Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/04/roblox-hits-100-million-monthly-active-users/

by bookofjoe • 7 years ago

324 221 7 years ago

Well my anecdotal experience is that my kids saw videos on YouTube about other kids playing it and then they wanted to play it. I have no desire to play any of the games the popular games seem centered around nearly impossible “parkour” maps. But they love it and switch between it and Minecraft. I wonder how much of their playing base is just young kids.

jandrese• 7 years ago

Roblox is overwhelmingly populated with kids. Much more so than Minecraft from what I've seen. The one big advantage it has over Minecraft is that it's easier to play together with friends from school. The kids all exchange their Roblox handles and put them on their seemingly enormous friends lists.

H8crilA• 7 years ago

How some simple things cause great progress. Like the whole swipe idea of Tinder. Or the fact that WhatsApp is tied to a phone number (to which a lot of people were used to already, and had them in their contacts).

ghostcluster2• 7 years ago

Seems like this type of brain-dead simple feature -- frictionless joining of gameplay servers from a friends list -- would be something Mojang should consider adding to up their engagement.

Minecraft is interesting because, according to Google Trends, it had finally been slowly dying out in terms of search volume for years.. (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=minecraf...)... until a few weeks ago! It has suddenly been spiking almost up to almost where it was in its peak of popularity in mid 2013. PewDiePie started playing it a bunch recently in his videos, so maybe that is the reason.. or maybe there is some other reason that it's been trending that Pewdiepie just picked up on. As not a regular Minecraft player I can only wonder.

howenterprisey• 7 years ago

Honestly wish I'd known about this when I was younger. In my opinion this could be a gateway for younger coders to start working on larger projects.

ausbah• 7 years ago

This is amazing! Speaking as someone who played from ~2011-2013, seeing this type of growth in something I loved brings me nothing but good feelings. It also speaks a bit to a type of business model centered around tech that doesn't try to have completely explosive growth.

keithnz• 7 years ago

My 8 year old son switched to Roblox from Minecraft a while back, he loves it, he spends a lot of time in RobloxStudio making his own mini games. All seems quite cool, just make sure you turn on all the parental/privacy controls, there is a high amount of interaction with random other players.

mastazi6• 7 years ago

I have to say that the parental controls are really strict, in particular the chat auto-moderation, to the point that any word or sentence that could be remotely considered inappropriate is censored. I suppose this is a good thing considering that most players are young kids.

Causality1• 7 years ago

Ah, interesting. That explains the Roblox memes I see from time to time with very odd grammar. "Go commit neck rope", "I will un-alive you", and "Do you are have stupid?"

wbl• 7 years ago

Are you sure about that? http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...

vidarh• 7 years ago

If the account is for an under 13 child the chat supposedly uses a whitelist of approved words, vs. a blacklist for 13+. Having watched my son play it does seem likely that's the case.

ulkesh3• 7 years ago

That only works if the child hasn't yet figured out that all they need to do is create a new gmail account and get another Roblox account set up. Then they can do whatever they want.

Kids are smart these days, so we've taken the tact of having the PC in the common room and only allowed access if we're in there.

techntoke3• 7 years ago

Unfortunately neither Minecraft: Bedrock Edition or Roblox really works in Linux.

t0astbread• 7 years ago

I don't know how it compares but Minetest is always a thing

mastazi6• 7 years ago

Thank you for mentioning Minetest, I didn't know it existed!

mastazi6• 7 years ago

Correct, however the original Minecraft (Java edition) does... What Bedrock features do you miss that aren't there in Java edition?

techntoke3• 7 years ago

Mostly performance

gameswithgo3• 7 years ago

it is a tautology that minecraft for windows doesnt work in linux. actual minecraft had always worked in linux.

jyxent• 7 years ago

Bedrock linux is hardly just Minecraft for Windows. It is Minecraft for Android, iOS, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. It looks like it will be coming to the Playstation 4 soon too.

I use MCPELauncher to run the Android version under Linux, which lets me play with my son on his Switch.

jdnenej2• 7 years ago

Isn't bedrock version just the one with no mods and in app purchases?

tialaramex• 7 years ago

Microsoft would very much like Bedrock to "be" Minecraft.

As you've observed it's revenue-generating in a way the Java Minecraft is not, and it provides a controlled experience.

Microsoft has been talking to influential people about how to land some sort of modding-lite to Bedrock. I suspect that won't go well, but in principle it could work. They've been showing where they're going to people like Direwolf20 (popular Youtuber and small modder)

Actual (Java) Minecraft modding involves two layers of effort. Firstly, since Minecraft is Java, a layer is using Java's own introspection to reach inside Minecraft's core systems and genericise them. For example Minecraft doesn't really grasp "fluids" as a general group, it has a bunch of special cases for water, lava... but a mod might want to add others (Molten steel, Goat milk, Diesel, Tritium... all real examples of fluids in common mods) and then the second layer needs to add generic capabilities - if all you really have is lava and water but with different textures that's lame, but if new fluids have density and temperature and so on they can interact even without custom code for specific behaviour. Knowing Goat's milk is the same temperature as water my Seebeck Effect generator won't work if you put goat's milk on one side and water on the other. "Liquid Helium" however at 3K rather than 300K would work well, and "Molten steel" at 1800K would help on the other side, even without my Seebeck Effect Generator mod knowing what these liquids actually "are" in any sense.

I do not see an appetite at Microsoft for this level of detail in Bedrock Mods. I'm expecting some basic customisability, but nothing comparable to, say, AE2 or Thaumcraft (sprawling mods that touch every part of Minecraft).

Steuard• 7 years ago

My 8-year-old daughter has paid a lot more attention to Roblox than Minecraft lately. Being able to connect with friends there is definitely a factor, but I think she's also drawn in by the seemingly endless supply of new content. One game or genre getting boring or frustrating? There are dozens of not-bad others waiting right there, clamoring for attention. And honestly, that makes me a bit uncomfortable: it feels like it's actively encouraging a short attention span and shallow engagement.

The thing that I miss most about her Minecraft phase is that as far as I can tell, at least on a tablet (where she usually plays) Roblox is all about consuming other people's content rather than creatively building your own. That makes me sad. I'm sure she'll shift gears again eventually (in fact, she and her friends have been occasionally picking Minecraft back up lately), so maybe I shouldn't be so antsy waiting for that time to come.

mastazi6• 7 years ago

at least on a tablet (where she usually plays) Roblox is all about consuming other people's content rather than creatively building your own

That's correct, if your daughter could access a desktop, then she could use Roblox Studio as noted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20621457

However I have to say that, even then, the creative component in Roblox is not as central to the experience as it is in Minecraft.

But then again, my daughter often plays on those Minecraft online servers that offer mini-games (e.g. Hypixel) and those don't have a lot of creativity involved either.

jay_kyburz• 7 years ago

Roblox has grown big on other peoples IP. My kids are only interested in it so they can play a Minions game or a Spiderman game.

I guess that's how YouTube got big too.

sjg007• 7 years ago

Its better than apps with in app purchases and ads.

bitdestroyer• 7 years ago

I had to remove Roblox from our devices because all of the levels my daughter would load were either not age appropriate or would put IAP purchase buttons under the controls so you couldn’t avoid hitting them accidentally. It was incredibly scummy. My kids are young so maybe they just don’t know how/where to find decent levels but it felt gross and wasn’t something we wanted to encourage. IAPs were absolutely everywhere in the levels I saw her playing before we made the call.

PeterisP• 7 years ago

Roblox (at least many of its games) is full of IAP, and quite scummy IAP at that.

bredren• 7 years ago

Much of TikTok is content sucked in from other networks—-often without creator license. Then remixed to a meme or “trend” inside the app. It is actually amazing because it somehow has gotten around the walls of fb, ig, snap and YouTube.

asdff2• 7 years ago

Fb et al. probably don't care because the memes circle the drain gaining compression until they inevitably end up on someones newsfeed.

minikomi2• 7 years ago

Hiphop has only grown big on other peoples IP. My kids are only interested in it so they can dance to a loop of James Brown or Kool and the Gang.

Intermernet• 7 years ago

There are many hiphop artists who either don't sample, or sample very rarely. Sample clearance has been pretty expensive for a couple of decades now. It still happens a lot, as hiphop is one of the earliest proponents of modern "remix culture", but it's definitely rarer than the halcyon days of yore. Just letting you know.

jdnenej2• 7 years ago

Tabletop simulator is great for this. One time purchase and you can run pretty much any board game for free.

andybak• 7 years ago

Which is how culture is supposed to work and has done for most of it's history.

shmerl3• 7 years ago

Too bad they never implemented Linux support, and can't fix their network code to work in Wine either.

Minecraft despite being controlled by MS now, still has a working Linux client.

gameswithgo3• 7 years ago

and server

quaquaqua1• 7 years ago

Not only does Minecraft work on Linux for me... on the same machine with some weird old intel integrated graphics drivers, opengl flat out doesn't work/isn't supported on Win10!!

Nothing a jump drive and a .deb file can't fix! Thanks MS for having a heart.

shmerl3• 7 years ago

For MS it's a major exception though (and only because they bought it already with Linux support). Their general gaming attitude is still quite anti-Linux.

zfgnu2• 7 years ago

I remember that happening to me on a very very old laptop. It's because of the Intel drivers, which haven't been updated since forever on Windows so they don't support modern versions of opengl like the one Minecraft uses. But since the driver is mainlined on Linux, it's up to date.

lokedhs• 7 years ago

It used to work in Wine. Then they made some change and since then it doesn't work anymore.

shmerl3• 7 years ago

Yeah, and developers didn't do anything to fix it, and neither released the native version.

CrossWired• 7 years ago

My kids (7f/9m) work quite well together in it. My 7 year old daughter took to it much more than Minecraft, mainly with her brothers direction.

gameswithgo3• 7 years ago

doesn’t run on linux. non starter for my kids

em-bee4• 7 years ago

yup, i'll stick with minetest

mintplant• 7 years ago

It's a minigame-oriented Second Life for kids. With all the time I split between that and Minecraft growing up, Roblox's popularity doesn't surprise me.

SpaceLawnmower• 7 years ago

I used to play Roblox when I was a teenager. The game has a scripting engine that players can use to program their own levels/events in Lua. The code editing/debugging was pretty tough to use when I was playing it, but it's one of the reasons I got into programming. I learned about programming, viruses, and hacking through Roblox. People write all kinds of amazing scripts on Roblox that you can download and put into your own levels.

Ajedi32• 7 years ago

Ah yes, the viruses; I remember those.

People would write scripts that would copy themselves into every object in the game, sometimes renaming those objects to a constant string just to be annoying. People who would edit their games in "build mode" (I can't actually remember what it was called) rather than directly in Roblox Studio would import an infected model from the store, get their place infected, and then any models they shared on the store would _also_ be infected.

I wrote an "anti-virus" script that would search an entire place for known viruses, delete them, and reset the names of any renamed objects back to their default. Eventually Roblox themselves started clearing the source code of any virus scripts they knew about, which I discovered when several of my "virus definitions" files got blanked out.

Those were the days. I wonder if viruses on Roblox are still a thing, or if Roblox managed to put a stop to them for good. (Less people editing their places in build mode would probably make viruses way less effective.)

integrii2• 7 years ago

Both of my kids played a lot of Roblox until we banned it. They easily became obsessed and were violent when removed, even with a tightly controlled schedule. They would try to connect to offer WiFi networks to get access and would steal our phones to get access. We ended up having to detox them like it was a drug.

Beyond that we found that the openly mod-able nature of the game allowed some remarkably disgusting 3D models and game modes. Just Google it. It was not hard to find a room with 50 kids holding adult store items and doing extremely inappropriate things.

The system is also rife with predators. One game let them share pictures somehow. Some guy was asking my daughters to send them pictures of their feet. Try to censor that request in chat, I guess.

This if course sets aside the caste system that is built on their in-game currency. Scammers can convince your kids to trade their favorite items away in a "trust trade".

Roblox is not appropriate in my experience.

wizzard2• 7 years ago

Roblox games are 95% garbage in my experience. Apparently there are a few good ones, because somehow they are allowed to sell merch in toy stores — but those are certainly not the ones my kids encounter. All I ever see them play is some variation on running around jumping on buttons, while half the screen is covered in ads trying to get them to do IAPs.

skrebbel• 7 years ago

My six year old plays the "theme park tycoon" game a lot in Roblox and it's truly splendid. No need to spend any real money, the social part is very minimal and very nice (you can visit theme parks made by others). The controls are a bit wacky here and there but nothing unlearnable.

smaryjerry2• 7 years ago

Most games are free copies of other popular full games and most use copyrighted music in them. I'm surprised they haven't had a big copyright crackdown. As far as I know only the pokemon roblox game was shutdown due to copyright. Nintendo is notorious for that though so no surprise.

kimberlythomp99• 7 years ago

Video games can have a very similar reaction on the brain as drugs in the release of dopamine. This is my biggest fear raising my kids in this technology driven age.

weq• 7 years ago

This isnt just games. Lets be frank. We can become addicted to anything given the right physiological triggers.

Capitalism has optimised itself to the point where you are nothing more then meta data. Its at the point where a team of accredited people can sit infront of the meta data, and your product, and they can design ways to trigger dopamine responses.

Putting "any" kind of "modern product" in your childs hand will lead to one thing. Now put a connected device in their hands, and your putting your child in the hands of unlimited amounts of teams, using unlimited amounts of tickery, to earn profit from your child.

Now add back in a dynmically manipulated game environment, where these tools are utilised by predators to exploit your child for their version on profit.

This is the challenge of being a modern parent. Junk food, everywhere, all the time.

https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/

mhh__2• 7 years ago

As do food, love, sex etc.

Some video games are worse than others but I think the video games themselves are more of a symptom than a root cause.

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

You should be afraid for yourself as well. I mean I'm not going to poo-pooh my kids for getting engrossed in video games, I was just like him and if I had my way I'd be in there all the time. And you know this would go for you as well. I'd argue it's even worse today, with e.g. mobile phones being always within reach and games and media being always-on, infinite in content (Roblox has millions of user-generated games, youtube gets more videos a day than anyone could watch in a lifetime, Reddit / Twitter / etc are infinite, etc).

I mean our games back when were singleplayer and story-driven, but they were still super engrossing. It came to a point with me when after obsessively playing Pokemon for a few weeks (getting super red in the face and everything) I went sick for a week. Probably not related since my dad got the same bug but still, it felt related. Didn't enjoy Pokemon after that.

eve online and other MMOs on the other hand <_<

anthonypasq• 7 years ago

literally everything in this life worth doing releases dopamine to make you feel good.

Its why we do everything. I dont know why the internet thinks video games are something special.

Rotdhizon• 7 years ago

As someone in their early 20s who dabbles on Roblox with some frequency, this completely contradicts my own experience. Granted I only play games that show up in the popular games section on the homepage. I don't go out of my way to find the weird stuff. I suppose it is similar to the Elsagate stuff kids were getting into on Youtube, kids have a remarkable talent to go down rabbit holes you didn't know existed and find the disturbing content. Roblox also has a really bad problem with child/teen dating, so much so that they now have an in game report option specifically for dating behavior.

I imagine it is extremely difficult for the Roblox staff to moderate the disturbing content as they have their hands full around the clock. From people creating thousands of bot accounts to boost their games, security problems revolving around people getting their games/assets/money stolen, people constantly finding new ways to cheat in game, to the issues that you described. I'd also think that the people who engage in the behavior that you described are seasoned in what they do, knowing how to avoid the watchful eye of moderation and parents alike.

pastrami_panda• 7 years ago

I just wanted to point out that the main thing about Elsagate was how easily you'd get caught in an infested recommendation spiral without actively searching for it. The whole thing was especially disturbing due to the fact that you could watch a popular theme and the recommendation engine would quickly find more and more sinister videos.

Lendal• 7 years ago

Reminds me of GTA. I stayed far away from it because it had an awful reputation in the media. Finally when GTA5 came out I tried it for the first time and it was nothing like the stories. I was expecting terrible awful very bad things. But it wasn't anything like that when I tried it.

So I think the bad stories are more a reflection of the players playing it than the game. For whatever reason certain types of people will gravitate toward the cesspool hidden underneath the actual game and find a way to turn the whole experience into a monstrous tragedy.

frgotmylogin• 7 years ago

You are spot on about the weird stuff being down rabbit holes of suggestions. There is also a lot of weird/disturbing stuff you can search up in their IDE/level editor app thing. The rules I put in place for my kid were:

-grown ups do any content searching in the level editor

-ask before you try new games

-no games that haven't been voted on much

-chat filter stays on

mevile• 7 years ago

My daughter plays roblox and I've never seen anything like this when watching her play. I've tried to educate her about this kind of stuff because I know she'll be exposed to it eventually. I'd hope she come talk to me about it if she sees it.

mac01021• 7 years ago

I'd hope she come talk to me about it if she sees it.

What should that conversation look like? If you've educated her already, wouldn't it be fine for her simply to dismiss it and move on when she encounters it?

antpls• 7 years ago

What if multiplayer video games actually teach your kids to not blindly trust people ? At first they will be scammed a few time, but they will learn, and with minimal consequences.

Isn't it better for your kids to experience the "worst" behaviors in a virtual simulation under your control rather than in real life when they will be adult and possibly alone ?

I believe it's fine to have your kids safely experience "unethical" behaviors, as long as you speak with them.

I guess there have been studies about it, I'm wondering. Does anyone have scientific pointers about it ?

tapland3• 7 years ago

It's also important to have clear distinctions between things that are questionable but not harmful, and that the kids feel that they can sound the alarm when things are really wrong.

There are a lot of pictures and words that are inappropriate and shouldn't be in kids games. But it's really important to convey that there is a difference between that, and even pictures of feet, to pictures of you nude or pictures with your face in them.

I met people from chatrooms some 16 years ago when I was 14, with friends, at a public space and my friends parents knew the place well and knew when and where we were going. Was a fun double date. A lot of people I know would not tell any adult and lie about where they are going to avoid shame and anger.

okusername• 7 years ago

Their brain is not developed yet, especially critical thinking and social capabilities. It's not just a question of explaining / learning, they often don't have the mental capabilities to understand whats going on and can be taken advantage of.

koonsolo2• 7 years ago

From my own experience of my product that is used by teenagers, they are well aware of the risks. In chat, they will not give their email, name, place or even reveal what timezone they are at. Most boys will say they are boys, but girls will not even mention that (it's a gaming related product). It seems they are well educated on this topic, and are very cautious.

tyleo• 7 years ago

This is a great thought. When I was around 12 years old I played RuneScape. After grinding away for weeks I bought a legendary item which I lost shortly after in a scam.

This was a big wake up call for me. Having previously seen how obvious some scammers were I didn’t think it could ever happen to me: I thought you had to be a fool to be scammed. The core lesson was that it could happen to everyone and by thinking that scams would only happen to fools I had lowered my own defenses to the point that I was susceptible.

nkrisc4• 7 years ago

It really depends on the age of the child. At a certain age, they're just no match for adults. I had a coworker who's daughter was conned out of her Roblox password you've by the same person. She's not dumb, the other person was just very effective and maintain against a nine year old kid.

As a parent your primary duty is the safety and well-being of your child. That comes first, lessons second. Sometimes you might just need to ban Roblox for their own good and help them learn like lessons another way. Every kid is unique.

clinta• 7 years ago

This happened to my daughter and was the attitude I had about it, and I think she's healthier for it. She gave away some item in the game she liked and got scammed, now she knows better.

Before I allowed her to play I discussed with her that she is not allowed to tell anybody her real name or the state she lives in. I think and hope the experience of being scammed might have cemented the reasons for that.

russdpale• 7 years ago

Always the same shit from these companies also:

“We started Roblox over a decade ago with a vision to bring people from all over the world together through play,”

A vision. To bring people together. Im over the whole 'vision to bring people together and closer thing.'

fencepost• 7 years ago

I used to play some Minecraft on servers, and while most players are great you end up with a few toxic ones. A lot of how this is handled comes down to who's running the server and how they handle administration and policies. No clue how Roblox works and whether it has the same kind of independent server community.

Still I made it a point to make it clear that I was not a kid and there was no way I was getting into non-group chats with anyone. The only people I ever ended up on any kind of chat with (Skype, then Discord) were the relatively tight group that I was playing with, most of whom were college-age or a bit older. We pretty much dominated that server until most of us lost interest and drifted away due to the real world.

ptah3• 7 years ago

you could be cutting your kids off from their friends by doing this. it is unnecessarily cruel

koonsolo2• 7 years ago

My own son had this period where he was obsessed with playing on the XBox. When I tried to limit his time, he became agressive. So I said "Wow, if XBox has this influence on you, maybe you should stop completely. What do you think?". His smart reaction was to show that he could play a limited time, and be good afterwards. Now I don't have any problems with him.

The thing with kids is that you will not be there all the time, especially when they get older. So banning something they like, doesn't seem like a good solution to me. They will have to handle such impulses themselves. So if you can let them handle their own impulses, that is way better.

For example I will never tell my kids that they cannot smoke, because that will be out of my control anyway. But when we walk to a hospital, there are always patients outside smoking (who obviously look sick). Then I tell them "look at those smokers, how sick they are. And it really smells bad too" etc. When I ask them about smoking, they have very negative associations with it.

So if your kids are doing inappropriate things to play, maybe talk to them as if they are adults, and make a reasonable deal. And show them how their decisions will impact them.

Raising kids is not about enforcing rules, it's preparing them for the real world where they need to make their own decisions.

sky_rw• 7 years ago

I was only allowed 2 hours of Sega Genesis play, which was just enough to get to the final boss in Sonic and die. Never beat it.

In hindsight this prepared me for the 2 constants in the real world: Never having enough time, and constant disappointment.

watwut2• 7 years ago

Not every kids is like your son. Some have more addictive tendencies and wont self regulate that easily and wont stick to agreements - even as they had an intention to follow up in advance.

gitgud• 7 years ago

Very wise words, I'm not a parent, but I like the idea of giving them the choice and allowing them to come to their own conclusions.

"A man convinced against his will. Is of the same opinion still" ― Dale Carnegie

spaceribs• 7 years ago

As a kid, when gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, one of the anti-advocates made the statement on the radio: "I am the gatekeeper for what is appropriate for my child, and the state telling my child that homosexuality is an appropriate lifestyle infringes on my role as a parent".

I asked my Dad what he thought of that statement, and he responded that gatekeeper was the completely wrong approach to parenting. The role is closer to a bodyguard or the secret service, you protect from harm and provide context when appropriate, but leave enough room to explore without your biases.

Self-sufficiency in ones own behaviors, responsibilities and statements should be your goal, just make sure they have a safe environment to explore and carve their own path.

mnsc• 7 years ago

Then I tell them "look at those smokers, how sick they are. And it really smells bad too" etc. When I ask them about smoking, they have very negative associations with it.

I do this as well but I also try to explain the upside so that they can understand why smokers exists at all.

"When they smoke they feel excited for a short time but after a while, if you do it often enough, you get hooked and then you don't get that excited feeling anymore but you feel sick if you don't do it". Something like that.

thelittleone• 7 years ago

I typically use this approach also. One of the most successful developments was the gamification of tasks to earn play points (minutes of playtime). Vacuuming could earn 10 mins for example, with a maximum of 90 minutes, and only possible after doing homework etc. They ended up enjoying both the tasks and the reward.

crusso• 7 years ago

That's a pretty good description of my effective parenting strategy. I've always stated that my goal was to raise kids who could make good decisions as adults. To that end I've tried to err on the side of being more permissive while using potentially corrupting influences as teaching opportunities.

That said, I don't pretend that my approach would have worked in all situations. For example, you gave your son a choice about being aggressive with his XBox with a threat that he would have to stop completely. What if you had to follow through on your threat because your son escalated his aggression?

Sometimes, some kids need an adult to make a decision for them that their brains just aren't mature enough to make.

integrii2• 7 years ago

Good feedback and I agree. We have Roblox several chances. Each time it became out of control. We definitely do not hover-parent.

To be clear, my kids have an xbox1, ps4, xbox360, two gaming PCs, a Vive VR headset, their own macbooks, a switch, their own dedicated Chromecast TVs, and one even has a pixel 3a. Roblox is the only thing we have ever had to perma-ban. Fortnite got a one week hold once, but Roblox had to go forever.

They play fortnite, Minecraft, and lots of other stuff. Unfortunately, as soon as I find out my daughter joined a server where lego looking avatars were walking around with massive hard penises doing sex acts on each other, we were done with moderation and guardrails.

ericlewis• 7 years ago

Similar experience with our 2yo & YouTube. It is banned in our house for now, because 2yo doesn't exactly understand moderation, but we are willing to open it back up as they get older and understand a bit more.

sandos2• 7 years ago

Good for you. Our 5 and 7 year olds get "banned" from youtube every now and then when we detect the slightest bit of "mania", which they do get.

In Sweden no screen time is recommended until the age of two, and I would easily say that until 3 or 4 years of age, screen time is really not necessary and possible harmful.

pnutjam• 7 years ago

Check out the Amazon FreePlay system. I got a "kids edition" kindle for my 2 year old, it came with a year of freeplay and I've kept it going since it's such a good value. Basically, they get access to all the kids apps, books, and videos in the kindle store. You can limit the age appropriate level.

My biggest complaint is how tedious it is to remove apps, since the kids eventually fill up the kindle.

ulkesh3• 7 years ago

And it's even worse because Roblox support is pure crap. Not only does it take a minimum of 3 days to reach anyone, they also have nothing in place to verify an account holder in case the account was compromised. They require the original email address and cannot verify in any other way.

We had to completely ban Roblox as well, even using OpenDNS to block it, but that just led to the use of other networks.

We're now not letting any internet access without us being right there in the same room. We're done with Roblox and its ilk. By the time our child will be allowed access again, it will be a distant memory in the context of later teen life.

skyfallkavu• 7 years ago

I wouldn't like to tell someone else how to parent, especially since as mentioned earlier all children are different. But, a small story.

I had a friend back in university who's parents did the same. Completely locked down with no internet access unless it was explicitly with her parents observation well into her late-teens. She found freedom when she went away to university, and with that freedom she didn't know how to regulate it. She'd be up all hours of the night scrolling everything shes missed in years past. Games, pop culture references, ancient memes, hours and hours of YouTube playlists, etc. It affected her schooling to the point where she almost withdrew because she'd be so wrapped up in the internet, she wouldn't know how to time-manage for completing assignments or even getting to class. Needless to say her inability to impulse control caused quite a few GPA scares and a lot of money spent on off-term sessions. I remember we agreed as an apartment to put a parental control pin on the communal Xbox because she'd sit for hours and skip class to play.

I can't quite say all this is related to her parents essentially banning her from technology, but it certainly changed my view on how I'd introduce my child to the internet. We're coming to view internet addition similar to drug or alcohol abuse; and I think any sort of responsible moderation that can be learned as a child continues as skills into adulthood.

mcs_• 7 years ago

Education must deal with dependencies, of any kind. Prohibition is not a stable and durable solution. Transition to a better dependency is the key to mitigate the bad effects of a wrong activity.

nvarsj• 7 years ago

This sounds almost identical to the argument my parents used in the 90s to ban DnD. Are you sure you’re not getting swept up in parental paranoia?

randiantech• 7 years ago

This is a very similar experience that I had my 8 yo kid, though its not something that exclusive of Roblox. Same thing happened with Nintendo Switch, Minecraft and Youtube.

plughs• 7 years ago

I hope you don't mind a couple of questions, my daughter(8) has been asking to play Roblox as a lot of her friends are on it.

Being an engineer, I know full well that "filtering and pre-reviewing content" is pure marketing BS. That said, while I'm not delighted with the possiblities of adult content and in-game currency scams, I might not let that stop her from playing.

But predators - I'm planning on 'white listing' her chat options so she can only chat with known friends. Are there any vulnerabilities there?

I also am worried about how obsessed she could get. I'm willing to keep a close eye on it - unfortunately she's probably going to start obsessing about online games sooner or later, and perhaps the best time to start talking about it is now - while she still trusts my judgment - than later when she's ( possibly ) a surly teen.

Animats• 7 years ago

Wow, they finally made it. I knew the CEO years ago, when he was doing physics engines.

ejz• 7 years ago

"In other news, Microsoft announcing its acquisition of Roblox today..."

meddlepal• 7 years ago

Does anyone remember Blockland (http://blockland.us/)? It was arguably the precursor to Roblox and in some ways the building portion of Minecraft... the creator Badspot just never embraced it and it fizzled out around 2007.

Arguably he could be a billionaire these days if he had kept at it. He had the right idea... but did not execute.

makerofspoons• 7 years ago

I played it back in the day. It performed better and looked better than early Roblox. My first exposure to programming was actually thanks to Blockland as it inspired me to download the Torque game engine and mess around with it.

wopian• 7 years ago

Closer to being the same idea developed at the same time with both being influenced by LEGO.

Blockland: November 15, 2004 (Freeware) February 24, 2007 (Retail)

ROBLOX: March 23, 2004 (Beta) August 27, 2006 (Retail)

ramblerman• 7 years ago

I'm having a hard time understanding what roblox is, even when looking for a gameplay video.

For an older analogy, would it be fair to compare it to something like TinyMUCK with graphics?

ehsankia3• 7 years ago

Same here. I generally am fairly well versed in games and tech, even the more obscure stuff, but I'm surprised about how little I've seen about this game over the years. I've heard the name here and there but never really looked into it.

So far, it looks close to VR chat? I'd also like if someone could explain:

1. What the appeal is (I'm guessing mostly community?)

2. How do they monetize (purchasable cosmetic content?)

3. Where most of the demographic is (country, age, gender)

abrookewood• 7 years ago

So it's a browser based gaming 'portal', that includes chat, profiles, cosmetic items etc and which allows users to create their own basic games. The appeal is that the games are fairly simple, often social and don't require a ton of investment (i.e. casual). They make money on in game currency which can upgrade both cosmetic and non-cosmetic items in both a users profile and in-games. Demographic is probably pre-teen, both genders.

DanBC• 7 years ago

Roblox is an umbrella term that covers the programming stuff and the game portal stuff.

It's a game engine that allows people to create games using a visual language builder.

Here's the Roblox quick start: https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/quick-start

It's also a multi-platform portal to games developed by users and small companies.

A user will load roblox, and then select a game to play, and then the roblox backend will find a server with available slots and join the player to that game.

There are a lot of microtransations. These can be used to buy player avatar decoration items such as clothing. They can also be "pay to win" items in games.

There are very many "incremental games", usually called Something-Tycoon. The player hits a button a few times to increment a counter, then uses that counter to buy another button which increments the counter faster. The IAPs in these games are sometimes in the form of pets that multiply the counter-increments.

If you get a chance have a look at something like Bubble Gum Simulator. This combines an incremental game with an irritating parkour, and then a bunch of lootbox mechanics on top.

Firstly, try to find this by searching the roblox website. https://www.roblox.com/games/?Keyword=bubblegum

Most of those are not the game I'm talking about. This is some indication of the piss-poor quality control on Roblox.

This is the game I'm talking about. Here's their store.

https://www.roblox.com/games/2512643572/HUGE-SALE-Bubble-Gum...

If I wanted to buy everything it would cost 3550 robux in the 50% off sale or 7100 robux at the normal price.

In the UK on Xbox One I can buy 400 robux for £4.99, or 4500 robux for £48.99 or 10,000 robux for £99.99.

Here's some gameplay of Bubble Gum Simulator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-H1eXg9DIs (I haven't watched all of this).

Bootwizard• 7 years ago

It's basically this generation's Second Life, but targeted at kids...seemingly without strict rules on user created content.

jammygit• 7 years ago

I have to doubt that TechCrunch understands gaming when they post about a game without including a single screenshot.

xrd• 7 years ago

I'm reading all the threads here and wonder: is there a similar type of game that is safe for kids to use? I'd love to have the collaborating with other kids to build things, but I'm deeply concerned about the predatory aspects other parents are describing here. Is there an open source version of Roblox or Minecraft that you can run on your own server and only invite known people (neighbors, friends, etc.) to play on it?

thecatspaw• 7 years ago

while its not open source you can definitely run minecraft on your own server with a whitelist. I dont know about roblox.

You might also be interested in minetest?

em-bee4• 7 years ago

there are plenty of minetest servers if you don't want to run your own, check out a few and see how they are. several advertise a family friendly atmosphere. go inside play a while and monitor the chat to see how the moderators act. i found a great server right away, where my son and i are now happily building away without trouble.

mastazi6• 7 years ago

Minecraft:

You can run a Minecraft server on your own hardware (for free) [1], or pay for "Minecraft Realms" which is a cloud based server managed directly by Mojang [2]. There are also 3rd party hosting offerings [3]. It should also be mentioned that the Minecraft client has an "Open to LAN" button so you can play over LAN without even running any Minecraft server.

Roblox:

You can create your own game using Roblox Studio[4] and make it private (for free) or you can pay for a VIP Server [5] which allows you to play participating games on a private server.

Minetest:

There is also an open source Minecraft-like game called Minetest [6], it is possible to run a Minetest server on your own hardware[7].

[1] https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/server/

[2] https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/realms/

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/1vawah/whats_the...

[4] https://www.roblox.com/create

[5] https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/articles/Creating-a-VIP-S...

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

[7] https://wiki.minetest.net/Setting_up_a_server

mhh__2• 7 years ago

You can get a free Minecraft server online fairly easily, with whitelisting.

ptah3• 7 years ago

why not teach your kids how to avoid predators instead?

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

Because it's too late before they put one and one together. It's not as simple as you (and other commenters) want to make it seem.

0xdeadb00f• 7 years ago

Don't take these threads as gospel. There's always shitty kids and there's always shitty people online. I have relatives (young kids, obviously: 7-14yrs old) who live in different cities. They play on Roblox together on weekends and use the chat to communicate. It's quite cute. They seem to know what they're doing (because their parents gave clearly taught them well). They play innocent RP games, and they don't chat with anyone other than between themselves. Most of the minigames they play are role play or dress up. There's even a bodybuilding one where you lift larger and larger weights until you become a giant. Harmless stuff like that. There _is_ however minigames like a Counter Strike clone (which is very well made I might add), which aren't for a younger audience. But because they use it to play _together_ they don't even want to play those "violent" games, they just want to be together. I've watched then play before. Before I did I didn't think much of Roblox; I thought it was some crappy Minecraft clone but it's really not. I think Roblox is great if your child knows 1. Not to talk to anyone 2. Not to play "violent" games.

You might say "kids will be kids and they'll play those damn violent games and they'll talk to those damn pedos", but my relatives don't seem to want to do any of that.

tsss• 7 years ago

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of abuse on these games comes from other children and not some ominous adult sexual predators.

orliesaurus• 7 years ago

Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft are the new social networks right? Well when I was 15 and we used to play Counter Strike and Quake 3 the "social network" was hanging out on servers with maps just chatting and walking around the map aimlessly or just hanging out on IRC. So I can totally relate to how kids nowadays are going back to this sorta hangout. Text only can be boring (kinda like IRC for many people who couldn't tolerate it) but hanging out in servers, spinning around and doing stuff actively (albeit not productively for society) is actually much more fun. Now couple this with discord and all the in-game voice chat stuff + emotes and the ability to build anything. Yeah I can totally see why young kids wanna hang out in video games all day!

mrighele• 7 years ago

I would add also WoW to the list. I had friends that after a while would connect more to socialize than to play. And probably the equivalent in the 90s were MUDs, although they were text only.

imdsm• 7 years ago

I played with people on WoW who are still good friends who are now in high places. It was truly a generation thing. Like I watch Stranger Things and I think, I wish I was on the internet before the WWW with BBS, and with walkie talkies, maybe not so much the smoke demons, but then, during my teenage years it was WoW and that was a very special time for me.

I couldn't do it now, I've changed, the fabric of my mind has changed so that it just wouldn't appeal to me now, but back then it was great.

Would I want my son doing the same? 20,000 hours on a game over five years? Yeah I'm going to say no, but, things are different as a parent.

mmanfrin• 7 years ago

Well when I was 15 and we used to play Counter Strike and Quake 3 the "social network" was hanging out on servers with maps just chatting and walking around the map aimlessly or just hanging out on IRC

I miss this terribly. I remember hanging out in a set of TF2 servers, playing Spy and contributing nothing to the team other than taking out engies, and listening to the regulars chat on alltalk.

mstade• 7 years ago

Oh yeah, we'd spend hours in Quake – 1, 2, and 3 – just doing rocket jumps and other acrobatics to see who could do the most insane stunts. Good times!

thezoq2• 7 years ago

Yep, I hosted a minecraft server for a few years and most of it was just hanging out and talking to people, often with it open on a second monitor while doing other things

msluyter• 7 years ago

Well when I was 15 and we used to play Counter Strike and Quake 3 the "social network" was hanging out on servers with maps just chatting and walking around the map aimlessly....

Aging my self quite a bit here, but we used to do the same via text based MUDs. ;)

Nextgrid2• 7 years ago

I miss the old first-person shooters and the concept of self-contained servers (instead of a global user profile system). Games last for a couple hours, and everyone starts at zero and gets weapons & perks as the game continues (so newbies aren't stuck with bad guns while level 100+ players dominate the server). In 30 minutes of playtime or so you'll have earned enough points (by killing enemies, etc) to be able to afford any weapon you want, compared to now where getting to the top takes months of grinding. There was also no global profile system, so no need to worry about your rank, K/D ratio, etc.

As a result the games were pretty relaxed, there wasn't any rage and the chat conversations were respectful and actually substantial (akin to an IRC network). The game was Crysis & Crysis Wars (and unfortunately the developer ruined all that going forwards with the sequel).

sandos2• 7 years ago

That sounds a lot like a Battle Royale... which is also very popular now. If you ignore the "rankings" that is, and play each game in isolation which I tend to do.

Kiro• 7 years ago

How is that different from new shooters? In Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty etc you also start from 0 in each match. Leveling up gives you cosmetics only.

schnevets• 7 years ago

Not only could this be considered a return to the essence of social network, but it may be healthier than a single megabehemoth like Facebook controlling the virtual "third place". Even when games like CS or WoW dominated the gaming world, player counts would go through ebbs and flows, and a new triple-A title could splinter the community.

I guess it's a little more like the "Water Cooler TV Show" of the past. Let's have a whole bunch of studios (including some dark horses) compete for our viewership instead of one product attempt global domination.

jordache• 7 years ago

minecraft can be played in offline, single player mode just fine

roordan• 7 years ago

The games themselves but particularly discord as well. Discord is the modern gaming social network. Talk and hangout with friends across multiple games.

RandallBrown2• 7 years ago

My coworker once found his son playing Minecraft when he was supposed to be doing homework. When my coworker called his son on it, it turned out that the kid was actually using minecraft to collaborate with his friends and do their assignment.

I'm not sure if they were doing anything other than using the chat capabilities, but it's sounded like a fun way to meet up with your friends without having to actually go over to their house.

whamlastxmas• 7 years ago

Your coworker got suckered by his kid

nineumbrellas• 7 years ago

I miss idling dozens of channels on GameSurge. Good times.

skwog• 7 years ago

As a Roblox programmer (Builder’s Club) scripting a game, the draw of addressing this huge user base by way of simply coding Lua scripts to release a product that invites In App Purchase is downright tempting!

Then you discover the apparently wide spread client side hacking (speed, teleport, aim bots... you name it) and content theft (models, geometry, Localscripts) and pervasive scam attempts so frequently reported. But that’s the internet, and the cost of doing business, right?

After some success (proof of concept stage) building an unreleased game, I started to notice pitfalls and inconsistencies in the developer docs, including lack of documentation for methods and properties specifically out as recommended or best practice approaches.

Chunks of the docs would suddenly disappear for days or weeks with no notice and no explanation and may or may not reappear after some time. Didn’t see any change logs that I could find.

And then one day this summer I could not access the developer docs site at all, from any of my devices on different ISP connections. After proding around, I realized this was only occurring on Safari (Mac and iOS). Too many redirects (for Tracking)! Apparently Safari had gained additional privacy checking after an update.

Got me thinking, if it’s the case that Apple effectively doesn’t trust the techniques used by Roblox to add tracking to their developer documentation site, is this effort something I want to continue pursuing?

Which segues to the question:

Given the active user base and gross cash flow of Roblox, how do you now frame the new ARKit, RealityKit, Composer, and SwiftUI announcements from WWDC?

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

Given the active user base and gross cash flow of Roblox, how do you now frame the new ARKit, RealityKit, Composer, and SwiftUI announcements from WWDC?

I'm not sure what the question is, the two are hardly related. I guess you can use both to create games, but the thing is, you wouldn't have the network to go with it. I mean you could create a video but unless you upload it to youtube it might as well not exist. Or you could create a mobile game but unless it's in the app store (or featured / in the top x) it might as well not exist.

Roblox at least gives your content a chance of being discovered.

snazz• 7 years ago

I don’t think your odds of being discovered on Roblox are that much higher than on the App Store. Roblox is full of a lot of content (most junky) that you’d have to swim through to get to the front page.

loa_in_2• 7 years ago

Too many redirects is a stopgap measure to avoid circular references. There is nothing positive about this practice, as you actually visit all the "tracking" URLs up until the max-redirects deep. Browser doesn't know there's that many redirects until it follows them.

danbmil99• 7 years ago

I recall my child years ago playing this game (maybe age 8?) and explaining how they communicated with words like 'socks' for 6, 'ate' for 8 etc. because numbers were banned to avoid kids giving out sensitive info like their age, address etc.

teddyh• 7 years ago

Block-Chat™!

http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...

“By hook, or by crook, [people] will always find a way to connect with each other.”

— Randy Farmer

cannedslime• 7 years ago

There is also the creative ways the kids scold eachother on there. You can't say "Go kill yourself" and stuff like that, so they go out of their way to reinvent ways to say things, like "Go commit neck rope" etc.

stesch• 7 years ago

Last time I wanted to give it a try they wanted to install on the small system drive. :-(

wyclif• 7 years ago

My 8 year-old boy is a big Minecrafter. He went through a phase where he switched to Roblox. I checked it out and he asked me what I thought, I said "this is hot garbage—not nearly as good of a game as Minecraft is", but I let him keep playing it for a few weeks. Finally he switched back to Minecraft and got disgusted with the game quality of Roblox and dumped it.

I was relieved because if he hadn't, I was getting ready to ban it. I had set up the account with parental controls to turn off chat because I knew adults played the game, but I ultimately decided it was inappropriate for kids after digging a little deeper and seeing what a toxic waste dump it is.

stevefan1999• 7 years ago

I remember people arguing which one of them two games in the title invented the meme "oof". It turns out now Roblox is winning.

hokumguru• 7 years ago

So many negative comments here but nearly a decade ago now I was hugely interested in Roblox - on their platform I found an amazing creative outlet and made some lifelong friends. Their game engine is powerful while also being simple for a 12 year old to pick up and learn - I taught myself the fundamentals of programming on their platform and I doubt I would have gone down the same career path without it.

justanothernoob• 7 years ago

Frankly, Roblox is not the same as it was 12 or 10 years ago, when I played. A few weeks ago I reinstalled it and perused the catalog of games. Most or all of the top games have microtransactions in them, you can really feel the influence of money in the games development. My money on when it started going downhill was when Disney bought out Roblox, whenever that was.

izzydata2• 7 years ago

The gaming world seems so foreign to me now and I used to play games several hours a day growing up. I can't understand the appeal of this game or Minecraft even if I try to imagine myself as a child again.

Yajirobe• 7 years ago

I can't understand the appeal of this game or Minecraft

You can do things from smashing zombies' skulls with a sword to building a replica of your own house to building an ATARI emulator in Minecraft. How is that not exciting?

izzydata2• 7 years ago

Possibly because there is no goal and your friends aren't there in person. It's too open ended and over the internet.

Not feeling like I'm really with friends just from talking to them online might be my problem because really anything can be fun when you are with people you enjoy spending time with.

deelowe• 7 years ago

Minecraft is just a game focused on user created content. The concept isn't new. It's not too far off of something like Mario Maker, Gary's mod, Second Life, or even excite bike.

em-bee4• 7 years ago

i didn't get it either. i found the large blocks wierd, until i started playing myself when my son got old enough. we are playing minetest, and i have to say, it feels like virtual lego. as a lego fan, i am now sold on it.

KaoruAoiShiho• 7 years ago

So roblox is what second life wanted to be? Any insight into why it worked out so much better than SL?

rnotaro• 7 years ago

It's targeted at kids.

sebringj• 7 years ago

Roblox is like the internet in its flexibility and its lawlessness. My 3 sons have ipads and play together but in a restricted time setting. My oldest (10) started playing with lua scripting and all 3 like to create on roblox studio. There will always be weirdos on that but it's part of life and you must parent and educate them that people are sometimes evil morons but its something they all love to do together and in some sense its making them more prepared for the online world.

houzertuch• 7 years ago

Denying your child access to an internet connected computer in 2019 would put your child in a very disadvantaged position in life. It has become necessary to be fluent in computer operating system GUIs and the ways of the internet. For school, work and now for socializing. There was never a centralized decision to make things this way. Nobody was ever asked if they were ok with this. It just happened.

Imagine that neuralink tech starts to become normal. Inevitably, some parents will opt to have their child linked. Many children will be linked regardless because it is medically necessary. The linked children perform five times better than the linkless. They socialize by electronic telepathy, even though they only have threads in their motor cortex in the early days. Being linked also enables them to engage in wildly addictive and inappropriate behavior that had never been widely anticipated before. You become a parent in the midst of this. Do you imagine that you would opt out? Do you imagine the parents of yesterday thought they would opt out of allowing their children to do what children do now?

Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

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