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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

#251

Post by thrance »

recursive wrote: post #109
ACCount37 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What's wrong with paid mods?

It feels like monetizing something that used to be free and built by passionate tinkerers for its own sake. It's destroying yet another part of that hacker culture some people so very often reminisce about on this site.

Me personally, I absolutely hate it. I got into programming to mod my favorite games of the time, Minecraft among them. My first exposure to actual code was through reading open source mods and trying to modify them to achieve my own ideas.

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

#252

Post by robot-wrangler »

ngriffiths wrote: post #86
geephroh wrote: post #46

If you haven't listened to the interview[1], it's is absolutely bananas. Baszucki might want to think about dialing back on the ketamine a bit. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/podcasts/hardfork-roblox-...

Am I the only one who was really underwhelmed? I saw that it was supposedly a very tense trainwreck situation and sure, it gets sarcastic and stuff, but most of it was Interviewer: "so I heard you were/are doing a bad job with moderation" CEO: repeats banal PR talking point for the 10th time Repeat. I mean, at no point did the CEO say anything interesting about the moderation problem or what they are doing. The inter…

> CEO: repeats banal PR talking point for the 10th time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

So historically, when someone accepted an interview yet refused to engage with any questions, or stay on topic, AND also was not interested in the smooth polish of PR-style transitions that would give an appearance of basic cooperation.. it was considered unhinged and obviously crazy behavior.

If interviewee acts clueless, drawling, or drooling then they could be pretty uncooperative and mostly get a pass because it's not very polite to point out stupidity. But for the big bonus crazy-points though, interviewee may opt in to escalation, becoming unabashedly and almost childishly combative, talking over each other, etc. Obviously all of these tactics are pretty normalized now though.

> I was bored.

This is basically the goal. After the interviewee realizes the interviewer is hostile, they just double down on their talking points to signal to investors and ignore the intended audience of the interviewer. Mistake on the interviewers part honestly to publish it at that point IMO.

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

#253

Post by silenced_trope »

api wrote: post #59
geephroh wrote: post #46

If you haven't listened to the interview[1], it's is absolutely bananas. Baszucki might want to think about dialing back on the ketamine a bit. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/podcasts/hardfork-roblox-...

I do legit wonder about K abuse in this whole crowd. Anyone hear any excerpts from Thiel’s Antichrist lectures? I’ve never been on the same page as him politically but this wasn’t “wow I really disagree” material. This was “are you… okay, man?” material. It was just askew and bizarre. I’m not a big Thunberg fan either but I cannot replicate the thought process that would lead to mentioning her as a potential Antichri…

> I’m not a big Thunberg fan either but I cannot replicate the thought process that would lead to mentioning her as a potential Antichrist prototype. And that wasn’t even the weirdest thing, just the easiest to explain.

I know he doesn't like Greta, I don't either.

But I didn't see his lecture, he theorizes that she may be the antichrist? lol

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

#256

Post by hamdingers »

watwut wrote: post #104
massysett wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I let my kid play Roblox for a couple of weeks and I was absolutely horrified by all the inducements to seek Robux. So I removed it from her iPad, which is locked down. She gets along just fine without Roblox.

Roblox is popular precisely because majority of kids play it for free without buying Robux.

I would be surprised if that were true. Roblox was one of the earliest games to have their digital currency for sale in corner stores where kids can buy it with cash.

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

#257

Post by hamdingers »

coryrc wrote: post #246
PunchyHamster wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summer's highest case of kid accidents that ended in hospital in my country were the escooters, parents just buy whatever looks good in ad, not caring to train kid (technically moped license is needed) or even get one that's actually legal (with speed limit). End result - machine capable of going 50km/h or faster (think they caught one doing 90) in hands of young teen or outright kid. Hell, there was even a trucker t…

I also hear lots of scooter accidents, and that is way too fast. The overwhelming number of deaths is still cars.

I dug into this statistic for my city recently and found the majority of reported "scooter accidents" were actually occurrences of car drivers crashing into someone on a scooter.

Actual solo-scooter serious crashes were rare.

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

#258

Post by collinmcnulty »

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.

Isn’t this just called “having a discord server” or even a group text? If you only want to talk with people you know outside the game, you don’t need the game to facilitate that.

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

#260

Post by seanmcdirmid »

massysett wrote: post #17
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.

I let my kid play Roblox for a couple of weeks and I was absolutely horrified by all the inducements to seek Robux. So I removed it from her iPad, which is locked down. She gets along just fine without Roblox.

I still let my kid play a couple of hours a week, but told him no robux at all, it just wasn't something we were even going to consider. Let's see how it lasts, hopefully I can get him interested in something else but somehow his entire local social circle collapsed when we made him cut back on his play time. Its not even strangers at this point, but kids at school that have caused conflicts.
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