This is my take as a parent who was very hesitant to let my kids play roblox for this same fear.
The exploitiveness of an individual Roblox game really depends on that game's developer. They get to decide how to extract money from their players.
I've seen a lot of different sales techniques used. Most common are pay to get an overpowered weapon or ability or to skip levels.
The ones that annoy me the most are the artificial scarcity/limited time only sales techniques. "Adopt Me" is one of the most popular games. Their main product is digital pets that cost about 12USD, or upgrades for your pets. They have rotation of pets that are only available for a limited time. My kids are really suspectable to that technique.
There are also some games that are obnoxiously full of unavoidable little floor buttons that when stepped on will trigger the confirm purchase dialog. The dialog is easy for kids to learn to just-cancel, but the developers who use this technique seem to have real contempt for their players.
That said, there are tons of fun games that you can play without spending any money or being exposed to obtrusive ads.
My favorite game is called Secret Staycation. It's really well made, and there are zero in game purchases. I only saw one ad in the whole game and it was for a physical plush toy of one of the game characters.
Also, shame on Mark Rober for his buggy abomination of a Roblox game. That felt gross and exploitive.
What convinced you to let them play? I’m genuinely curious as I’ll never allow any my kids to play these sort of exploitive games (or in this case platforms since not every Roblox game is exploiting).
I’m not preaching by the way. Exposure may be a better strategy to teach about the dangers of these digital garbage cans. I just don’t want my kids to grow up having even experienced any of these things that I consider terrible consumption patterns. Similarly they don’t get on YouTube or any form of SoMe until they are at least 13. I am a little undecided when it comes to actually creating something… I’m not sure how I would handle it if my daughter wanted to make a YouTube channel about her gardening as an example. Or in the case of Roblox create a game.
They had friends that played it and they wanted to play it with their friends. So we started out small by letting them play it only when their friends were visiting. That gave me a way to say yes, but also with strict limits. Once I got to know it better, I got comfortable letting them play it on their own.
I also let them know that if they ever want to buy Robux (the in game currency), that they will be using their own money. It gives them experience with budgeting and valuing money. My daughter has spent most of her Christmas and birthday money already on toys and Robux, and she is learning that money is finite and should be spent wisely.
Once cool thing about it: my daughter's best friend is our neighbor's granddaughter, but she live 2 hours away. However, Roblox plus video calls means they still get to play together regularly.
on average roblox games are not much worse than most other free-to-play games with in-game sales, especially compared to mobile games. i let my kids play almost anything (screened for violence and other undesirable stuff), but i don't allow them to spend any money on games whatsoever. not even their own.
i want them to learn and accept that computer games, and especially in-game sales, are not something to spend money on. they can do that when they are grown up and have learned the value of the money through their own work. we don't let kids smoke or drink alcohol either. some things don't need to be learned that early. (i didn't learn anything from getting pocket money as a 10 year old, but later i got all the money i needed to build my own bike and travel through europe on my own because i could justify the expense. (while we were living on social security))
Roblox plus video calls means they still get to play together regularly
that's the reason i loosened the "no phone" policy, because roblox no longer works on linux/wine.
I have a really hard time convincing my child that paying for 10M experience wouldn’t immediately end up with him doing exactly the same thing he was already doing.
I’m really tempted to show him by purchasing it once, but I very much doubt it would help, and just exacerbates the problem.
I do enjoy a bunch of roblox games though, even the ones designed to extract money. You don’t stick with them very long, but kicking soccer balls off the moon all the way to earth is fun.
In this case, the developer is an adult seasoned game developer. But if you know Roblox, you know how this is not the case for most developers on that platform.
Came here to make this remark. As a society we've really evolved in hooking our kids onto things that they cannot resist as early as possible in their life, building a future customer base i guess?
The exploitiveness of an individual Roblox game really depends on that game's developer. They get to decide how to extract money from their players.
I've seen a lot of different sales techniques used. Most common are pay to get an overpowered weapon or ability or to skip levels.
The ones that annoy me the most are the artificial scarcity/limited time only sales techniques. "Adopt Me" is one of the most popular games. Their main product is digital pets that cost about 12USD, or upgrades for your pets. They have rotation of pets that are only available for a limited time. My kids are really suspectable to that technique.
There are also some games that are obnoxiously full of unavoidable little floor buttons that when stepped on will trigger the confirm purchase dialog. The dialog is easy for kids to learn to just-cancel, but the developers who use this technique seem to have real contempt for their players.
That said, there are tons of fun games that you can play without spending any money or being exposed to obtrusive ads.
My favorite game is called Secret Staycation. It's really well made, and there are zero in game purchases. I only saw one ad in the whole game and it was for a physical plush toy of one of the game characters.
Also, shame on Mark Rober for his buggy abomination of a Roblox game. That felt gross and exploitive.