsoft is barely better than a rent-seeking middleman. If it's made by Microsoft, they should just put it in the f-ing game or move on to making something new to get more money.

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

#220

Post by mghackerlady »

oezi wrote: post #187
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Minecraft you know and love is a fantastic game, especially for kids. Top 10 all time, IMO, in terms of creativity and education and development. And you can easily set up a personal friends and family server/realm, and there are tons of free mods and maps. The problem is that malicious actors can build Roblox in anything. It's not hard to get kids hooked and begging their parents for lucrative in-game gambling c…

I am probably not the right generation but all attempts to engage with Minecraft with my children have always ended badly. It seems very tedious and clunky. The learning curve seems steeper than playing factorio casually.

It's a cultural thing. The learning curve has always been bad but it was bypassed by the initial cultural penetration of people playing it on youtube and now the learning curve is a thing learnt through prior knowledge instead of trial and error
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