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by embedding-shape 91 days ago
As someone who maybe fired about Roblox once like three years ago, what does Roblox do that is way more addicting than YouTube and Instagram, and also I guess they're ignoring reports showing the harm even more than YouTube and Instagram, if I understand you correctly?
1 comments
absoluteunit1 91 days ago
It's an interactive world - where games can be built by anyone (I personally know/met some of the devs) and all the games have some randomization/gambling mechanics involved. Lootboxes is just one tiny example. Infinite novely - there's literally infinite number of games one can play.

I don't have time right now to provide a full/quality answer with more examples - you can do a bit of seraching online to learn more.

Also from personal expeirence as well (from family and friends). When their kids comeover they have tiktok on their phone and roblox on their laptop

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embedding-shape 91 days ago
Right, but that sounds like a bunch of video games. Question is, is Roblox specifically designed to be addictive, like Facebook/Instagram/TikTok? And if they are, did the companies willfully ignore reports about how dangerous it was?

If the answer is just "No" to both of those questions, then it sounds like a regular video game that can be addictive (like everything else), but it wasn't specifically designed to be addictive, like some social networks are designed.

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fosco 91 days ago
Aside from daily login rewards, loot boxes, gamifying gambling behaviors and FOMO designed micro purchases? Roblox is bad and many times if your nearby is absolutely not appropriate for kids and I’m quite liberal on what’s appropriate beyond normalizing emotional damage.

https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-i...

The funniest one? The 10-k discussing legal issues as risk regarding addiction

Hardwick et al. (2025) “They’re Scamming Me”: How Children Experience and Conceptualize Harm in Game Monetization https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5164006.pdf?abstra...

Kou, Hernandez, Gui (2025) “The System is Made to Inherently Push Child Gambling in my Opinion”: Child Safety, Monetization, and Moderation on Roblox https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-i...

Song et al. (2025) How Predatory Monetization Designs Manifest in Child-Directed Online Games (SOUPS 2025) https://www.usenix.org/system/files/soups2025-song.pdf

Kou & Gui (2023) Harmful Design in the Metaverse and How to Mitigate It: A Case Study of User-Generated Virtual Worlds on Roblox https://sites.psu.edu/healthandplay/files/2023/05/Harmful-De...

Tunca et al. (2025) Navigating parental concerns in children’s engagement with Roblox https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12821821/

Roblox Corporation (2024 Form 10-K) https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1315098/000131509825... I find this hilarious.

Not all games are created equal, I loved Zelda tears of the kingdom and the sounds and rewarding game were in my opinion addictive however they are not in the same league as roblox

The best part is when you get a cohort of a few families to go camping and teenage daughter forced dad to drive 45 minutes each way for cell service to avoid breaking the daily login chain.

I don’t think people appreciate how these mechanisms impact society as a whole

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