IIRC I’ve never given Valve/Steam payment info. Everything is processed through PayPal. But even then, you should be able to gift his account a purchase without him putting in payment methods if you can convince him to use steam at all
Maybe this isn’t the case in your neighborhood but my local grocery stores have racks of gift cards, including for Steam. I know people who have similar concerns as your dad, so they just buy Steam credit for themselves.
That’s not a bad idea. I was planning on just gifting it to him over Steam since I have no qualms with giving Valve my CC, but if he wanted to buy something in the future, that would be a great work around.
I would just talk to your kid and listen to his feelings and wants. What does he enjoy about Roblox? Can he find that enjoyment with some other games? Does he understand that its not a punishment, e.g. it’s not anything that he did and that you aren’t blaming him? Sure, you can suggest a few alternatives and they might take and be fun, but you’ll need to be attuned to his feelings around what he might see as a punishment for something that he did so that he doesn’t internalize it and hurt the relationship you have with him.
yeah this should be the immediate next step. The kid shouldn’t feel punished. It shouldn’t be a “you’re not allowed because I said so.” Kids can be smart and might be able to understand why Roblox is exploitative.
At least this is a better reason to take a way a kid’s video game. My parents banned me from certain games/movies because they had positive depictions of black people.
no, just very idiosyncratic white American racists. I don’t even know where they got it from. My grandparents weren’t racists and my parents never listened to Rush Limbaugh or anything.
Nah, they don’t watch that either. They’re very detached and only watch football or movies with Humphrey Bogart. My best guess is they felt some kind of resentment their whole lives because they were always the poorest ones out of their siblings. All my aunts and uncles formed businesses or got moderately wealthy, whereas I grew up on the lower middle side of that spectrum. And that turned into standard American racism.
Factorio is a great idea if you’re ok with school going to sh*t. I called factorio the „time machine“ since it could zap 12 hrs in one second. Cant remember any other game that I played till dawn in the last 20 yrs.
Minecraft / Terraria, 100%. Both games have available co-op, so they can play with their friends, and allow quite a bit of creative expression. Terraria is made by some of the best indie devs ever, if it helps, having been getting free updates for years, even though the devs said they had finished the game years ago.
For a more socially open experience, I could also recommend Sea of Thieves. It’s a game about manning a pirateship and collecting loot, where you can sometimes run into real people on their own adventures (or get your ship sunk by them, after all, they’re also pirates). There is co-op, too. A cash shop is available, but all items are strictly cosmetic, with many items available through gameplay alone.
Is this what we’re doing instead of actually parenting? Roblox sucks, but you know what sucks even more? Being left out of the friend group because your parent is digging their heels in on some issue they can’t understand. Plus, where is the brightline for this? Would you ban your kid from playing Fortnite because of the skins? Counter strike when he’s older? Clash of clans?
You could play Roblox with him and explain what’s wrong with the games. You could help build his taste to not like the games that want to charge him out the ass and let him move past Roblox on his own. You can help him learn to make games and help him learn enough to want to move to something else. Otherwise, you’re just going to seem like an asshole. Because from reading this, you clearly just watched some video essay on Roblox and dug your heels in based on that.
Would you kindly fuck off? I am allowed to parent my children how I see fit. I provide him plenty of high quality games and multiple gaming systems and I want to make sure that his limited video game time is at least stimulating.
You were asking for advice, and she gave you some solid suggestions. IDK why you’re getting so bent out of shape.
Edit: Adding this article to maybe give you some more detail. Play the game with your kid and see what about it they enjoy. If you want to introduce them to better games, you’ll need to have an idea about what they like.
Is this what we’re doing instead of actually parenting?
No, that wasn’t advice. That was judgemental and without cause. I am asking for game suggestions because this isn’t meant as a punishment - it is meant to let the kids have an upgrade. But I guess I didn’t tiptoe around everyone’s overly sensitive feelings over here.
You gave absolutely no context about what kinds of things your child enjoys in video games. Go figure that out first. If you don’t know that, and you’re taking the game he enjoys away he’s 100% going to see it as a punishment.
Thanks for presuming I don’t know what my kid enjoys. Why do you have to be such a dick with the personal attacks? I am asking for advice on multiplayer games. You’re being a dick. I bet you make a lot of friends that way.
Pay no attention to the people who don't have kids. You're doing just fine. The fact that you're asking honestly makes you a better parent than many.
Kids, as you well know, are gonna figure out unimaginable ways to get themselves in trouble. I've had to tell more than one of my kids, "I'm gonna let you make all the mistakes you want, and I'm gonna be there to pick you up, but I am not going to let you make permanent mistakes." When it comes to advertising, microtransactions, OnlyFans (yes, OnlyFans), the lesson is "these things exist for one purpose, and that is to separate you from your money as much as possible." If you are paying for something, stop and consider whether you can get a substantially similar thing for free, or at least for a lot cheaper.
From reading your other comments, it sounds like you and the other parents all agreed together to drop the hammer on all the kids at once. That is a good idea, and it's great that you have lines of communication open to your kid's friends' parents. That's going to be important when they're older and driving cars, and having access to intoxicants and mall ninja shit.
To your actual question - I saw someone mention Minecraft, that is a fantastic choice. There are "skins" and shit that can be bought, but the game itself it absolutely fully playable and enjoyable without anything beyond the initial game purchase. Running a private server is pretty easy, and I would recommend it, so that the friend group always has a place they can go where the annoyances of the internet-at-large are excluded. Besides that, a kid who is motivated to modify his own Minecraft server is going to be driven to figure out how to do it, and that kind of skill will be super useful for oh so many things throughout life.
If they like arena combat games, Crossout is pretty fun. World of Tanks is okay, but the grind curve is steep. War Thunder is fun for planes and ships, but I am not a fan of their tank play mechanics. All of those are free to play, yes you can buy stuff, but you absolutely do not have to.
There's a single player game that I have to mention: The Long Dark. Winter survival, and there's also a storyline mode. The storyline is really good, and the map is absolutely vast. While it's not one they would be able to play together, it's a great exploration and survival game, and I would be remiss if I didn't point it out.
You know what’s more stimulating than any individual game you’ll have him play? Making his own choices on what to play. And like I said, brightline, what is and isn’t stimulating to you? Are shitty flash games banned for being too simple minded?
Parenting is your kid learning from you. They’re not learning why you’re banning Roblox, and if you explain it to them they don’t really understand. My kid is starting to not fuck with Roblox anymore because of how pay to win some of the games are. He had to do a lot of chores for those Robux and instantly wished he had the money for better things a couple days later when he wanted a plushie at the store. When I told him he could have gotten that plushie if he hadn’t gotten Robux, he stopped wanting Robux. He learned the value of money, and learned to prioritize the things he wants, and coincidentally doesn’t want to play Roblox like he used to. I didn’t have to be the bad guy because most kids have things they want more than Robux. All I had to do was make him choose.
Seriously, download and play Roblox with him. There are a million different games on there, you can even filter games on the site. Some of the games are actually really fucking good. Meet him where he’s at, set rules so he has to play Roblox with you. You can actually monitor what he’s playing and doing, while getting in some bonding time. Because your Dad playing tag or whatever dumbass things we were into as kids was way usually way cooler than playing Dad’s game. You’re going to be
That’s what I’m more upset about. The logic behind these decisions that has been expressed simply isn’t sound parenting. This kid just got his favorite toy taken away, and while it isn’t meant as punishment, it will feel like punishment. The logic expressed in the post is regurgitated out of a video essay, and makes it sound like Dad doesn’t even know why he’s taking it away. My situation was a little bit different, adopting someone else’s kid who had an entirely different life before me, but I feel like the shock therapy of just banning it with video essay logic is weak even if they are fully your children. As someone who was on it as a kid, I don’t like Roblox overall. However, I’ve found just teaching him why I don’t like Roblox has been more effective than just pulling it away and giving a poorly thought out explanation why. Now he’s come to the conclusion of the emptiness of Roblox himself, I didn’t have to force it.
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Giving them the information on their level and giving them choice usually pays off with kids. They can usually understand way more than we expect them to as long as we can break it down for them. It’s one thing to be the weird kid who can’t play Roblox because your parents don’t want you to, it’s another thing to be the kid who just doesn’t want to play Roblox. I’m saying that this is a situation where you can have your cake and eat it too, and that’s by educating your kids to make good decisions and give them ample opportunity to practice that skill.
The marketplace of ideas tends to be a much weaker force than “what are my friends playing?” I’m all for treating kids as people, but that also means understanding that people mostly choose what lets them get on with their peers the most easily.
Why do you think I am not trying to be the best parent? Do you know my child? No? Then you don’t know what is best for them. In this case, it is the best. Roblox is garbage tier games on a platform made by exploitation of children for the exploitation of children. Just because I am man enough to call that out and make the tough decisions doesn’t mean people need to personally attack me for it. Dangers to our society evolve - it’s like slapping a crack pipe out of the hand of a family member… just digitally.
This is a reading comprehension issue. Look at what I said more carefully, I am implicitly supporting the idea you are trying to help your kid and telling you to argue from a standpoint of human benefit rather than sovereignty. With the rise of Christian nationalism, we’re only going to see an uptick in “children are the property of the parent” style reasoning, and we should all be fighting it.
I don't think you quite understand how bad Roblox is.
Think of the most predatory games you can imagine.
Roblox is far fucking worse.
Not only is it a money grubbing game like the worst of mobile free-to-play games, it encourages content creators to exhibit the same behaviours and does nothing about blatant fraud on the platform. Something it's money obsessed nature actually encourages and rewards.
If the shit that goes on in Roblox went on in Facebook to nearly the same degree, Meta would be raked over the coals for it; even Meta haven't stooped so low.
On one hand it can be damaging to take away opportunities from kids, on the other hand roblox is massive groomer haven; I genuinely don’t think the kinds of connections they would make there would be worth the long term harm that may result for being involved in that shit.
Ultimately I think you did the right thing by banning it. You’re locking out like a 10th of their social life but those aren’t contacts they want.
Yeah we’re giving him and his friends alternative multiplayer games to have fun on with each other. It’s not like we’re killing his social circle - we’re just upgrading the forum.
Do you know any of the friends’ parents? Maybe you can all gather some ideas together and have a more uniform policy on what’s banned and what might be fun alternatives.
I agree with this. Roblox is huge and often how kids of an age socialize/play. Teach them why mtx aren’t okay, and protect yourself from having to pay.
Get them into some irl stuff too. DND group, sports, book clubs, etc.
It’s a FOSS voxel engine, so they can play multiplayer with their friends for free. MineClone2 is a Minecraft clone on Minetest, so even if their friends don’t have Minecraft, they can still play with friends.
For paid games, consider indie games, as they’re less likely to be micro-transaction bullshit. Raft, Stardew Valley, Two Point Hospital are good options. Not so much multiplayer, but Stardew supports it. Multiplayer wise, maybe Among Us if the parents are comfortable with that.
Given that you’ve got some great answers already, there seems to be very few guides on how to deal with this sort of shit as a parent.
Gaming today is very different to what we grew up with, particularly microtransactions, and I think a lot of people would be surprised at how many kids spend insane amounts of money on things like FUT packs, VBucks, etc. Much of this is down to peer pressure, so saying shit like “my kid will never pay money on microtransactions” is wishful thinking.
Kids also have different attitudes on what constitutes value to them. So while parents see robux as total ripoff, kids don’t have the experience of playing a game and receiving the whole thing and not being expected to pay real money to skip the hard parts.
Kids aren’t the only ones who waste their money on frivolous gaming transactions though. Millions of adults by battlepasses for games or we wouldn’t have that crap in games either.
Yeah that’s why I let my kid do specific chores to earn money for mtx. So he has his dripfeed to support whatever costumes or other mtx he sees - but not enough to get truly addicted. Plus I have been very forward with him that the money he spends on mtx is literally worthless the moment he buys it - so I give him normal allowance at a higher rate than his small mtx earnings. My goal is to balance it out so he can have non-standard skins and not feel made fun of for it, but also not grow psychologically dependent on them like some kids.
I’m crumudgeony enough to remember when buying a game was buying a game. I disliked it when mobile games slowly changed into monitization via microtransactions. Heck, I remember buying games for full price and then they got changed to ftp overnight with mtx. That kind of stuff drove me nuts and I am firmly anti-mtx. That said, I let my kid earn money he can use on mtx for cosmetics and stuff on Fortnite. But it is a dedicated pool of money for mtx, his actual money kept separate so he can buy ice cream or save for bigger purchases without worry. Roblox on the other hand, is a company that exploits children for their labor to create the games and it hires psychologists to ensure kids dump as much money into it as possible all while having no moderation. Roblox is awful. Microtransactions in children’s games are harmful and exploitive. I’m letting my kid get a drip feed so he can get the little benefit from having non-stock costumes in fortnite while also having the learning experience that in games with mtx, you can never have enough - without him becoming a whale.
I’ve recently banned my kid from playing it too. I had only just unlocked it for the first time. I had previously blocked it because it was, IMHO, terrible. As a professional gamedev I find it offensively bad. But I relented, because lots of his friends were playing it. However, and this may be the experiences he was playing, it seems to be almost exclusively training kids up for gambling. Pretty much everything is dopamine based rewards. It’s like a casino. It’s worst than I ever imagined. I’m this close to banning online play in Minecraft because he is similarly gravitating to the same sort of experiences. In our case it’s not about money, he hasn’t spent a cent on these things. But the content is very problematic, I have concerns that it is encouraging developing minds that gambling is the norm.
It’s also just an extremely dangerous platform. They have a stock market, game mode development with children employing children (clearly neither one understands employment laws), and unsurprisingly a ton of pedophiles
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