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by diegof79 2043 days ago
Sadly that’s true. I’m very careful with the screen time of my 6yo kid, but the pandemic made it very hard. Many of his friends in the school started to use Roblox.

So I played with him to check it, it ended with me uninstalling it: First time use and you’ll see tons of in-app purchases to build your character (all optional but kids that are starting to read cannot tell the difference), then the app is like the Wild West of ads and special offers.

The Apple store classifies the app as 12+, and I think they are right (as a father I started to see the appeal of the closed App Store and Apple Arcade).

The sad part is that it could be a great platform to experiment creating games and coding, is like the Alan Kay vision of Croquet but perverted by ads.
2 comments
boogies 2043 days ago
Minetest¹ is one game that I think in theory could be a great creative platform for kids, it’s kind of Minecraft + Roblox — a Minecraft clone except everything besides the most basic engine functionality — even mobs — is implemented as a mod — which is just a Lua script + (3D model, texture, and/or sound) assets. Edit: and each server can have any mods it wants and the client will load any it doesn’t have locally.

[1]: https://www.minetest.net/

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RHSeeger 2043 days ago
Honestly, it's not all that different from something like the Play Store. There's a LOT of games that are trying to get people (who don't know any better) to spend money. But there's also a lot of real quality games, too. Many of the best games have the option to spend money, but don't shove it down your throat.

As an example, I played Bee Swarm Simulator with my daughter and I really enjoyed it. I decided to buy some robux and spend it on the game.I did this not because it gave me something I needed to enjoy the game, but because I felt the developer deserved it for creating something that entertained me.

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girvo 2043 days ago
Right, but should a young child have free reign on the App or Play store either?
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lmm 2043 days ago
The point is that the "walled garden" isn't actually any safer than a platform with much less review.
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