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Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper.

People Make Games

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  • Recommended by 9 people: 9 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by Quintin Smith, Journalist
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

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7.9M views4 years ago9 recommendations

Game developmentCareers and interviewsGame designInside tech companiesThe tech industry

Quintin Smith investigates Roblox's business model, detailing how the platform exploits young game developers and fails to protect them.

Following our last video on Roblox, players and creators began getting in touch with their own stories to share. Here are some of those stories. Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/PeopleMakeGames Original video: youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ& Our response to Ecoscratcher's blog: youtube.com/watch?v=My9U413G3hI Ecoscratcher's blog: medium.com/@ecoscratcher/investigation-how-roblox-isnt-explo… Written and presented by Quintin Smith: twitter.com/Quinns108 Design and art direction by Anni Sayers: twitter.com/anni_sayers - Intro - Roblox's Unregulated Managers - Moderation & Child Safety - Roblox's Collectible Market - Roblox's Black Markets - Some Kind Of Conclusion

Why it's here

9 people recommend this, 6 dispute it

What people say. Recommended as a damning investigation into Roblox's business practices, developer exploitation, and moderation failures.

philistineon Hacker News • Recommends

On “It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over”

Watch both People Make Games video about Roblox and try to argue that the company should not deserve all the public controversy it is getting. They are actively stalling any moderation and protection because their profit margin would be severely diminished. Children's safety versus money, the choice is oh so simple. link link to this video
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josephgon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Twitter’s founder admits that shutting down the API was “worst thing we did””

…see themselves as holding any sort of responsibility to the broader society that pays their bills. It’s like someone watched The Corporation and thought - “oh companies can get away with sociopathic behaviour? I want in!”. Doing harm to the world in the name of your bottom line doesn’t make you clever. It makes you the villain. (Video in question: link to this video )…
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DerArzton Hacker News • Recommends

On “Roblox October Outage Postmortem”

To add, there is a nice documentary here1 which also has a followup2 that show even more of the issue at hand. Kids making games and only getting 24.5% of the profit is one thing, but everything else that Roblox does is much worse. 1 link 2 link to this video
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gorjusborgon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour”

The 'People Make Games' videos discuss this: link to this video Essentially, Roblox has made the decision that they are only responsible for interactions that happen on their platform. Parents may be letting their children develop games thinking that it's a cute hobby. Roblox knows that there are game companies wooing child devs and doing shady stuff that can be potentially harmful to them. They are not doing anything to stop the practices because they aren't technically on their platform . But the whole interaction is around making games for their platform. So they may potentially not be legally be at fault, but it does seem that they are making a lot of money, albeit indirectly, from turning a blind…
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AlexandrBon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok”

Like most adults, most of what I know about Roblox comes secondhand from the media. Recently I saw1 a pretty damning video about Roblox's lack of moderation and exploitation of its users. My basic perception at this point is that TikTok, Facebook, and Roblox all deserve each other. Hopefully they waste their money attacking each other until they mutually self-destruct. 1 link to this video
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fabianhjron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Problems at Roblox”

There are two video investigations from People Make Games into economic aspects of Roblox in particular child labor/exploitation and monopolistic aspirations via platform capitalism. 1. Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers ( link ) 2. Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. ( link to this video )
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pull_my_fingeron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Roblox sued for allegedly enabling young girl’s sexual, financial exploitation”

Some interesting related investigation (I think they mention this girl in the second video) related to roblox is anyone is interested. I had never used it, but after seeing these I don't think I would ever use it or encourage anyone to use it. link link to this video
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shagieon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access”

People Make Games is one of the YouTube channels that I respect in this domain... Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - link Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - link to this video
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followeron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?”

The YouTube channel "People Make Games" has a couple of reports that I'd suggest parents consider watching first before going down that road: * "Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers": link * "Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper.": link to this video
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intsunnyon Hacker News • Disputes

On “Meta plans ‘Zuck bucks’ virtual coins for Facebook and Instagram users”

According to this The Verge 0 article: “Instead, Meta is leaning towards introducing in-app tokens that would be centrally controlled by the company, similar to those used in gaming apps such as the Robux currency in popular children’s game Roblox,” according to the FT. Roblox has built a huge business selling Robux, and Meta could try to emulate some of that success on its own platforms." And let us not forget how incredibly manipulative and insidious Roblox is: "Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper." link to this video 0 link edit: typo
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felixg3on Hacker News • Disputes

On “Unity to lay off 8% of its workforce”

Cool, sell your soul to a corporation that literally exploits minors 13. Of course they can afford to pay Silicon Valley salaries, given that most of the game development is done by sub-subcontracted child labour 2. 1 link 2 link to this video 3 link
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ethanholt1on Hacker News • Disputes

On “Roblox players to start seeing video ads in its virtual realms”

Roblox has been on a constant downward trend. They’ve been doing some pretty awful stuff, including exploitation of children developers 0, unregulated market which encourages kids to gamble, lackluster moderation allowing kids to be harassed or worse, both 1 and allowing manipulative and predatory games on their site 2. 0 link 1 link to this video 2 link
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dbg31415on Hacker News • Disputes

On “Roblox Requires Age Checks for Communication, Ushering in New Safety Standard”

Remember, Roblox is toxic and exploits young people. - Roblox Isn't a Game | Psychology Today // link - Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - YouTube // link - Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - YouTube // link to this video Roblox is Darker Than You Think (ft. Ruben Sim) - YouTube // link
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sitkackon Hacker News • Disputes

On “Roblox CEO interview about child safety didn't go well”

…eaf, if I were the the board, I'd remove them all. I watched Baszucki and This is in addition to the money laundering and dystopian hellscape that is the whole game publishing platform that has been documented here on hn. Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers link Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. link to this video My own child says that no parent should allow their child on Roblox. Smart kid.…
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amiga386on Hacker News • Disputes

On “Roblox Is Minting Teen Millionaires”

Roblox turns a blind eye to child exploitation (whether being creeped on by adults, or being exploited by teens/adults to make games) and makes a fortune out of it. If it weren't online, it'd be illegal and people would be in jail. link link to this video
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cupcake-unicornon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Be curious, not judgmental”

…a lawsuit. Many times the problem is incredibly complex and while some people, even C level people may be all for providing this transparency it breaks down at scale and the company is at the end of the day beholden to its own interests and perpetuating itself. I recently saw this video on YouTube about some of the shadiness going on with Roblox: link to this video The official answers they are giving is basically meaningless legalese and that's becoming more and more common. As I said before since Roblox isn't entering into this conversation in good faith the only way to force that conversation would be legal actions. Any kinds of laws further aligning the needs of clients/the general populace agains…
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