[SXX]

People here in comments seem to not read past the title that editorized, but in a wrong way.

This is basically only requirement to make games available for players under 16 so its certnly done under regulatory pressure because no way on earth they can moderate every game from unpaid users.

[alt227]

What about if a kid under the age of 16 wants to publish a game for other under 16 year old friends, like what Roblox was created for?

Now they need a paid subscription with an id check to become a 'trusted friend'.

[Imustaskforhelp]

I am 17, I wasn't really a roblox player aside from playing with one of my friends once or twice[0] (more of a minecraft enthusiast) but I know or can tell there are sizable amount of people online who have only played roblox, some even started because of it under age of 16 and learnt to code because of it.

My point is, many people around me or online really really love roblox and they even start to code because of it. I mean it makes sense, Coding something translates to something directly cool. I wanted to make Minecraft plugins too but I always found java to be a bit distressing so I used to search how to make minecraft mods in python or lua when I was 15 or something, I personally never really got into roblox though (I maybe the exception rather than norm) but I suppose lua/luau makes that process a bit easier and so its gonna be a big hurdle to most youngsters who wish to code.

Also I am not fine with Age verification as well but oh well, I could've maybe understood it but what I don't understand is how a billion dollar company needs a few dollars for moderation. I feel like its just a net negative and is gonna create backlash and rightfully so in some sense.

Anecdotally one of my friends back in 10th grade (so 14-15 year olds) actually learnt lua just to make a roblox game or games in general and he was an artist, (one of the most artistic people I know) like firstly his drawings were some of the most amazing in our friend-group and he had made some quite significant amount of money by doing blender for roblox devs and he just said that he likes blender so he gets them to buy blender plugins rather than money itself. He really wanted to get into gamedev.

And I think once again my main point is that, there would be less people interested in game-dev overall. I mean we all start somewhere and I find the idea of taking subscription money a little dis-tasteful for Roblox to do.

[gcr]

why the lucky stiff, an eccentric ruby programmer, wrote an article that you might like, The Little Programmer’s Predicament, https://viewsourcecode.org/why/hacking/theLittleCodersPredic...

[Imustaskforhelp]

Read the article, I find it a bit fascinating how the article was written even more than 5 years before I was even born!, yet nothing has changed, maybe only gotten worse especially for windows.

Also now most things happen on phone which make programming notoriously harder.

I think Linux might be interesting here, most Linux distros come with python , I have recommended it to some friends and one of them uses it but yeah, ironically the problem with Linux in my generation to many people feels like they will miss their games. The state of gaming in Linux is now for the most part really good though but still, I sort of understand this statement and I feel like Linux just feels alien. I mean when I downloaded Linux, I didn't know too much about the command line and it felt foreign until it feels at home.

[calgoo]

Exactly, this will marginalize the creators of tomorrow who might have picked this up and built something, will now hesitate and probably try to find something else to build on. The people building giant games full of "buy this crap" every 5 seconds, spamming my 6 year old with prompts, they will continue doing so.

[rb2026]

For friends, they need to do an age estimation only.

To publish globally for <16 users, the id check and subscription requirements then apply.

[alt227]

In the linked page, point 2 literally says this:

Publish to 16+ and Trusted Friends - To publish a game that reaches Trusted Friends and users over 16 you must:

a. Complete an age check b. Have an account in good standing c. Have an account on Roblox that’s been on the platform for at least 2 days

[rb2026]

Yeah. Can you point out where what you said and what I said differ?

The paid subscription is for publishing to <16 users globally.

[alt227]

You said

> For friends, they need to do an age estimation only.

Thats not true. It says to share with trusted friends and 16+ they need an account in good standing (paid) and an age check, which constitues sending a face scan or id.

I literally pasted the rule directly from their site, Im surprised you dont understand it.

[rb2026]

"Good standing" means your account wasn't moderated for violating the community standards [1] (exploiting, saying bad words, threatening users, uploading illicit content, etc).

I'm dev games on Roblox. Trust me, you're the one confused here.

[1] https://about.roblox.com/community-standards