My brother and I started playing Grounded together as a way to just chill and catch up throughout the week. We were shocked with how much content was actually in the game. It’s like Valheim mixed with Honey I Shrunk The Kids, 4 player online coop, base building, survival. It has a storyline so there’s always a sense of direction and it syncs the world with everyone regardless of who plays so it’s easy to just come and go. I could definitely see a group of 10 year olds getting sucked into this.
Besides the obvious Minecraft recommendation, maybe Terraria, Satisfactory, and if you’re willing to allow it, something like Smite would be another good option for him to play with his friends.
Microtransactions aside, if you’re trying to protect your kids from creeps online you’re gonna have to ban every platform that supports interactions with strangers. This includes several other games you’ve mentioned in the comments including Minecraft.
Personally, instead of banning it I just play it with my kids on a regular basis. There’s plenty of actually decent games on Roblox and it enables game ideas that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. My favourite is the Ikea survival game.
Definitely have to get him Valheim, and they have an Xbox version now. Also, not multiplayer, but Kerbal Space Program is pretty fun. I have only played the PC version though, so can’t speak to the console version.
What might be a good idea is to try Game Pass for a few months and see what they settle on. Then for Birthdays or Christmas, get them the games they played the most. Not sure how parental controls are like on it, but I hope they exists.
That being said, outside of Nintendo, there aren’t many Online games which don’t demand their users to pay for cosmetics with fake in game currency. See CTR Nitro Fuelled, Fortnight, Call of Duty, Overwatch and Minecraft skins.
With that said if changing your system isn’t an option, Minecraft Bedrock Edition the only game I am familiar with. There is a skin store, but you can’t earn in game currency from just playing (from my knowledge). So if they don’t have access to the credit card, they won’t be tempted, plus the base game has enough options that you can customize your character well enough.
If you can get a switch (and friends have one already), Splatoon 2/3, Mario Kart 8, and Animal Crossing are all friendly non-microtransaction laden games.
Has Nintendo made their online system any less crappy lately? Do they have voice chat or is it still “Use discord”? I say this as a lifetime player of Nintendo games. In the meantime, I’ve got like 3 years of Game Pass because I did the xbox live upgrade to get it for cheap.
Please don’t make people play fall guys anymore. Epic has run that thing into the ground by laying off most of their creative team and basically deleting levels and over-monetizing cosmetics
For everyone saying OP should let their kid play Roblox and just ban spending money… just no.
Roblox exploits child labor for profit and they have terrible scummy business practices. If you have even marginal ethical qualms about child labor and/or capitalistic exploitation of vulnerable people, you should be keeping yourself and your family away from Roblox. In your mind they should be in the same category as multilevel marketing, crypto scams and door-to-door religion peddlers.
I actually think it’s fair to call them child predators. They’re exploiting kids for money instead of sexual gratification, but it’s the same power dynamic. Child exploitation is their business model.
My son just turned 6 and I was thinking of looking at the game (my sone really likes actual Lego, and his buddies are into Minecraft and Roblox), but another parent at a bday party a few weeks back asked if we played, and then warned my that I needed to keep a close eye on it, because the suggested games algo was pushing really sketch things to his daughter.
So I started looking and decided the shopping aspect was something I didn’t want to expose him to yet. But these revelations are making me glad we haven’t yet used it and never will.
Roblox sells the idea that you can actually make money with it, it has its own economy with job hunting and salaries. Mario Maker is just a community game.
Nearly everyone knows a bunch of skills “for nothing” or, worse, for fun! Gasp! Shocking, isn’t it?
Also, did you know that modding is a thing at least since the 90s? You know, people that made modifications to games without expecting any financial return or job opportunities? People must be crazy if they’re putting so much effort just to have fun and share it, amirite?
I couldn’t stop myself from being sarcastic there, sorry. The utter cynicism struck me so hard I didn’t know where to begin explaining how wrongheaded I think people are being about that. I would for sure prefer Roblox not encourage mtx so much but sheesh man. I don’t think Timmy is trying to make the next Genshin Impact.
Intent makes a big difference. The value of Roblox as a platform and as a business is based on the work done by children to develop for it, and it was set up that way on purpose. They created an incentive model to encourage it.
Nintendo’s value as a company is not based on kids creating Mario Maker levels, nor does Nintendo push kids to do so with the promise of earning money.
Considering the newest Mario game got a shitload of ideas from Mario maker levels, anyone who was good at mario making enough to be creative with the formula had their labor stolen as RnD for Wonder
Nobody dangles a carrot of earning money in front of potential FOSS developers. Nobody goes into FOSS thinking they’re going to get a big payout.
FOSS is not pay-to-play. There’s no equivalent to Robux for FOSS developers.
FOSS developers are consenting adults who volunteer their time for freely distributed software projects, not kids creating content for a video game company that charges them for access and then makes a profit from their work.
I’m still confused as to why you guys don’t just ban the spending of money on micro transactions and not the game itself? Every game is jam PACKED with mtx these days, from CoD to Fortnite to Forza.
It builds character! Lol but, yeah phasmo is too intense for many of my adult friends, even.
Out of curiosity, do you generally know what he was doing on Roblox? I’ve heard of several horror games being remade within Roblox, such as Iron Lung. I’ve wondered what the limitations are. I definitely remember stumbling into some intense things when I was around that age, but the landscape is so different now
He was wasting time playing shitty games because his other friends played those same shitty games. I was taken aback at how mind numbingly shitty those games were. We were in the same room as an Xbox with gamepass and a Nintendo Switch and he chose to play some seriously bad games instead because his friend was addicted to it. Then he became addicted to it. Luckily, that whole friends group will now have much, much better games to play.
Personally, I want my kid to be able to buy a few things every now and then. Roblox got the axe for multiple reasons - mtx was only one aspect. He gets a vbuck or two with his allowance if he wants to earn them. It helps him get a healthy view of how little mtx are really worth, but a cosmetic here or there is kind of fun.
Oh duh. Also, I forgot you said it was because you didn’t feel the gameplay/game itself was quality enough, which is fair enough, but I’m not too familiar with Roblox as I’ve never played it.
peer pressure. I fell for it in my TF2 days in high school. A buck there a few bucks there, all for a hat with particle effects that I never got. All because one of my friends I was playing with had one, and I wanted one too.
I learned a valuable lesson, but I was also 15/16 and had the ability of self reflection (and wanting to get Skyrim for $5 instead of a key). Can’t expect this level of self control from most teenagers, let alone a 10 year old.
Roblox is well-known for predatory practices aimed at children, and predatory behavior from other users who may or may not be looking for children to abuse.
Banning Roblox entirely seems like a very reasonable thing to do IMO.
Minecraft is pretty good for this kind of stuff, especially Java Edition (has mods, and loooooads of servers, some of which also use mods to drastically alter the gameplay. You can also host your own, free of charge).
If you want to get them something low level cheap, AMD small form factor pcs with integrated Radeon can be had for cheap (easily under $200 if you are patient). One of my kid plays on one of these and with a few performance mods on minecraft does 30fps just fine.
Even raspberry pi 4/5 are amazingly capable of playing minecraft 1080p. I wonder how much better linux gaming support there is on those now since the steamdeck has been a success…
Coincidentally they got banned from Roblox at the same time! One of them dumped $50 in an afternoon on the game then had the audacity to ask for more money. So his whole social circle got booted from that cesspit on the same day. Me and their parents are trying to find good substitutes.
This is some good context. I’m not too familiar with roblox but I understand it’s more of a platform than a single game. How are they accessing microtransactions? If that can’t be prevented than that’s a bigger problem.
From my understanding, that kid was given an apple giftcard so it didnt actually hit his parent’s credit cards. I monitor my kid’s microtransactions and I give him opportunities to earn money he can use for microtransactions of his choosings.
Wait so you let them use the money how they wanted and now you’re mad at them for spending it how they wanted and how you told them…?
That’s a fucked up lesson and a half, you clearly didn’t learn your lesson and are now teaching the kid they will be punished for following instructions.
My kid didn’t do the microtransaction fuckup. He just got addicted to a shitty game that me and his friends’ parents also hated. One of his friends burnt a pile of cash which instigated all of us saying that it is time to end it. I mentioned this several times now in the thread.
Yeah you mentioned the kid spent their gift card how they wanted with permission from their parents, and you do the same thing, and is now being punished for it. Thats shitty parenting, you’re not banning them because they spent a little money.
This was just the excuse you needed, be a better parent and don’t make up shit.
You started you post off just making fun of the game, we know your biased intent here.
You said a kid blew a gift card, and you let your kid spent money on microtransactions already. This is called a parallel, you don’t seem to comprehend you let your kid already do this as well…. What difference does the game make? You already let it happen, fornite, Roblox, Minecraft no difference. Yet you took offense to one single game.
The issue here is your parenting, it has nothing to do with the game, you said it yourself lmfao.
That other commentor is a child or clearly never grew up. The internet is definitely not the same as when I was younger, kids don’t have the understanding of money or knowledge of predatory psychological techniques that are used to make vulnerable people, or children, part ways with what they have earned.
You sound like a great dad who’s taking an interest and involvement in your kids hobbies and I love that. There needs to be some sort of course, or game would probably be better, designed to teach children about the sort of things we see these days.
Personally I’m pretty susceptible to that sort of stuff so I use adblock and try to shy away from gacha type things. Microtransactions are hell.
Roblox is a money-grubbing cesspit filled with manipulation. Even if you do close off the MTX route, it opens the door for someone to send a virus and say it'll get you free Robux (the Roblox in-game currency)
That kid is now known as the kid who got Roblox banned among their group of friends, not a nice thing to known for. This will be seen as a punishment by them regardless of how you frame it especially once the other kids at their school become aware of it.
Ouch. Good luck navigating this one as your kids get older.
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