There’s a Lack of Regulation and Support for Users, It Seems
Roblox is under fire, thanks to a Youtube channel investigation. This documentary centralized channel, called People Make Games, did an in-depth look as to how Roblox is taking advantage of its young player base.
Roblox, while it is free to play, has some practices that allow the company behind the game, Roblox Corporation, to make a profit. There’s the ability to monetize player creations, where Roblox takes a thirty percent cut on the marketplace. It’s a big commission take, though it is similar to what Steam reportedly takes. It doesn’t stop there, according to the YouTube report, and the details are enough to make any adult- and hopefully child- wince.
There was one reported case with one player and creator, Jack. This thirteen-year-old ended up making a hit game and making roughly about 200,000 Robux. That’s about roughly $700 USD. But here’s the kicker. While Jack did spend it on expensive items, Roblox doesn’t allow players to cash out for anything less than 100,000 Robux- meaning once he was below that point, even by a little bit, he could not take the rest of his money to use in the real world.
What’s more, a few months after Jack had bought these items, another developer shared a purported asset with Jack- which turned out to be a trojan. And when Jack lost his items to this developer taking his account and selling his items, Jack did what any other person would do: he reported it. And Roblox Support refused to help him because he supposedly sold the items himself. What’s more, for all that Jack did use a community-wide item, shared with the community and not considered to be taking or anything like that, Roblox took down his game for using the said tool.
This is very roughly the tip of the iceberg as covered by People Make Games. But this one example does show that there is a problem with Roblox. This is, after all, a game where many of its players are minors, and many don’t know how to protect themselves from exploitive practices like this.
All jokes aside, we should be thinking of the children.