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I don't have children, but friends and family do, and I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. This meant I heard about someone's child

I don't have children, but friends and family do, and I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. This meant I heard about someone's child playing Roblox and, thinking it was kindof an electronic construction set, ie a great learning and play tool,[0] I felt no concerns at all. To describe this interview as a 'car crash' is almost underselling it. I feel terrified. Most of all, what are my friends' and relatives' kids getting access to that they don't know about? [0] Wikipedia says, 'allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users.' That was the extent of my knowledge. It sounds great: very happy for kids to learn how to build things! Sure, I'd prefer they used Lego, but if they have to use mobiles then something where things are built and created is about as healthy as using mobile apps at a young age can be, right?

actionfromafar 11mo ago
Most of them don't build, but consume "content" from other people.
tinco 11mo ago
Easy way to know if Roblox is safe for children is to ask the following question: Is Roblox available on Nintendo? Nintendo would never turn away money, unless they feel it would damage their reputation as a company you can trust your children with. If they had believed Roblox was safe, they would have 100% taken that money.
- swores 11mo ago
  It may be a good enough simple test, especially for huge titles like Roblox, but I’ve worked with game developers whose titles would have been allowed by Nintendo but who decided it wasn’t worth the investment to create a port to publish for Nintendo devices - lots of games don’t release on all possible platforms for business reasons.
  - tinco 11mo ago
    Yeah, it's obviously just a crude razor. What I meant is that if it's not on Nintendo, it's a sign you should be more diligent as a parent. Obviously you should always monitor and ideally play the games your kids play yourself, but I can imagine not all parents do that. The Nintendo test is a reasonable alternative, my mom did it in the 90s and I had enough fun games even if I missed out on a bunch of cool PC and Sony titles.
    - swores 11mo ago
      Agreed, just thought worth pointing out to anyone reading your comment that a game not being on Nintendo doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not child-friendly (lots of people don’t realise that making a game work on different platforms involves actual dev work rather than just an equivalent of “file -> save as -> choose platform”)
- actionfromafar 11mo ago
  Interesting thought experiment - making a Nintendo approved version would put the finger on exactly all problems of "real" Roblox. (But strictly speaking, the logic only works in one direction "If Nintendo, then Safe". But "if not on Nintendo, then unsafe" is not strictly true but maybe good shorthand.) The interview makes me think of Dupont and Tǝflon. "You are giving thousands of people cancer in your community." "That's alright, think of the millions who love our products." "Carry on, sir."
  - mghackerlady 11mo ago
    They kinda tried with game builder garage a few years back, It keeps the whole game making and sharing aspect while limiting the damage user generated content can do such as limiting custom assets and needing to get the games number to download it to your system
- noitpmeder 11mo ago
  Most games out there are both simultaneously a) safe for kids and b) not available on Nintendo products.
- mschuster91 11mo ago
  > Nintendo would never turn away money, unless they feel it would damage their reputation as a company you can trust your children with. There's Doom 3 on the Nintendo Switch... so the lines are a bit blurry.
  - tinco 11mo ago
    Perhaps, maybe I'm a bad parent but I don't see anything particularly dangerous in Doom 3. It's PEGI 18, but probably fine for teenagers.
- jswelker 11mo ago
  Fortnite says hello! (But yes I generally agree with your point.)
yreg 11mo ago
Anything that's online and anything that has large multiplayer lobbies/worlds is inherently very low on the kid safety gauge, no?
- throwaway290 11mo ago
  nope, in many games there's no chat and any interaction between players is only within the rules of the game. it's very safe. you cannot stalk a kid or even know its a kid. somebody mentioned nintendo platform, see that for example
  - noitpmeder 11mo ago
    But most games have unrestricted chat, aside from maybe wordlist filters ... Wow, runescape, call of duty, battlefield, ... Didn't and don't they still all have basically unrestricted chat? Sure they might not be expressly marketed to kids, but everyone I knew was playing wow and runescape in elementary school with no issues.
    - mhast 11mo ago
      None of those games are made for children. Particularly not CoD and Battlefield. That doesn't mean kids don't want to play them. But Roblox is pitching itself as a safe space for kids.
  - yreg 11mo ago
    Fair enough, but I think creativity can usually escape the box and make it possible to communicate within the limitations imposed by the game. And if not, then what even is the value of playing online as opposed to locally with AIs? If children want to play together with their friends, isn't it much better to spin them a Minecraft server or such for friends they know from real life instead of playing games limiting them by "very narrowly specific interactions" anyway?
    - throwaway290 11mo ago
      No, there is no way. Yes it is hard to tell if it's ai. But humans play different. And also this is why anticheats exist. > If children want to play together with their friends, isn't it much better to spin them a Minecraft server or such for friends they know from real life instead of playing games limiting them by "very narrowly specific interactions" anyway? compared to roblox, sure. who would even argue against that? but there are many games where it really don't matter. it's probably most games... car racing sim... football sim... strategy like civilization...
watwut 11mo ago
Kids use roblox to play the kind of games kids love, but adults hate. They are basic, repetitive and adults dont find them educational or artistic enough. But kids love playing them. Note that whole your comment was about assumption it is education hidden in toy, which is what you want. But, kids often just want a toy.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 11mo ago
There are several documentaries on how Roblox explores children, relatively easy to find. Especially the whole virtual economy where they profit from children work, without giving anything back, due to how virtual money converts back to real currencies.
- mhast 11mo ago
  "People Make Games" on YouTube made some videos about it. Recommended watching for any parent who is trying to figure out if they should allow their child on Roblox. (Spoilers, the answer is "no".)
fidotron 11mo ago
It's very simple: if it's a company run service that's free to access it's because it's one massive commercial break. (So is news.ycombinator.com of course). How anyone on here does not immediately see Roblox for what it is is beyond me. They have to be one of the clearest cases around, and yet their PR apparently is strong enough you believed it was kid-friendly and kid-safe.
lll-o-lll 11mo ago
> I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. Yeah, no. I have kids and have walked this path over the last few years. Roblox is, as a company, your standard big org. That is, completely amoral, extracting cash in whatever ways are possible, protecting users (kids) only to the minimal extent required by law or perception that might harm business. Very very little of their user-base are actually making games, and of those, 99.99% are getting nothing for the work they put in. That whole side of things is one part of the scam (exploit the labour of kids with the idea of making it big, but ensure the reward tier is high enough to avoid needing to cash out for nearly everyone). This is the least problematic part though. Essentially, Roblox is the wild west internet I grew up on in the early 90’s. Sure, your friends are there, but it’s chock full of pedophiles offering candy if you just sign up to this discord channel. Free Robux might be the common lure, but they can be far more sophisticated. The sad fact that most parents don’t like to think about is that the pedo networks are large, sophisticated, and constantly, actively, hunting for any opportunity. Roblox is a platform of choice. The moderation and level of care from this company may as well be non-existent. It’s just enough to convince the public that they are doing the right thing. Then there is the never ending stream of gambling games. The currency is Roblox, and that can be converted to cold hard cash, so there are infinite games just built around trying to addict kids and use that to extract the almighty Robux. It’s every evil trick you see with mobile game trash, just sometimes more transparent. All in all, it’s a terrible place, but at first glance, fine. Your kid playing the popular games with their friends; it’s just like Nintendo. But wander off the happy path, just a little, and the monsters are waiting.
- agravier 11mo ago
  I'm interested in sources for your info about Roblox being choke full with pedos and the sophisticated techniques they employ.
  - lll-o-lll 11mo ago
    Because you doubt my comments or because you are genuinely interested? I can go get them, as there have been some great investigative journalists working on this in recent times. However, I have very little interest in providing references you could very easily find for yourself, if you are merely skeptical.
nitwit005 11mo ago
I find it puzzling you imagined tools for kids to build things to be somehow safe on its own. If a game provides the ability for kids to build things out of blocks, those same kids will make pornographic images out of those blocks.
- DonHopkins 11mo ago
  Enabling kids to make pornographic images out of blocks is not the same thing as enabling pedophiles to make pornographic images out of kids. Mythic Quest - TTP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew >You give the public a shovel, they dig dicks. You give them a pen, they draw dicks. You give them some clay... >Definitely going to sculpt dicks.
  - nitwit005 11mo ago
    Yes, those two things are obviously different. Also not a claim I made at all.
foogazi 11mo ago
After watching how my kid played Roblox I turned off messaging and never dropped a dime on it
Ancapistani 11mo ago
> I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. I have a 12-year-old playing Roblox right now, couldn’t agree less. Roblox is the 2025 equivalent of AOL chat rooms circa 1998. You should assume that a child playing it will encounter the worst of humanity, and if you aren’t aware of that you’re not paying attention.

actionfromafar 11mo ago

Most of them don't build, but consume "content" from other people.

tinco 11mo ago

Easy way to know if Roblox is safe for children is to ask the following question: Is Roblox available on Nintendo? Nintendo would never turn away money, unless they feel it would damage their reputation as a company you can trust your children with. If they had believed Roblox was safe, they would have 100% taken that money.

swores 11mo ago
It may be a good enough simple test, especially for huge titles like Roblox, but I’ve worked with game developers whose titles would have been allowed by Nintendo but who decided it wasn’t worth the investment to create a port to publish for Nintendo devices - lots of games don’t release on all possible platforms for business reasons.
- tinco 11mo ago
  Yeah, it's obviously just a crude razor. What I meant is that if it's not on Nintendo, it's a sign you should be more diligent as a parent. Obviously you should always monitor and ideally play the games your kids play yourself, but I can imagine not all parents do that. The Nintendo test is a reasonable alternative, my mom did it in the 90s and I had enough fun games even if I missed out on a bunch of cool PC and Sony titles.
  - swores 11mo ago
    Agreed, just thought worth pointing out to anyone reading your comment that a game not being on Nintendo doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not child-friendly (lots of people don’t realise that making a game work on different platforms involves actual dev work rather than just an equivalent of “file -> save as -> choose platform”)
actionfromafar 11mo ago
Interesting thought experiment - making a Nintendo approved version would put the finger on exactly all problems of "real" Roblox. (But strictly speaking, the logic only works in one direction "If Nintendo, then Safe". But "if not on Nintendo, then unsafe" is not strictly true but maybe good shorthand.) The interview makes me think of Dupont and Tǝflon. "You are giving thousands of people cancer in your community." "That's alright, think of the millions who love our products." "Carry on, sir."
- mghackerlady 11mo ago
  They kinda tried with game builder garage a few years back, It keeps the whole game making and sharing aspect while limiting the damage user generated content can do such as limiting custom assets and needing to get the games number to download it to your system
noitpmeder 11mo ago
Most games out there are both simultaneously a) safe for kids and b) not available on Nintendo products.
mschuster91 11mo ago
> Nintendo would never turn away money, unless they feel it would damage their reputation as a company you can trust your children with. There's Doom 3 on the Nintendo Switch... so the lines are a bit blurry.
- tinco 11mo ago
  Perhaps, maybe I'm a bad parent but I don't see anything particularly dangerous in Doom 3. It's PEGI 18, but probably fine for teenagers.
jswelker 11mo ago
Fortnite says hello! (But yes I generally agree with your point.)

yreg 11mo ago

Anything that's online and anything that has large multiplayer lobbies/worlds is inherently very low on the kid safety gauge, no?

throwaway290 11mo ago
nope, in many games there's no chat and any interaction between players is only within the rules of the game. it's very safe. you cannot stalk a kid or even know its a kid. somebody mentioned nintendo platform, see that for example
- noitpmeder 11mo ago
  But most games have unrestricted chat, aside from maybe wordlist filters ... Wow, runescape, call of duty, battlefield, ... Didn't and don't they still all have basically unrestricted chat? Sure they might not be expressly marketed to kids, but everyone I knew was playing wow and runescape in elementary school with no issues.
  - mhast 11mo ago
    None of those games are made for children. Particularly not CoD and Battlefield. That doesn't mean kids don't want to play them. But Roblox is pitching itself as a safe space for kids.
- yreg 11mo ago
  Fair enough, but I think creativity can usually escape the box and make it possible to communicate within the limitations imposed by the game. And if not, then what even is the value of playing online as opposed to locally with AIs? If children want to play together with their friends, isn't it much better to spin them a Minecraft server or such for friends they know from real life instead of playing games limiting them by "very narrowly specific interactions" anyway?
  - throwaway290 11mo ago
    No, there is no way. Yes it is hard to tell if it's ai. But humans play different. And also this is why anticheats exist. > If children want to play together with their friends, isn't it much better to spin them a Minecraft server or such for friends they know from real life instead of playing games limiting them by "very narrowly specific interactions" anyway? compared to roblox, sure. who would even argue against that? but there are many games where it really don't matter. it's probably most games... car racing sim... football sim... strategy like civilization...

watwut 11mo ago

Kids use roblox to play the kind of games kids love, but adults hate. They are basic, repetitive and adults dont find them educational or artistic enough. But kids love playing them. Note that whole your comment was about assumption it is education hidden in toy, which is what you want. But, kids often just want a toy.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

pjmlp 11mo ago

There are several documentaries on how Roblox explores children, relatively easy to find. Especially the whole virtual economy where they profit from children work, without giving anything back, due to how virtual money converts back to real currencies.

mhast 11mo ago
"People Make Games" on YouTube made some videos about it. Recommended watching for any parent who is trying to figure out if they should allow their child on Roblox. (Spoilers, the answer is "no".)

fidotron 11mo ago

It's very simple: if it's a company run service that's free to access it's because it's one massive commercial break. (So is news.ycombinator.com of course). How anyone on here does not immediately see Roblox for what it is is beyond me. They have to be one of the clearest cases around, and yet their PR apparently is strong enough you believed it was kid-friendly and kid-safe.

lll-o-lll 11mo ago

> I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. Yeah, no. I have kids and have walked this path over the last few years. Roblox is, as a company, your standard big org. That is, completely amoral, extracting cash in whatever ways are possible, protecting users (kids) only to the minimal extent required by law or perception that might harm business. Very very little of their user-base are actually making games, and of those, 99.99% are getting nothing for the work they put in. That whole side of things is one part of the scam (exploit the labour of kids with the idea of making it big, but ensure the reward tier is high enough to avoid needing to cash out for nearly everyone). This is the least problematic part though. Essentially, Roblox is the wild west internet I grew up on in the early 90’s. Sure, your friends are there, but it’s chock full of pedophiles offering candy if you just sign up to this discord channel. Free Robux might be the common lure, but they can be far more sophisticated. The sad fact that most parents don’t like to think about is that the pedo networks are large, sophisticated, and constantly, actively, hunting for any opportunity. Roblox is a platform of choice. The moderation and level of care from this company may as well be non-existent. It’s just enough to convince the public that they are doing the right thing. Then there is the never ending stream of gambling games. The currency is Roblox, and that can be converted to cold hard cash, so there are infinite games just built around trying to addict kids and use that to extract the almighty Robux. It’s every evil trick you see with mobile game trash, just sometimes more transparent. All in all, it’s a terrible place, but at first glance, fine. Your kid playing the popular games with their friends; it’s just like Nintendo. But wander off the happy path, just a little, and the monsters are waiting.

agravier 11mo ago
I'm interested in sources for your info about Roblox being choke full with pedos and the sophisticated techniques they employ.
- lll-o-lll 11mo ago
  Because you doubt my comments or because you are genuinely interested? I can go get them, as there have been some great investigative journalists working on this in recent times. However, I have very little interest in providing references you could very easily find for yourself, if you are merely skeptical.

nitwit005 11mo ago

I find it puzzling you imagined tools for kids to build things to be somehow safe on its own. If a game provides the ability for kids to build things out of blocks, those same kids will make pornographic images out of those blocks.

DonHopkins 11mo ago
Enabling kids to make pornographic images out of blocks is not the same thing as enabling pedophiles to make pornographic images out of kids. Mythic Quest - TTP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew >You give the public a shovel, they dig dicks. You give them a pen, they draw dicks. You give them some clay... >Definitely going to sculpt dicks.
- nitwit005 11mo ago
  Yes, those two things are obviously different. Also not a claim I made at all.

foogazi 11mo ago

After watching how my kid played Roblox I turned off messaging and never dropped a dime on it

Ancapistani 11mo ago

> I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. I have a 12-year-old playing Roblox right now, couldn’t agree less. Roblox is the 2025 equivalent of AOL chat rooms circa 1998. You should assume that a child playing it will encounter the worst of humanity, and if you aren’t aware of that you’re not paying attention.