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My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, o

by GNOMES 2y ago

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers play... Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices. I imagine they can hide behind the fact users are making most of the mini games, and they are just providing a platform.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices. Because if you held game companies responsible for deliberately fostering addiction in their customers to earn a profit, we'd have scores of industries behind them in line to be brought to heel the same way and the stocks for tech companies, game companies, tobacco companies, casino companies, alcohol companies, etc. etc. would all implode. There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds, and that's been status quo for so long that I sincerely doubt there's any way to actually change it.
- GNOMES 2y ago
  Understand your point, but Epic (Fortnite) and games like Fifa have gotten sued or major slap on the wrists for the same practices
  - latexr 2y ago
    > major slap on the wrists That doesn’t make sense as a concept. The point of the slap on the wrist is that it’s ineffective/insufficient punishment to change behaviour. You’re essentially saying they got a big small penalty.
    - GNOMES 2y ago
      Paying fines while still racking in cash. Basically the cost of doing business.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      It's a big enough penalty to be noticed and course correct. but not a big enough one to fundamentally hit their bottom line. I think it fits.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    They're still doing it though. They stopped whatever specific part got them in trouble but in the broad strokes they're still exploiting customers because the law says they can. Everything that a business of that size does is legal because if the authorities actually wanted it stopped, it would be stopped.
- riwsky 2y ago
  We did that for tobacco, though? It was a huge public health win?
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    Actually, it's mixed. The states now get such a huge chunk of tobacco money that they're incentivized to keep people smoking. The more they smoke, the more the state gets.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      Also, the companies are doing gangbusters in developing countries where people aren't as informed of the dangers of smoking. This is not judgement, to be clear. I enjoy the occasional smokable like anyone else, but I do that with full understanding of the health risks associated with it.
    - danans 2y ago
      > The more they smoke, the more the state gets. The state "gets" tobacco tax revenue to help pay for the burden of medical treatment for those with smoking related illnesses. Lung cancer isn't free to treat.
      - ChadNauseam 2y ago
        I've read that smoking related illnesses cost less money overall to treat than average. As an extreme example, if someone went around disintegrating people with an orbital laser, this would clearly reduce overall heathcare spending. So in this analogy, smoking is the equivalent of an orbital laser that (plausibly) causes people to die before they develop an even more expensive-to-treat healthcare situation.
        itsgabriel 2y ago
        I don't think this analogy works, the space laser is instant and does not spread to non-targets. Smoking does reduce the average life span, but not to zero. In the remaining time, healthcare costs are increased on top of anything expensive they'd develop naturally. Smoking also causes serious diseases in non-smokers and kills 1.3 million non-smokers per year. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco
- drewcoo 2y ago
  > we'd have scores of industries behind them Not if they have good lobbyists. In the US we still have beer ads on TV though tobacco commercials have been gone long enough to barely be remembered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUY0w2cVAUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUY0w2cVAUQ
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  You forgot the most important industry: the food industry. But they settled that battle long ago. And on some level I agree. We shouldn't hold companies accountable for raising our children. Simply mitigate their ways to target them And exploit their data (something Fortnite got dinged hard for).
- throw10920 2y ago
  > There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds "We" did? Who's "we"? I certainly never agreed to this. Citation needed.
_coveredInBees 2y ago
Eh, I dunno. My son plays a bunch of Roblox and has spent a net $10 for a few custom avatar mods. While there is certainly a pay to win aspect for some games within, there is also a ton of "free" games to sift through, and since all of them are competing for players, they still have to make the experience compelling enough at the free tier. We've had conversations about the pay-to-win aspect, and even though he has several hundred dollars saved up, he has never once asked to spend money on pay-to-win aspects of Roblox. I'd argue that almost any modern videogame / mobile game is equally if not more "predatory" with the pay-to-win side of things. Just look at the menu screens in any modern first person shooter / battle royale type game. Those look far worse than anything I have seen in Roblox.
- micromacrofoot 2y ago
  both should be regulated, this type of predatory gambling-like behavior shouldn't be allowed for kids under a certain age
  - _coveredInBees 2y ago
    Sure, I don't disagree with that at all. I'd love to see that happen. I was just pointing out that most of the industry is far worse than what I have seen with Roblox personally.
  - Aerroon 2y ago
    So, no social media and no video games for kids? Man am I glad that I grew up before tomorrow when everything is going to be restricted.
    - micromacrofoot 2y ago
      social media generally bans kids under 13 in the US — there's a good amount of evidence regarding the harms it can have at this point kids haven't been able to buy mature games from brick-and-mortar stores like Gamestop since I was a child decades ago kids used to be able to smoke cigarettes too
latexr 2y ago
> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Considering how much you said your kid has spent, that money could’ve been spent on buying copies for all their friends and you’d still have plenty left over.
- nazka 2y ago
  I upvoted you but after thinking about it actually, you will find that this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son. But your idea is right! Maybe he could have done gaming sessions at his house or who knows what to better spend this money on other games.
  - rangerelf 2y ago
    LAN parties were/are a thing.
  - junon 2y ago
    Eh yes. And no. Turn it into a gathering event at your house with pizza and bring back LAN parties. That's stuff that kids remember for life.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son From the amount of money sunk into this one game it sounds like there are already weird money dynamics in his social bubble.
    - mlyle 2y ago
      Yah, but Roblox weird money dynamics is that he's showing up and is overpowered in the games because he's paying to win, but fellow kids likely view him as exceptionally skilled :P
- jayd16 2y ago
  That's like one console and a couple games so its not necessarily the most efficient usage. Couch co-op is the way to go.... but as the dad be prepared to lose control of your living room.
mrmetanoia 2y ago
I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things. The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic shooters. But then there are games that seem like they're some dark pattern mobile devs side projects lol Games where you do nothing but collect stuff or pets and there's lots of gratification devices happening and suddenly there's just a literal pay wall. Just the worst of f2p gambling addiction built right into player built roblox games over and over and over again. But on to the adults, my favorite example was joining a 'shooter' game that was really just a shooting gallery of sorts but it had voice chat enabled and wtf there's some eastern european accent going off on gay people and talking about how the targets should have sombreros so 'we' can shoot "lazy" Mexicans. That experience was replicated through a few games and I just wrote Roblox off completely as infested with people trying to help kids find hate based ideologies or get them addicted to gambling. I warned their mother, she didn't listen til she got her credit card stolen.
- whoknew1122 2y ago
  First thing I do when playing a multiplayer game with proximity voice chat is to turn voice chat off. Makes play sessions much more enjoyable. Sure you may miss the 5% of chat that is actually tactical and relevant to the game, but it's a very small price to pay in order to avoid edgelords and other toxic people.
  - mywittyname 2y ago
    This sucks because, when used appropriately, prox voice chat works really well and adds depth to multiplayer. A lot of games feel really dead without it. But finding pubbies that use it appropriately is practically impossible.
  - jjcm 2y ago
    I appreciate Valve for having both an in-game skill score as well as a behavior score. Once your behavior is maxed out chat becomes an entirely different experience. Here's a chat log from a game I played yesterday: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat Some wholesome banter and that's about it.
whoknew1122 2y ago
> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers play... If there's a paid game your kid really likes, perhaps you can talk to his friend's parents and buy the friend a copy of the game. ...I say talking to the friend's parents first, because just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy. But buying friends copies of a game we want to play together is something my friend group routinely does and we're all adults with disposable income.
- wavemode 2y ago
  > just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy lol well this certainly depends on how it's done. Walking up to them in a trench coat and handing them a disc? Probably creepy. But you could also just, like, send them a gift key on Steam...
  - amclennon 2y ago
    Unless this person is literally Santa Claus, I suspect a lot of parents might question the motives of a grown man sending gifts to their children without their knowledge.
    - account42 2y ago
      Just give your kid extra keys to hand to his friends lol, no need to make this complicated.
    - Muromec 2y ago
      Just talk to parents. Maybe you will have lan party with them too.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      The key is “without their knowledge”. Seems like an easy thing to explain to a parent. Plus it’s reasonable you’d ask the parents so they have a chance to say yes/no to the game.
IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
Buy him DRM free games on GOG. I Do this for young relatives. Ive been shown WhatsApp threads of the young teens who play the DRM-free games i upload - my google drive ID is effectively referenced as some kind of deity lol Side benefit: No online play or interaction with the outside world, only with your own group (usually)
- strich 2y ago
  As a game developer it's kind of sad to see such practices in stealing my or others hard work. But I have to keep telling myself those kids or parents wouldn't have paid for them anyway. Maybe consider buying a few copies at least in the future?
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    That's always the risk in a game with no protections. It just takes one person uploading it to the internet and it's shark bait. At least this example is limited to a neighborhood.
  - techjamie 2y ago
    It really depends on what games are being pirated. If it's a solo dev or small team, then yeah, definitely pay for the official release if you can. But since these are kids, they'll definitely be pirating games here and there since they don't have money. At least the person above is helping them by giving them, presumably, safe copies. Now, if we're talking AAA titles from companies who will post record profits at the same time as record layoffs, while also giving the C suite a bonus bigger than the GDP of a small nation... Then yeah, sail the high seas. Those same companies thoroughly don't believe buying is owning, so I'm fine to call piracy polite borrowing.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  Or buy him a MiYoo/Ambernic and add Pico-8 games. Pico-8 is a great platform, games are free and short and sweet. In addition, you can pry under the hood and read the code, modify it freely, etc. It's a perfect on-ramp for programming. I personally got a Miyoo for my kid but ended up getting one for myself. The fun and nostalgia are there.
Suppafly 2y ago
>As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. It'd be cheaper to buy games for his friends to play than to support his robux addiction.
thomastjeffery 2y ago
Moderation is dead, and copyright is the knife.
- 2cynykyl 2y ago
  I think I will love this quote if I knew what it meant. Care to elaborate?
  - thomastjeffery 2y ago
    I should have elaborated more originally.. I suppose part of me wanted to be asked. Moderation used to work well, because relatively small communities (forums and game servers) included moderators, who were users that also actively participated in discussion. That model is incredibly rare today. Instead, we have a tiny coalition of corporate giants who own (monopolize via copyright) the overwhelming majority of discussion content and interaction platforms. On these platforms, traditional moderation has been replaced with corporate censorship and automation, which in turn are driven by corporate goals (advertising) instead of genuine participation by moderators. It's my assertion that this is a natural outcome of copyright itself. Copyright demands that content be exclusively owned and profited upon; therefore interaction must be siloed and incentivized accordingly. Even free (as in beer) interaction must bow to this pattern eventually.
amerkhalid 2y ago
I am a gamer dad too. This is something I worry about. I have been playing Minecraft with my son but he is learning about these other games. I have been using some of similar messaging to smoking and saying things like that playing too many video games will destroy the health. Of course, I am not a good role model when it comes to living healthy lifestyle. And kids probably don't even understand what health really means. How does one protect their kids against these predatory practices?
- hyperbolablabla 2y ago
  > I am not a good role model Maybe fix that?
- Muromec 2y ago
  Saying we don’t play the casino scam works pretty good here. Like strict zero money after buying the game. Not on custom skins not on early access characters. We just don’t . Just don’t give the money and don’t argue about details. Alternatively, that one custom skill gets unlocked after getting a good grade at the end of the year or for birthday/Christmas/whatever.
wmeredith 2y ago
I'm a gamer and I always play the games my kids are playing to see what's up. Roblox was banned in my house after I messed around with it on my own for 30 minutes. Most of the games on the platform are pay to win skinner boxes and they have a pedophile problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-problem/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-pro...
- ciropantera 2y ago
  As a new father that will eventually get into that situation: how do you ban Roblox in your house? I imagine it’s popular among your kids’ real world acquaintances (school etc). Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out? Given the current state of gaming and where it’s heading I would love to ban gaming altogether but I feel social pressure from other kids makes it very hard.
  - jajko 2y ago
    I go against the stream it seems, but even though I grew up gaming, I see it now as mostly wasted time. Any benefit that came with it is easily overshadowed with literally wasting the most precious thing we have - our time in this universe which could be spent having serious adventures (or anything else like finding/working on love and real friends(TM)). I've gotten into various sports mostly done in mountains and some additional filler training like weightlifting and running, my quality of life and satisfaction from it skyrocketed. Obviously you get much more healthier, attractive and happier as side effect, but over time your mindset also changes a lot. These days, displays in our home are kept to the minimum since content is mostly toxic and made as addictive as possible (as mentioned all over this thread). As time progresses we will gradually ease it off, but games will be last thing on a long list. There is not much skill to learn so they are not missing out, clicking all around can be done by infants. It helps that we are surrounded by people where such approach is the norm and mark of good invested parenthood, and letting kids get addicted to various dark patterns online or in gaming is seen as on cca same level as being absent alcoholic parent or similar fail. Not that I don't see it often ie when traveling, kids glued to screen to me looks very sad while their parents often look like epitome of laziness. Physically and mentally weak, socially awkward, stuck in eternal dopamine kick chase, largely defenseless from sophisticated actors milking their parents credit cards.
xyst 2y ago
Wild. You know there’s a problem but you continue to feed into your child’s addiction. This is known as “enabling”.
- astura 2y ago
  Yeah, this post is legit insane - what child has $500 to spend on ANYTHING, let alone fucking Robux (which presumably requires a credit card)!?
deleted 2y ago
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AtlasBarfed 2y ago
You should find abandonedware games for him to network play on. Right around the time of the mobile phone gaming took a very, very sharp turn to pure sociopathy. It had always been flirting with it, but now the mbas are full on putting as much sociopathic addiction rigging, social bullying, and manufactured demand as possible.
afloyd 2y ago
Former Roblox player that quit back in 2016, there used to be a free currency called Tickets which were a free currency you could get through various means, it was a lot more restrictive on what you could get, but it really boosted my enjoyment of the game. The moment they got rid of tix I quit, because I refused to spend any of my meager allowance on Roblox (also generally being bored of the game after years of playing.) Modern Roblox is really impressive, and really depressing. The things people make are incredibly cool, and they are rewarded incredibly poorly for it.
Viliam1234 2y ago
> I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. That started at a certain moment in history, when paying online became trivial, so everyone who didn't produce pay-to-win was leaving a lot of money on the table. You need to find games that are older than that. Some of the good old games are free, for example Starcraft or Wesnoth. There are many cheap games on Steam, but you need to review them first, or maybe find a review on YouTube. If the game is sufficiently cheap, for example up to $5, you could simply buy 5 copies and tell your kid to give donate 4 of them to his best friends.
mercenario 2y ago
> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices Who gave to your kid the money to spend on Roblox?

by GNOMES 2y ago

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices. Because if you held game companies responsible for deliberately fostering addiction in their customers to earn a profit, we'd have scores of industries behind them in line to be brought to heel the same way and the stocks for tech companies, game companies, tobacco companies, casino companies, alcohol companies, etc. etc. would all implode. There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds, and that's been status quo for so long that I sincerely doubt there's any way to actually change it.

GNOMES 2y ago
Understand your point, but Epic (Fortnite) and games like Fifa have gotten sued or major slap on the wrists for the same practices
- latexr 2y ago
  > major slap on the wrists That doesn’t make sense as a concept. The point of the slap on the wrist is that it’s ineffective/insufficient punishment to change behaviour. You’re essentially saying they got a big small penalty.
  - GNOMES 2y ago
    Paying fines while still racking in cash. Basically the cost of doing business.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    It's a big enough penalty to be noticed and course correct. but not a big enough one to fundamentally hit their bottom line. I think it fits.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  They're still doing it though. They stopped whatever specific part got them in trouble but in the broad strokes they're still exploiting customers because the law says they can. Everything that a business of that size does is legal because if the authorities actually wanted it stopped, it would be stopped.
riwsky 2y ago
We did that for tobacco, though? It was a huge public health win?
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  Actually, it's mixed. The states now get such a huge chunk of tobacco money that they're incentivized to keep people smoking. The more they smoke, the more the state gets.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Also, the companies are doing gangbusters in developing countries where people aren't as informed of the dangers of smoking. This is not judgement, to be clear. I enjoy the occasional smokable like anyone else, but I do that with full understanding of the health risks associated with it.
  - danans 2y ago
    > The more they smoke, the more the state gets. The state "gets" tobacco tax revenue to help pay for the burden of medical treatment for those with smoking related illnesses. Lung cancer isn't free to treat.
    - ChadNauseam 2y ago
      I've read that smoking related illnesses cost less money overall to treat than average. As an extreme example, if someone went around disintegrating people with an orbital laser, this would clearly reduce overall heathcare spending. So in this analogy, smoking is the equivalent of an orbital laser that (plausibly) causes people to die before they develop an even more expensive-to-treat healthcare situation.
      - itsgabriel 2y ago
        I don't think this analogy works, the space laser is instant and does not spread to non-targets. Smoking does reduce the average life span, but not to zero. In the remaining time, healthcare costs are increased on top of anything expensive they'd develop naturally. Smoking also causes serious diseases in non-smokers and kills 1.3 million non-smokers per year. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco
drewcoo 2y ago
> we'd have scores of industries behind them Not if they have good lobbyists. In the US we still have beer ads on TV though tobacco commercials have been gone long enough to barely be remembered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUY0w2cVAUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUY0w2cVAUQ
johnnyanmac 2y ago
You forgot the most important industry: the food industry. But they settled that battle long ago. And on some level I agree. We shouldn't hold companies accountable for raising our children. Simply mitigate their ways to target them And exploit their data (something Fortnite got dinged hard for).
throw10920 2y ago
> There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds "We" did? Who's "we"? I certainly never agreed to this. Citation needed.

_coveredInBees 2y ago

Eh, I dunno. My son plays a bunch of Roblox and has spent a net $10 for a few custom avatar mods. While there is certainly a pay to win aspect for some games within, there is also a ton of "free" games to sift through, and since all of them are competing for players, they still have to make the experience compelling enough at the free tier. We've had conversations about the pay-to-win aspect, and even though he has several hundred dollars saved up, he has never once asked to spend money on pay-to-win aspects of Roblox. I'd argue that almost any modern videogame / mobile game is equally if not more "predatory" with the pay-to-win side of things. Just look at the menu screens in any modern first person shooter / battle royale type game. Those look far worse than anything I have seen in Roblox.

micromacrofoot 2y ago
both should be regulated, this type of predatory gambling-like behavior shouldn't be allowed for kids under a certain age
- _coveredInBees 2y ago
  Sure, I don't disagree with that at all. I'd love to see that happen. I was just pointing out that most of the industry is far worse than what I have seen with Roblox personally.
- Aerroon 2y ago
  So, no social media and no video games for kids? Man am I glad that I grew up before tomorrow when everything is going to be restricted.
  - micromacrofoot 2y ago
    social media generally bans kids under 13 in the US — there's a good amount of evidence regarding the harms it can have at this point kids haven't been able to buy mature games from brick-and-mortar stores like Gamestop since I was a child decades ago kids used to be able to smoke cigarettes too

latexr 2y ago

> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Considering how much you said your kid has spent, that money could’ve been spent on buying copies for all their friends and you’d still have plenty left over.

nazka 2y ago
I upvoted you but after thinking about it actually, you will find that this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son. But your idea is right! Maybe he could have done gaming sessions at his house or who knows what to better spend this money on other games.
- rangerelf 2y ago
  LAN parties were/are a thing.
- junon 2y ago
  Eh yes. And no. Turn it into a gathering event at your house with pizza and bring back LAN parties. That's stuff that kids remember for life.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son From the amount of money sunk into this one game it sounds like there are already weird money dynamics in his social bubble.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    Yah, but Roblox weird money dynamics is that he's showing up and is overpowered in the games because he's paying to win, but fellow kids likely view him as exceptionally skilled :P
jayd16 2y ago
That's like one console and a couple games so its not necessarily the most efficient usage. Couch co-op is the way to go.... but as the dad be prepared to lose control of your living room.

mrmetanoia 2y ago

I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things. The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic shooters. But then there are games that seem like they're some dark pattern mobile devs side projects lol Games where you do nothing but collect stuff or pets and there's lots of gratification devices happening and suddenly there's just a literal pay wall. Just the worst of f2p gambling addiction built right into player built roblox games over and over and over again. But on to the adults, my favorite example was joining a 'shooter' game that was really just a shooting gallery of sorts but it had voice chat enabled and wtf there's some eastern european accent going off on gay people and talking about how the targets should have sombreros so 'we' can shoot "lazy" Mexicans. That experience was replicated through a few games and I just wrote Roblox off completely as infested with people trying to help kids find hate based ideologies or get them addicted to gambling. I warned their mother, she didn't listen til she got her credit card stolen.

whoknew1122 2y ago
First thing I do when playing a multiplayer game with proximity voice chat is to turn voice chat off. Makes play sessions much more enjoyable. Sure you may miss the 5% of chat that is actually tactical and relevant to the game, but it's a very small price to pay in order to avoid edgelords and other toxic people.
- mywittyname 2y ago
  This sucks because, when used appropriately, prox voice chat works really well and adds depth to multiplayer. A lot of games feel really dead without it. But finding pubbies that use it appropriately is practically impossible.
- jjcm 2y ago
  I appreciate Valve for having both an in-game skill score as well as a behavior score. Once your behavior is maxed out chat becomes an entirely different experience. Here's a chat log from a game I played yesterday: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/7902208511/chat Some wholesome banter and that's about it.

whoknew1122 2y ago

> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers play... If there's a paid game your kid really likes, perhaps you can talk to his friend's parents and buy the friend a copy of the game. ...I say talking to the friend's parents first, because just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy. But buying friends copies of a game we want to play together is something my friend group routinely does and we're all adults with disposable income.

wavemode 2y ago
> just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy lol well this certainly depends on how it's done. Walking up to them in a trench coat and handing them a disc? Probably creepy. But you could also just, like, send them a gift key on Steam...
- amclennon 2y ago
  Unless this person is literally Santa Claus, I suspect a lot of parents might question the motives of a grown man sending gifts to their children without their knowledge.
  - account42 2y ago
    Just give your kid extra keys to hand to his friends lol, no need to make this complicated.
  - Muromec 2y ago
    Just talk to parents. Maybe you will have lan party with them too.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    The key is “without their knowledge”. Seems like an easy thing to explain to a parent. Plus it’s reasonable you’d ask the parents so they have a chance to say yes/no to the game.

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago

Buy him DRM free games on GOG. I Do this for young relatives. Ive been shown WhatsApp threads of the young teens who play the DRM-free games i upload - my google drive ID is effectively referenced as some kind of deity lol Side benefit: No online play or interaction with the outside world, only with your own group (usually)

strich 2y ago
As a game developer it's kind of sad to see such practices in stealing my or others hard work. But I have to keep telling myself those kids or parents wouldn't have paid for them anyway. Maybe consider buying a few copies at least in the future?
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  That's always the risk in a game with no protections. It just takes one person uploading it to the internet and it's shark bait. At least this example is limited to a neighborhood.
- techjamie 2y ago
  It really depends on what games are being pirated. If it's a solo dev or small team, then yeah, definitely pay for the official release if you can. But since these are kids, they'll definitely be pirating games here and there since they don't have money. At least the person above is helping them by giving them, presumably, safe copies. Now, if we're talking AAA titles from companies who will post record profits at the same time as record layoffs, while also giving the C suite a bonus bigger than the GDP of a small nation... Then yeah, sail the high seas. Those same companies thoroughly don't believe buying is owning, so I'm fine to call piracy polite borrowing.
onemoresoop 2y ago
Or buy him a MiYoo/Ambernic and add Pico-8 games. Pico-8 is a great platform, games are free and short and sweet. In addition, you can pry under the hood and read the code, modify it freely, etc. It's a perfect on-ramp for programming. I personally got a Miyoo for my kid but ended up getting one for myself. The fun and nostalgia are there.

Suppafly 2y ago

>As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. It'd be cheaper to buy games for his friends to play than to support his robux addiction.

thomastjeffery 2y ago

Moderation is dead, and copyright is the knife.

2cynykyl 2y ago
I think I will love this quote if I knew what it meant. Care to elaborate?
- thomastjeffery 2y ago
  I should have elaborated more originally.. I suppose part of me wanted to be asked. Moderation used to work well, because relatively small communities (forums and game servers) included moderators, who were users that also actively participated in discussion. That model is incredibly rare today. Instead, we have a tiny coalition of corporate giants who own (monopolize via copyright) the overwhelming majority of discussion content and interaction platforms. On these platforms, traditional moderation has been replaced with corporate censorship and automation, which in turn are driven by corporate goals (advertising) instead of genuine participation by moderators. It's my assertion that this is a natural outcome of copyright itself. Copyright demands that content be exclusively owned and profited upon; therefore interaction must be siloed and incentivized accordingly. Even free (as in beer) interaction must bow to this pattern eventually.

amerkhalid 2y ago

I am a gamer dad too. This is something I worry about. I have been playing Minecraft with my son but he is learning about these other games. I have been using some of similar messaging to smoking and saying things like that playing too many video games will destroy the health. Of course, I am not a good role model when it comes to living healthy lifestyle. And kids probably don't even understand what health really means. How does one protect their kids against these predatory practices?

hyperbolablabla 2y ago
> I am not a good role model Maybe fix that?
Muromec 2y ago
Saying we don’t play the casino scam works pretty good here. Like strict zero money after buying the game. Not on custom skins not on early access characters. We just don’t . Just don’t give the money and don’t argue about details. Alternatively, that one custom skill gets unlocked after getting a good grade at the end of the year or for birthday/Christmas/whatever.

wmeredith 2y ago

I'm a gamer and I always play the games my kids are playing to see what's up. Roblox was banned in my house after I messed around with it on my own for 30 minutes. Most of the games on the platform are pay to win skinner boxes and they have a pedophile problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-problem/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-pro...

ciropantera 2y ago
As a new father that will eventually get into that situation: how do you ban Roblox in your house? I imagine it’s popular among your kids’ real world acquaintances (school etc). Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out? Given the current state of gaming and where it’s heading I would love to ban gaming altogether but I feel social pressure from other kids makes it very hard.
- jajko 2y ago
  I go against the stream it seems, but even though I grew up gaming, I see it now as mostly wasted time. Any benefit that came with it is easily overshadowed with literally wasting the most precious thing we have - our time in this universe which could be spent having serious adventures (or anything else like finding/working on love and real friends(TM)). I've gotten into various sports mostly done in mountains and some additional filler training like weightlifting and running, my quality of life and satisfaction from it skyrocketed. Obviously you get much more healthier, attractive and happier as side effect, but over time your mindset also changes a lot. These days, displays in our home are kept to the minimum since content is mostly toxic and made as addictive as possible (as mentioned all over this thread). As time progresses we will gradually ease it off, but games will be last thing on a long list. There is not much skill to learn so they are not missing out, clicking all around can be done by infants. It helps that we are surrounded by people where such approach is the norm and mark of good invested parenthood, and letting kids get addicted to various dark patterns online or in gaming is seen as on cca same level as being absent alcoholic parent or similar fail. Not that I don't see it often ie when traveling, kids glued to screen to me looks very sad while their parents often look like epitome of laziness. Physically and mentally weak, socially awkward, stuck in eternal dopamine kick chase, largely defenseless from sophisticated actors milking their parents credit cards.

xyst 2y ago

Wild. You know there’s a problem but you continue to feed into your child’s addiction. This is known as “enabling”.

astura 2y ago
Yeah, this post is legit insane - what child has $500 to spend on ANYTHING, let alone fucking Robux (which presumably requires a credit card)!?

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AtlasBarfed 2y ago

You should find abandonedware games for him to network play on. Right around the time of the mobile phone gaming took a very, very sharp turn to pure sociopathy. It had always been flirting with it, but now the mbas are full on putting as much sociopathic addiction rigging, social bullying, and manufactured demand as possible.

afloyd 2y ago

Former Roblox player that quit back in 2016, there used to be a free currency called Tickets which were a free currency you could get through various means, it was a lot more restrictive on what you could get, but it really boosted my enjoyment of the game. The moment they got rid of tix I quit, because I refused to spend any of my meager allowance on Roblox (also generally being bored of the game after years of playing.) Modern Roblox is really impressive, and really depressing. The things people make are incredibly cool, and they are rewarded incredibly poorly for it.

Viliam1234 2y ago

> I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. That started at a certain moment in history, when paying online became trivial, so everyone who didn't produce pay-to-win was leaving a lot of money on the table. You need to find games that are older than that. Some of the good old games are free, for example Starcraft or Wesnoth. There are many cheap games on Steam, but you need to review them first, or maybe find a review on YouTube. If the game is sufficiently cheap, for example up to $5, you could simply buy 5 copies and tell your kid to give donate 4 of them to his best friends.

mercenario 2y ago

> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices Who gave to your kid the money to spend on Roblox?