I hate Roblox. Their Android game somehow goes around Google account settings and allows kids to buy “Robux” for real money without authentication for payments (and, of course, makes this easy to do by accident). Furthermore, this real money can go into a temp account without an email address, so if you delete the app without creating a proper account, your money is unrecoverable. Their “customer support” is very unhelpful. We try to be liberal yet sane when it comes to technology for kids, but Roblox is prohibited for our children.
Forget the kids and ignore the odds. Any game taking real money is a scam.
(No that doesn’t mean buying games. No that doesn’t mean subscriptions. No that doesn’t mean expansions. No that doesn’t mean card games. No that doesn’t mean arcades. Jesus Christ, do people find a lot of ways to get mad about nonsense, whenever I say this.)
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. Absolutely fucking nothing. All possible forms are abuse, built on how games by definition invent value for worthless elements that can be arbitrarily granted or withheld. That is what makes them games.
The business model is intolerable - and if we allow it to continue, there will be nothing else. It’s the dominant strategy. Your disgust and non-participation will never outweigh some tiny fraction of people getting taken for obscene quantities of real money in exchange for incrementing a variable. It’s in free mobile trash. It’s in $70 “AAA” flagship-franchise titles. It’s in single-player, multi-player, subscription MMOs - it’s in everything. There is zero incentive for them not to try robbing you like this. Companies that don’t rob you will make less money than companies that do.
Only legislation can fix this.
Ban the entire business model. (No that doesn’t mean games. No that doesn’t mean content. Jesus Christ, am I tired of dealing with pearl-clutching nonsense, just to say “fuck lootboxes.”)
Overt abuse gets disguised. It’s still abuse. All they’re getting better at is how deep the hooks can slide before people notice.
Content is the bait on this hook. All it’s doing is disguising the abuse. The abuse remains. The abuse is the entire point. The abuse is the only part that makes money.
This business model is a threat to the entire medium, and the only real solution is dead simple. We will be fine without it. We will only be fine, without it.
Lootboxes aren’t “buying content.” Buying a game, is. Buying DLC, is. Gambling on a hat that’s already in the game you’re playing is plainly something different, and increasingly, that’s the only source of revenue.
This is not theoretical. We’re already in a stupid sci-fi future where four-billion-dollar games can be “”“free”“” and somehow convince people to spend thousands of dollars apiece on a deluge of random bullshit which is also allegedly free. And it’s not even possible to have a sane argument about this shit-show, because people pretend they don’t understand the thing all these games do.
I want video games to make money the way they did in 2008.
Do you have an opinion about that?
If it goes ‘then games would magically look like 2008 forever,’ stop.
If it goes ‘but then they’d make 2008 kinds of money,’ stop.
This is new. This is bad. This is spreading. We should stop it.
if a scumbag billionaire wants to do it and feels like they can get away with it, they’re going to do it.
if a dozen or so executives at a corporation think they can get away with it, they’ll do it. That’s why there’s microtransactions in $80 games. I still remember hearing about the first $60 games with microtransactions in them and now these fuckers are trying to charge over $100 for an unfinished game where the only things that work in it are from microtransactions.
The wild thing is, people still buy them. “The gameplay is derivative and insipid, it was delivered buggy and unfinished, it’s barely different than the last one they published, and the business model is outright predatory.”
I will never understand. I for myself simply ignore games with micro transactions at this point with the only exception of games that have exclusively cosmetic stuff as micro transactions. Fuck pay to win!
But I’m not going to buy any of the fallen order games for at least 2 years. the bugs will be worked out and the deluxe versions will be a much lower price by then
What are the micro-transactions for? Are you at a huge disadvantage by not spending money? What is the game even about? I thought it was just a bunch of kids derping around and building things.
Roblox is a platform where some users create games and other players play them. It’s grown to be a pretty powerful platform/engine, but is now significantly more complex than it used to.
Roblox has the ability for users to add micro-transactions to their game. Essentially, users get a small portion of the micro-transactions back as real-world currency. It’s up to users/developers who make those games to choose what players get in exchange for these micro-transactions.
As far as I can tell, the quality of games has dramatically increased since I quit. My guess would be that the users/developers making games are now adults, and the players are still kids.
Roblox is a sandbox game sort of like Minecraft, but with way more power given to third-party developers and users to develop and distribute content in it. What you’d consider mods for other games are the whole point of Roblox, and MTX can be implemented by those third-party developers using “Robux” as a currency. The MTX can be your usual MTX fare of skins and power-ups, but also often abused for less ethical purposes, like gambling mechanics. The fact that Robux can be cashed out for real money via official and unofficial methods mean that’s it’s ripe for abuse.
Update: Also, I wasn’t aware of this before the article, but apparently gambling sites have figured out a method to link a Roblox account to their external sites, and then use the user’s Robux wallet as currency in their illegal online casinos.
Update: Also, I wasn’t aware of this before the article, but apparently gambling sites have figured out a method to link a Roblox account to their external sites, and then use the user’s Robux wallet as currency in their illegal online casinos.
Not neceserally but I think it has the same issue as say the google play store. IE roblox promotes the games do the best at extracting profit. There’s lots of games that are well thought out that don’t make much money. and they are burried somewhere on page 50+ hidden between a bunch of thrown together test projects etc…
Yeah, people online have been talking for a long time about how exploitive Roblox is. However, it’s still very popular and I know many parents who let their kids play it. I think most parents just think it’s like Minecraft, and don’t realize the effect micro transactions has.
I’m a bachelor in my 30’s, Roblox wouldn’t have been targeted at me, but my children…which I don’t have. So the first I heard of Roblox was a Youtube video essay titled something to the effect of “I made a video about how exploitative Roblox is, and then it got worse.”
I think the critical part here is that 3rd parties can cash out in-game currency, which makes money laundering possible. With big game publishers the money can only flow into their own pockets with microtransactions.
The lawsuit alleged that Roblox was in violation of its own terms of service, which states that “experiences that include simulated gambling, including playing with virtual chips, simulated betting, or exchanging real money, Robux, or in-experience items of value are not allowed.”
According to the lawsuit, Roblox users, most of whom are minors, “first purchase Robux through the Roblox website, using either their own money, a parent’s credit card, or gift cards they possess.”
The minor then “navigates to one of the” three aforementioned sites’ “virtual casinos” that “exist outside the Roblox ecosystem,” according to court papers.
“Then, the user links their Robux wallet on Roblox’s website to the gambling website,” the court documents alleged.
“And finally, once the minor-user’s wallet is linked, the gambling website converts the minor user’s Robux into credit that can only be wagered in their virtual casinos,” according to the lawsuit.
“The gambling credits function just like chips in a brick and mortar casino,” the defendants alleged in court papers.
“Users ‘buy in’ using their Robux, obtain chips, gamble until they lose their money or wish to cash out, and, if they increase their credits, they cash those credits out in exchange for Robux,” the lawsuit alleged.
“This entire exchange of Robux occurs on the Roblox platform with Roblox’s knowledge and active support, and Robux never leave the Roblox ecosystem unless and until they are cashed out for fiat currency,” according to court documents.
Please point out the click bait, I’m not seeing it
The fact that none of the gambling is happening on their site? The fact that saying it's not allowed isn't magic that allows them to instantly identify bad actors?
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