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Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

gamasutra.com

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Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#2

Post by phone8675309 »

These allegations, if true, are terrible, and Roblox should address them.

That said, maybe if these young developers learn first hand why digital sharecropping is bad at an early age they can avoid being chewed up and spit out by the "AAA" game development machine and instead focus on creating and promoting games on a platform they have control over.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#4

Post by kevingadd »

phone8675309 wrote: post #2

These allegations, if true, are terrible, and Roblox should address them. That said, maybe if these young developers learn first hand why digital sharecropping is bad at an early age they can avoid being chewed up and spit out by the "AAA" game development machine and instead focus on creating and promoting games on a platform they have control over.

I think it is a terrible waste if even one kid with a bright future developing (for example) indie games is traumatized by this stuff and ends up pushing spreadsheets or designing webpages at an ad firm instead.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#5

Post by tyleo »

I read the article but have not watched the video so I may be missing some context.

It really depends on how you define “exploiting”. It doesn’t seem like you _need_ to buy the ads. A kid could make a game on any platform and would encounter similar barriers.

Would it be better if the kid played Call of Duty rather than creating something? Even if the chance to profit is low does the kid get something else out of Roblox?

To my knowledge kids aren’t dropping out of high school with hopes of being a Roblox millionaire. They may dream about it but I don’t think they act on it. I dreamed about being a pro eSports gamer in high school and I’d argue my time was much worse spent doing that.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#6

Post by jandrese »

kevingadd wrote: post #4
phone8675309 wrote: post #2

These allegations, if true, are terrible, and Roblox should address them. That said, maybe if these young developers learn first hand why digital sharecropping is bad at an early age they can avoid being chewed up and spit out by the "AAA" game development machine and instead focus on creating and promoting games on a platform they have control over.

I think it is a terrible waste if even one kid with a bright future developing (for example) indie games is traumatized by this stuff and ends up pushing spreadsheets or designing webpages at an ad firm instead.

On the other hand it may turn a child onto development when they would have normally defaulted into some kind of boring pencil pushing position. Or it may encourage the kids to go into open source if they're not getting paid anyway.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#7

Post by dreyfan »

This is no more exploitative than someone trying to make it big on Youtube, Twitch, or Spotify and gaining zero traction. If the content someone creates on these platforms doesn't capture an audience, the hosting platform doesn't generate any revenue and neither does the creator. It's completely free to produce the content (minus your time) and the platform hosts it for free, even though 99% of it never receives any views/plays/listens.

At the end of the day I think the only worthy argument is whether or not the revenue sharing arrangement is fair.

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