As fair as the prices are for the effort you guys put into it, being from the third world does limit the amount of money I can send your way. Really hoping you guys look into some sort of regional pricing. If not I'll continue to support other ways by turning off adblock.
I don’t have much experience with Roblox, but my son (7) asked me to download it a few weeks ago. I did and I immediately hated it. We played a map that was advertised to be okay for 6 years olds and what did we find: machineguns. I don’t mind my son playing a game with guns if it’s lighthearted, but I felt the age indicator wasn’t really worth anything. The next map we played was an obstacle course and everytime my son fell down the game offered a buff for Robux (real money) to make the game easier. It was worse than a mobile game. I uninstalled Roblox after that.
I am a parent that has a son that makes Roblox games, and I would say I am okay with him making his own game but I also do watch what he does. Some of the responsibilities as a parent is to let the child to explore these different things like making video games so that way the have a better chance of figuring out what to do with their lives sooner. I also think it is my responsibility as a parent to look over what they are doing as kids and make sure they are being safe and explain the importance of online safety to them as well.
Especially considering how often corporations keep you in the dark of unions, let alone demonizing them so that you're always at the mercy of the bosses.
we all need phones. kids can make phones. and they get money, and a phone. and plus those little parts in the phone are best put together with little hands.
I think the idea that kids can have fun learning how to code, but Roblox is triple dipping by taking a cut when you buy the roblox, taking a cut when you sell a mod, then taking another account when you sell your roblox for cash. There needs to be some time of protection against predatory inclinations of these companies, especially when kids are involved. Won't somebody please think of the children.
The predatory action here is how they pay kids. . . only for those kids to spend their earnings on the sites own "premium currency" called robux. The real protection needs to start with locking all in-game purchases/microtransactions behind M-Rated titles only. M-rating has limitations in regards to marketing and legality in certain countries/regions. Kids aren't mature enough to know the value of a dollar. So it's exploitative to put these nickel and dime tactics infront of them.
Also whats stopping roblox from slowly over time increasing there share from the sale and when you cash out. them being the holder of everything is not a good structure. Honestly whats stopping roblox from being bought out and the new owner changing the deal and making it so people can't cash out for real money. No corperation should control 100% of the chain of commerce and roblox does control all of this one.
@@drayle71 I think that much comes down to "job protections" moreso than an issue of "protecting minors". Frame it in your mind like this: "How would this issue apply if the devs in question were 30 or 40 instead of children? Would the issue not be a problem in that scenario then?" if the answer is "no, it would still be an issue" then the problem is that GENERAL labor protections aren't good enough and it doesn't actually have anything to do with the age of the person doing the labor in question. The problem is, the person doing it, regardless of their age, just isn't protected from malpractice. My issue is more so on how kids will just spend money recklessly because they lack the maturity to know how to resist the urge of spending all their cash on stuff that is over-priced. Companies shouldn't be legally allowed to take advantage of that. I saw too many bad parents enabling bad habits and the kids end up worse off for it.
If Roblox didn't have so many ways to monetize every single step of the way I would look at this no differently than any other game engine, or macromedia flash, or whatever back in the day. Kids yearn to create and giving them a platform is nothing but good. But the way the system works to make Roblox money is pretty gross.
There are 2 *big* problems here. A) Roblox development is such a very specific skill set that has more to do with fighting the Roblox system than any skills that can be pushed forward to another toolset. Saying "oh, they're learning gamedev skills" implies that they can use those skills in another field. B) the reason so many people who make money on Roblox are over 18 is because Roblox has "companies" that are run by someone who is good at the marketing half, and then they outsource the labor to other kids and then pay them a pittance and nothing in the system enforces the "employees" even get paid at all.
@@fica1137 the data is based on the age of the people being paid as the "owners" of the "companies". The problem is that the people being paid don't have to be the people actually doing the work. I highly recommend People Make Game's video on the topic.
I don't know what to say. Honestly learning how hard earning money is good, it is just something about roblox feels so skeezy. For me I think with a "normal" job in a wealthy country, the children are protected by the law and with roblox, it is just the company setting the rules with 0 oversight.
I was involved with mods from the age of about ~11 before I got into the industry properly. Arguably that added value to games that weren't paying us (and monetising mods was *heavily* frowned upon back then). There's definitely some nuance to this situation, but from a gut response I'm disgusted to see a megacorp profiting off work from children.
ultimately Roblox is only so powerful because our education systems are so bereft of anything even remotely passion driven. Leaving it to corps to teach kids what they WANT to learn is just beyond silly
If the kid wants to do it, I see no problem in it, it's a great way to learn a lot of stuff and I think it should be encouraged. I wish I started working sooner.
It's a slippery slope, because on one hand you can justify it by saying they're learning skills and earning some money, but at the end of the day it is what it is. If they're allowed small concessions again and again we wind up with situations where we have digital sweatshop conditions.
But then, people that squandered their opportunity to party at their school don't regret the wasted time. Those that partied at the dances, proms, or whatever? They all strung themselves out.
Bored now, fun later, fun now, bored later. You can easily do worse than modding for fun and earning a pittance. School, imo, only gives a sense of responsibility and social skills
I started programming in Basic at the age of 9 until like 12 then I stopped till I was a senior in high school and took AP Computers with Pascal and C++ (I knew Pascal before being a senior) and took the AP Test both A&B (forgot what my scores were) in 1991 and have not programmed since.
I don’t consider it child labour if they’re not being forced to do it, if they’re having fun and doing it because that’s what they like, what’s the difference between that and playing any other game.. Kids playing any video game gives the company money, publicity, more a player base - which all leads to more money. The video game they just happen to like playing offers them the chance to create and make money.
I started working at 11, I'm from australia so it technically wasn't allowed but for me it was a good thing and it helped me to complete school and be independent when I had issues at home, it was a long time ago now there were occasions where I was used but most of those actually happened as an adult.
IMHO it's not only about the asymmetry in relation to the company, but also about all the other asymmetries in children's life. If they do it, because they want to, is one thing, but you can't guarantee this free will decision. There are very good reason why child labour is forbidden in most countries. Opening now "workarounds" to these laws via technology is in no way a good thing ...
I'd like to see proof the "vast majority" of the people earning money are over 18. Also because the game is designed so that creators can earn money from them, they design them to be as predatory as possible. And the rates they charge are outrageous.
The Torment Nexus joke was a tweet, I believe. Personally, the tweet that comes to mind with the child labor comment was the joke one where Stephen A Smith says, “You know I am sensitive about the Holocaust. BUT-!”
i did a paper round then part time in a shop or doing odd jobs, it was exellent prep and the extra money was nice. kids should get involved, do some cleaning, the washing up, chores etc.
Responding that most of the people actually getting paid for their work on roblox seems like a suspiciously specific response to questions around profiting from child labor: Doesn't actually tell us anything about the number of child-hours involved or amount of value extracted from stuff that fails to meet monetization thresholds; and would actually be entirely consistent with the suspicion that kids are easier to sell on unrealistic dreams and don't walk away if the money isn't there as readily as adults do.
Do these younglings have contracted work hours they have to stick to? Does anything happen if they decide to leave a task unfinished, or change what they want to do? Are they being forced into positions that mean they have high risk of injury or forced to miss opportunities granted to other kids? No? Okay so they’re actually just being paid for participating in their hobbies then. How does this have any comparison to actual child labour. Jesus Christ, I had pizza parties after basketball games, and was ‘forced’ to go to the practises and games. Essentially child labour paid in pizza I guess.
I think it is great that kids can earn some money doing something they love. The world is mean and unfair, let them have fun when they are young, the sooner thay learn to budget money the better.
Not a parent but I worked as a pre-teen. The major difference I gravitate to is I was working for neighbors. My parents were aware of everything I was asked to do. That is an epic power difference compared to a corporation having direct contact with the pre-teen.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with 14yo working at a chip shop, and there's legislation around how many hours and how many days per week they can work, and that ensures a certain minimum wage and limits which machinery they're allowed to work with. But if you look into especially some poorer Asian countries, there's sweat shops where 10yo and up are forced to work ungodly hours to either farm gold in various games (incl Roblox) to sell on the black market, or to create game content for Roblox, where 90% of the profit goes to some mafia-esque structure behind the content factory, and this is an issue that needs to be stopped, and it's on Roblox and others desk to take care of such situations.
If the cut of revenue is the same regardless of age, then I don't see the problem. Most people consider the dev cut fair. Zeekerss started off at age 11 doing Roblox maps. He's done well enough.
The educational benefits are not to be understated not to mention knowing how to code is a useful skill even if it's not related to your career. The child labor aspect is definitely something to be concerned about. However in Roblox's situation to me at least it feels like the situation surrounding children content creators for content based social media apps which are RUclips, Twitch, and Tiktok being the biggest in each sub category(long form content, steaming, and short form content). I wouldn't consider a child content creator a child laborer at all, and this mostly due to the fact that RUclips doesn't control the production schedule of the channel (at least not directly). If this is the same case for the games made on Roblox then it's completely fine in my book since the company isn't the child's boss in any real way. Roblox can't demand more games or anything like that aside from making sure the user generated content is compatible with the current version of Roblox.
Any time someone brings up gladiators I will never not think of the Domina developer and how well he fared in the gladiatorial arena of social media. I still occasionally seek out the platforms he isn't banned from to see if he's still raving mad.
It feels like this whole concept smuggles the idea of 'kids area learning and creating' in the 'child labour' basket. These things aren't mutually exclusive and the company doesn't 'have' be making a profit off it - that invites all the motive for exploiting the kids doing the work who don't know better and aren't in a position to advocate for themselves and the value of their work. Does it even account for local laws? Like of course we all did stuff when we were young and worked on skills in a voluntary fashion but not in the level of formality here nor the same level of intentional manipulation.
''You can say we are slavers or you can says we give people an opportunity to have a roof over their head and food on their table'' is what he sounds like
What people miss about the "I'm going to build the torment nexus" is that the tech bro who is excited feels that way because he's the one who is benefiting from it in the story. Zuck IS the villain of Ready Player One who was looking to make massive profits off of that system. Of course he wants to make it, he gets the money.
The power dynamics also need to be considered in the cases where someone too young to be making decisions becomes a significant contributor to the household income. It can become difficult to do your job as a parent in those cases - both consciously because the kid now has reasonable leverage and subconsciously as we naturally desire better to live 'higher on the hog'.
The roblox cut on monetised content is actually good if you make everything yourself. Their propensity to abuse or support the abuse of children isn't. They have been enabling groomers to find target's without proper safeguarding since day one.
Something all adults can agree on. Teenagers are stupid. I know I was stupid as a teenager, every adult I have talked to has felt the same way. That is just how life works.
I made a game on Roblox when I was like 16, it was kinda like battlefield and it made good money, I enjoyed it and learned a lot, made money while doing it, signed up for it every step of the way.
As a parent, yes... Id allow my children to learn through the Roblox platform, but there would so be a limit and they'd still need to finish school, live in the real world.
Roblox should team up with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She's governor of a state here in the USA where they just rolled back child labor protection laws, allowing kids to work in her state at unhealthily young ages. These people make me sick. Especially as a mental health professional who ends up seeing these "kids who grew up too fast at too young of an age" in my office for psychotherapy once they hit their 20s/30s. Sigh.
As a father I am wary of Roblox, and I have said to them I would let them mess around if it is something for themselves. That gives them their our goals not incentivised by money. I have said in a couple of years time when they are teenagers if they still want to learn programming, I am looking at signing up to a online course for something like unity. The difference is unity they could make something for themselves or even sell it without being exploited due to the personal level with unity. But if this becomes a real passion and either of them want to go into this as a career they will have work in a real engine that is used in the industry and not just on that platform But if I am honest the reason I wouldn't let them create on Roblox is the same reason I refuse for them to ever let them spend money on the platform They are trying to manipulate kids into thinking it is ok to plough money onto it, they have youtubers making it seem ok to spend hundreds on a game they play once I get that other games want you to pay money especially the free to play, and I am ok with that. I think Fortnite has a great model they get lots of free v-bucks and I can give them a little bit now and then for them yo get a treat, but none of it is based around a game that needs you to pay more and more to be able to get through. A lot of games on Roblox are the definition of a skinner box, and they move on from most things on it within a day. On the creator docs for Roblox they have a specific area around telling you how to ensure you monetise your game and ways to put it in.
How utterly broken are our systems that you can't say child exploitation in a video about child exploitation because the algorithm will squash your ability to get that video watched...
I mean, considering everything on Roblox is practically community generated and its mostly those under eighteen but they can't get paid for their creations, it is technically child labor
Child labor laws are to keep kids out of the coal mines or factory work though the direction of someone else. If some brilliant kid is able to craft something of value through their own direction they should get rewarded for it
I think the core issues is that incentives of roblox and the monetary gain angle. We see social pressure being put on kids in games like the fornite no skin/default thing from a few years ago where child where being mocked/bullied in person for not having their parents spend money to buy skins in game, this sort of thing means companies are incentives to create negative social structures incentive for users that don't spend money on the latest microtransactions. With roblox that type of incentive structure is very clear, its easy to talk about the few that made it big from making roblox games what about the vast majority that don't. Thing is roblox to bulk out its portfolio is incentivized to 'encourage' those not making money to keep working on roblox games and 'just keep trying till they make it big' when they could be doing something else productive for their future. Afterall Bellular talked about a CV in front of him but what if he had two CV one from the person he imagined and the other is from a person whose only experience was making games within roblox. This is the issue with roblox model it incentives is to maximize its revenue like every corporation so for them the best thing to do is keep these young people only making games within the roblox ecosystem and not wider development like learning unity or unreal so they keep increasing the amount of things within roblox and at the same time they are incentivized to increase to amount needed for payout and to change revenue sharing to maximize that revenue. This means the long term incentive for a company like roblox is to create a developer/user group only able to work within the roblox framework while continuing to decrease the amount of money given to this group. What is ideal would be some sort of none profit lite version of commonly used tools like unity and unreal that have a starting point game like framework for how to make simple games in them that can be shared with friends. The reason for not direct monetization is the incentive for something like unity or unreal would be the long term benefit of more dev capable in their engine increase the long term likelihood of their engine being used vs a platform like roblox that incentive is simple to keep you within there platform for them to monetize.
Should also talk about roblox off site gambling sites that roblox isn’t doing much to shut down and that one roblox game sol’s rng that is just nothing but gambling that’s it
As long as they aren’t breaching child labor law in the local provenance, I don’t see the issue. There could be an issue if a child labor doesn’t exist, so maybe an internal code of conduct would be good. Here is Australia, you can get a job from the age of 15, so as long as they comply with that here, then there isn’t really as issue. The guidance really should come from there parents (ie staying grounded and realistic )
It's interesting that RUclips might censor the term child labor when we're seeing a push in a good chunk of America to re-legalize that exact practice. Although as a platform that monetizes the creation of content and there are probably a statistically significant number of minors creating content, maybe it's a projected insecurity :P
On one side, you have bleeding heart leftists banging on about children "going back to the mines" while the opposing side knows that teenagers need some money to live. Then again, the former are drowning in a non-bankruptable debt (hence why the promise to "terminate student loans" is promising to leftists).
The only real counter argument I can see is that most major esports games came from mods/creation tools in another game. Ex Dota and lol came from a warcraft mod
Don't forget the RubenSim content moderation videos that really make me think the moderation team at robloxs might be part of their child predator problem.
Being one who started playing in the '06 days of Roblox. Those in charge of this platform just *love* to ignore the audience. And I'm all for watching its fiery downfall. Tix? Poof, don't care. Rthro? You don't want it, but THEY do. Robux? Gotta work extra hard on your games and merch if you want any paychecks that are even considered "OK" while we reap the vast majority of the profits. School? Who needs school when you have all the tools you need to learn how to be -profitable- rich with money to probably just circulate back into Roblox anyway; because everyone else is probably using the same predatory tactics as EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Blizzard and many other greedy companies, including countless mobile games! Jobs, work? Oh, you may be a kid now but you already have one- you were specifically trained for this when you grew up after all, weren't you?
I think the moment you bring real money into the mix it becomes a bit of a problem. I think it could create stress, anxiety, pressure on kids while at the same time removing structure and discipline from having a actual 7-15 job. Allso this is yet another one of the "lets push people into high tech jobs", but i think people are forgetting that we need farmers to grow food, masons / to make buildings ect. ect.
So, the problem is that one can find plenty of examples of teenagers making games and actually going commercial before reaching the age of 18. Beyond the hoard of cheap ZX and C64 tapes, The developers of Dizzy were teens, and some of the members of Argonaut Software (i.e., the guys behind the SNES Super FX chip and Starfox) were under 18 when they got started. I myself started writing code at a very young age and was working as a software dev at 16. That said, the problem is one of scale, power, and transferability. Roblox routinely profits from work that takes a considerable amount of time for children to do, while offering most of them relatively little. At least the bedroom coder had a chance to do well if their software did well. Writing assembly code in the 80s absolutely transferred, as does writing a 3D graphics engines for a variety of CPUs. Roblox does not. I guess it's one thing for children to take tools offered to anyone and run with it, enjoying the rewards of a job well done. It's another thing for a company to use psychology to trick kids into doing the work with those tools.
I don't mind it my son is currently trying to make a game on roblox his gone as far as to even buy a course off udemy so he can learn how to code in the roblox engine. he can also earn up to £70 a month I give him £15 as pocket money £5 for washing the car, for every 2 hours trying to make his game, keyboard and mouse practice and making meals his 12 he can make his own pizza banger and mash. I want him to understand what life is actually like that you need to save money and work hard to earn big money so his not struggling later in life
Roblox needs to focus on itself as a service where people can make content and sell that content with roblox getting a cut. Direct hiring of youth should be done under appropriate child labor laws, and we all know 16 year olds can work a certain amount of hours so as long as that's adhered to it should be okay. The bigger child labor concern is the way microtransactions tempt kids and grinding endlessly is used as an alternative so kids "work" to earn their in game microtransaction stuff. Even "log in daily" rewards and "daily quest" rewards have elements of this, trying to build habit, and putting demands on time. That stuff worries me way more.
I don't see the basics of this as a moral problem, only specific situations. A. Is it wrong for kids to make money by doing work? (I'd say no, if kids do work that has value, they should be paid.) B. Is it wrong for kids to do work? (Again, no. Chores are work, homework is work. What we don't want is them to be exploited for their labor.) So if kids choose to be creative in a game, and people choose to pay those kids for their creative work, then that's not exploitive in and of itself. C. Is it wrong for anyone else to make money on a child's work? (I'd say, not if what they are doing is adding value to the kid's work. So if they are selling the products the kid makes, marketing them, providing raw materials, etc... It would be exploitive if they are not contributing in some way or are taking an unfair share. So it comes down to whether roblox's cut of the transactions is reasonable or not as the creators of the software platform.) I think what we want is not to abolish children's ability to do work or make money, but to prevent their exploitation and to prevent situations where they are compelled to labor rather than go to school or enjoy play, etc...
My own child loves playing in Roblox Studio happily crafting houses and placing props, and he's only six years-old. He's built out entire maps now intuitively without being able to read. I'd rather have my child try and make games than simply consume them as endless content. When he plays a normal game now or sees me working in a game engine, he recognizes the similar interface from Roblox and sometimes comments about the design of the map... actually quantifying the labor and tools required to have made some parts of the map in question. Is it child exploitation? Well, the point at which a Roblox game can generate income is actually much farther along than people realize. Most Roblox games created by young children are nonsensical. So the children are learning... something.. and generating no income, while Roblox has to host all their stuff. Fair trade maybe? And no young child will be able to interface with Roblox in any meaningful way without the participation of a parent from start to finish due to the constant need for using a PC or device. So the exploitation question should probably land on the parents. As one, I don't see the problem at this point. Teens are another question.
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As fair as the prices are for the effort you guys put into it, being from the third world does limit the amount of money I can send your way. Really hoping you guys look into some sort of regional pricing. If not I'll continue to support other ways by turning off adblock.
The children yearn for the mines.
When "The children yearn for the mines" is now used non-ironically by mega-corpses.
I don't think Roblox is a megacorp unless it's ownned by epic or something
Roblox market cap is $ 24 billion whereas epic is 32 billion. Roblox is a publicly traded company so atleast I feel it's more of a mega corp.
How to paraphrase "It's not a loot box, it's a surprise mechanic"
And before that "It's not a slot machine, it's a loot box"
And before that "It's not an addiction, it's a slot machine "
Minecraft has proven that abolishing child labor was a mistake. The children yearn for the mines.
Back in my yearning for the mines days, I did it by farming ores in Runescape so this checks out
That was funny the 1st time I heard it (years ago)
@@boo5860 Grinded hours on lobster and mining in RuneScape with friends back in the day lol
@@goodsephiroth001womp womp
all the mining I did on runescape back in 2006, 2007, and 2008 would prove this is accurate
The instructions weren't entirely clear, so I built TWO torment nexuses.
I don’t have much experience with Roblox, but my son (7) asked me to download it a few weeks ago. I did and I immediately hated it. We played a map that was advertised to be okay for 6 years olds and what did we find: machineguns. I don’t mind my son playing a game with guns if it’s lighthearted, but I felt the age indicator wasn’t really worth anything. The next map we played was an obstacle course and everytime my son fell down the game offered a buff for Robux (real money) to make the game easier. It was worse than a mobile game. I uninstalled Roblox after that.
I am a parent that has a son that makes Roblox games, and I would say I am okay with him making his own game but I also do watch what he does. Some of the responsibilities as a parent is to let the child to explore these different things like making video games so that way the have a better chance of figuring out what to do with their lives sooner. I also think it is my responsibility as a parent to look over what they are doing as kids and make sure they are being safe and explain the importance of online safety to them as well.
Being that I work as a gig worker. I think I have a good idea of how easy it is to exploit an adult. Children should be a no go period.
Especially considering how often corporations keep you in the dark of unions, let alone demonizing them so that you're always at the mercy of the bosses.
we all need phones. kids can make phones. and they get money, and a phone. and plus those little parts in the phone are best put together with little hands.
Such a wholesome relations
Small hands that can get into small places, makes sense! (Ignore all the workplace injuries, horrible burns build character!) 🤣
I think the idea that kids can have fun learning how to code, but Roblox is triple dipping by taking a cut when you buy the roblox, taking a cut when you sell a mod, then taking another account when you sell your roblox for cash. There needs to be some time of protection against predatory inclinations of these companies, especially when kids are involved. Won't somebody please think of the children.
The predatory action here is how they pay kids. . . only for those kids to spend their earnings on the sites own "premium currency" called robux. The real protection needs to start with locking all in-game purchases/microtransactions behind M-Rated titles only. M-rating has limitations in regards to marketing and legality in certain countries/regions. Kids aren't mature enough to know the value of a dollar. So it's exploitative to put these nickel and dime tactics infront of them.
Also whats stopping roblox from slowly over time increasing there share from the sale and when you cash out. them being the holder of everything is not a good structure. Honestly whats stopping roblox from being bought out and the new owner changing the deal and making it so people can't cash out for real money. No corperation should control 100% of the chain of commerce and roblox does control all of this one.
@@drayle71 I think that much comes down to "job protections" moreso than an issue of "protecting minors". Frame it in your mind like this:
"How would this issue apply if the devs in question were 30 or 40 instead of children? Would the issue not be a problem in that scenario then?" if the answer is "no, it would still be an issue" then the problem is that GENERAL labor protections aren't good enough and it doesn't actually have anything to do with the age of the person doing the labor in question. The problem is, the person doing it, regardless of their age, just isn't protected from malpractice.
My issue is more so on how kids will just spend money recklessly because they lack the maturity to know how to resist the urge of spending all their cash on stuff that is over-priced. Companies shouldn't be legally allowed to take advantage of that. I saw too many bad parents enabling bad habits and the kids end up worse off for it.
I got one answer that'll do that...
*CAPITAL GAINS TAX*
That's the bigger problem here. Kids making a map/game to sell on the platform isn't anything egregious. What is though is the triple dipping.
My kid is playing around with Unity, gamemaker and blender. i am quite pleased he left Roblox a long time ago.
If Roblox didn't have so many ways to monetize every single step of the way I would look at this no differently than any other game engine, or macromedia flash, or whatever back in the day. Kids yearn to create and giving them a platform is nothing but good. But the way the system works to make Roblox money is pretty gross.
My niece and nephew love this game (engine), and every time they show me a Roblox game I try really hard to cover up my disgust.
It is kinda like the problem with family content, where the parents use their kids to earn money.
the gift of child labor. based.
Roblox's Studio head played waaay to much Frost Punk
The children yearn for the digital mines
There are 2 *big* problems here.
A) Roblox development is such a very specific skill set that has more to do with fighting the Roblox system than any skills that can be pushed forward to another toolset. Saying "oh, they're learning gamedev skills" implies that they can use those skills in another field.
B) the reason so many people who make money on Roblox are over 18 is because Roblox has "companies" that are run by someone who is good at the marketing half, and then they outsource the labor to other kids and then pay them a pittance and nothing in the system enforces the "employees" even get paid at all.
@@MudakTheMultiplier Reason why so many developers are 18+ is because children are simply less skilled
@@fica1137 the data is based on the age of the people being paid as the "owners" of the "companies". The problem is that the people being paid don't have to be the people actually doing the work. I highly recommend People Make Game's video on the topic.
I don't know what to say. Honestly learning how hard earning money is good, it is just something about roblox feels so skeezy.
For me I think with a "normal" job in a wealthy country, the children are protected by the law and with roblox, it is just the company setting the rules with 0 oversight.
I was involved with mods from the age of about ~11 before I got into the industry properly. Arguably that added value to games that weren't paying us (and monetising mods was *heavily* frowned upon back then).
There's definitely some nuance to this situation, but from a gut response I'm disgusted to see a megacorp profiting off work from children.
ultimately Roblox is only so powerful because our education systems are so bereft of anything even remotely passion driven. Leaving it to corps to teach kids what they WANT to learn is just beyond silly
If the kid wants to do it, I see no problem in it, it's a great way to learn a lot of stuff and I think it should be encouraged. I wish I started working sooner.
"Back then" still is, HIGHLY. Even when paid mods are endorsed by the publisher, it's STILL frowned upon to an extreme degree.
Now it's more paid addons than full on mods the likes of say Black Mesa.
I mean.....the entirety of Disney is built upon profiting from children........
It's a slippery slope, because on one hand you can justify it by saying they're learning skills and earning some money, but at the end of the day it is what it is. If they're allowed small concessions again and again we wind up with situations where we have digital sweatshop conditions.
I taught my kid to use PS and CSP when she was 4, at 10 she uses layers, filters etc... natively now creating a ton of her own art work.
Things that make you go, "I squandered my childhood..."
But then, people that squandered their opportunity to party at their school don't regret the wasted time.
Those that partied at the dances, proms, or whatever? They all strung themselves out.
Bored now, fun later, fun now, bored later.
You can easily do worse than modding for fun and earning a pittance.
School, imo, only gives a sense of responsibility and social skills
People Make Games vid about this is still so disappointing to see no one gave it a boost/ the community didnt call for change back then
I started programming in Basic at the age of 9 until like 12 then I stopped till I was a senior in high school and took AP Computers with Pascal and C++ (I knew Pascal before being a senior) and took the AP Test both A&B (forgot what my scores were) in 1991 and have not programmed since.
I don’t consider it child labour if they’re not being forced to do it, if they’re having fun and doing it because that’s what they like, what’s the difference between that and playing any other game.. Kids playing any video game gives the company money, publicity, more a player base - which all leads to more money. The video game they just happen to like playing offers them the chance to create and make money.
I started working at 11, I'm from australia so it technically wasn't allowed but for me it was a good thing and it helped me to complete school and be independent when I had issues at home, it was a long time ago now there were occasions where I was used but most of those actually happened as an adult.
IMHO it's not only about the asymmetry in relation to the company, but also about all the other asymmetries in children's life. If they do it, because they want to, is one thing, but you can't guarantee this free will decision. There are very good reason why child labour is forbidden in most countries. Opening now "workarounds" to these laws via technology is in no way a good thing ...
Huh, this torment nexus thing seems pretty cool. Time to get to work. Thanks, Michael.
I'd like to see proof the "vast majority" of the people earning money are over 18.
Also because the game is designed so that creators can earn money from them, they design them to be as predatory as possible. And the rates they charge are outrageous.
The Torment Nexus joke was a tweet, I believe. Personally, the tweet that comes to mind with the child labor comment was the joke one where Stephen A Smith says, “You know I am sensitive about the Holocaust. BUT-!”
I remember doing some 3d work for some Roblox devs, made an easy 300 bucks off some kids
Child labor is a nightmare. We shouldn't be TRYING to recreate scenes from Charles Dickens novels.
i did a paper round then part time in a shop or doing odd jobs, it was exellent prep and the extra money was nice.
kids should get involved, do some cleaning, the washing up, chores etc.
Responding that most of the people actually getting paid for their work on roblox seems like a suspiciously specific response to questions around profiting from child labor:
Doesn't actually tell us anything about the number of child-hours involved or amount of value extracted from stuff that fails to meet monetization thresholds; and would actually be entirely consistent with the suspicion that kids are easier to sell on unrealistic dreams and don't walk away if the money isn't there as readily as adults do.
Do these younglings have contracted work hours they have to stick to? Does anything happen if they decide to leave a task unfinished, or change what they want to do?
Are they being forced into positions that mean they have high risk of injury or forced to miss opportunities granted to other kids?
No?
Okay so they’re actually just being paid for participating in their hobbies then.
How does this have any comparison to actual child labour.
Jesus Christ, I had pizza parties after basketball games, and was ‘forced’ to go to the practises and games. Essentially child labour paid in pizza I guess.
I think it is great that kids can earn some money doing something they love. The world is mean and unfair, let them have fun when they are young, the sooner thay learn to budget money the better.
Not a parent but I worked as a pre-teen. The major difference I gravitate to is I was working for neighbors. My parents were aware of everything I was asked to do. That is an epic power difference compared to a corporation having direct contact with the pre-teen.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with 14yo working at a chip shop, and there's legislation around how many hours and how many days per week they can work, and that ensures a certain minimum wage and limits which machinery they're allowed to work with.
But if you look into especially some poorer Asian countries, there's sweat shops where 10yo and up are forced to work ungodly hours to either farm gold in various games (incl Roblox) to sell on the black market, or to create game content for Roblox, where 90% of the profit goes to some mafia-esque structure behind the content factory, and this is an issue that needs to be stopped, and it's on Roblox and others desk to take care of such situations.
But Bellular. Watch how the children play minecraft. You must see, the children yearn for the mines.
If the cut of revenue is the same regardless of age, then I don't see the problem. Most people consider the dev cut fair. Zeekerss started off at age 11 doing Roblox maps. He's done well enough.
The educational benefits are not to be understated not to mention knowing how to code is a useful skill even if it's not related to your career. The child labor aspect is definitely something to be concerned about. However in Roblox's situation to me at least it feels like the situation surrounding children content creators for content based social media apps which are RUclips, Twitch, and Tiktok being the biggest in each sub category(long form content, steaming, and short form content). I wouldn't consider a child content creator a child laborer at all, and this mostly due to the fact that RUclips doesn't control the production schedule of the channel (at least not directly). If this is the same case for the games made on Roblox then it's completely fine in my book since the company isn't the child's boss in any real way. Roblox can't demand more games or anything like that aside from making sure the user generated content is compatible with the current version of Roblox.
They have no shame, no social awareness.
Capitalists do be like that
Any time someone brings up gladiators I will never not think of the Domina developer and how well he fared in the gladiatorial arena of social media. I still occasionally seek out the platforms he isn't banned from to see if he's still raving mad.
I'm more concerned with the number of kids who have adult _boyfriends_ in Roblox.
It feels like this whole concept smuggles the idea of 'kids area learning and creating' in the 'child labour' basket. These things aren't mutually exclusive and the company doesn't 'have' be making a profit off it - that invites all the motive for exploiting the kids doing the work who don't know better and aren't in a position to advocate for themselves and the value of their work. Does it even account for local laws? Like of course we all did stuff when we were young and worked on skills in a voluntary fashion but not in the level of formality here nor the same level of intentional manipulation.
''You can say we are slavers or you can says we give people an opportunity to have a roof over their head and food on their table'' is what he sounds like
When you said chimneys, my mind went wayyyy darker than it should’ve.
What people miss about the "I'm going to build the torment nexus" is that the tech bro who is excited feels that way because he's the one who is benefiting from it in the story. Zuck IS the villain of Ready Player One who was looking to make massive profits off of that system. Of course he wants to make it, he gets the money.
Thanks for the upload. Was really needing something to watch!
Another Michael around Michael’s age here. I grew up on a farm, had to work since 10 years old. As much as I despised it, the work was valuable.
wow. this is suddenly scarily relevant.
Giveing them an Inch means them takeing it all
Metal Gear Rising future but the children's brains in vats are building Roblox obbies instead of drone-striking civilians
who says productivity is down? the average productivity per person is higher now than ever before in every study i have ever read.
But if we don't make a torment nexus, how will we punish the children that don't work hard enough?
The power dynamics also need to be considered in the cases where someone too young to be making decisions becomes a significant contributor to the household income. It can become difficult to do your job as a parent in those cases - both consciously because the kid now has reasonable leverage and subconsciously as we naturally desire better to live 'higher on the hog'.
The roblox cut on monetised content is actually good if you make everything yourself. Their propensity to abuse or support the abuse of children isn't. They have been enabling groomers to find target's without proper safeguarding since day one.
Something all adults can agree on. Teenagers are stupid. I know I was stupid as a teenager, every adult I have talked to has felt the same way. That is just how life works.
bro when I saw that article title I had to stop the video and let it sink in
I made a game on Roblox when I was like 16, it was kinda like battlefield and it made good money, I enjoyed it and learned a lot, made money while doing it, signed up for it every step of the way.
As a parent, yes... Id allow my children to learn through the Roblox platform, but there would so be a limit and they'd still need to finish school, live in the real world.
My nephew was allowed to code and game, still does, but he was required to pick a physical sport.
Considering there’s states in the US actually working towards legalizing child labour, this is just par for the course.
Roblox should team up with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She's governor of a state here in the USA where they just rolled back child labor protection laws, allowing kids to work in her state at unhealthily young ages. These people make me sick. Especially as a mental health professional who ends up seeing these "kids who grew up too fast at too young of an age" in my office for psychotherapy once they hit their 20s/30s. Sigh.
It is a gift! Against the enemies of Gondor.
As a father I am wary of Roblox, and I have said to them I would let them mess around if it is something for themselves. That gives them their our goals not incentivised by money.
I have said in a couple of years time when they are teenagers if they still want to learn programming, I am looking at signing up to a online course for something like unity.
The difference is unity they could make something for themselves or even sell it without being exploited due to the personal level with unity.
But if this becomes a real passion and either of them want to go into this as a career they will have work in a real engine that is used in the industry and not just on that platform
But if I am honest the reason I wouldn't let them create on Roblox is the same reason I refuse for them to ever let them spend money on the platform
They are trying to manipulate kids into thinking it is ok to plough money onto it, they have youtubers making it seem ok to spend hundreds on a game they play once
I get that other games want you to pay money especially the free to play, and I am ok with that. I think Fortnite has a great model they get lots of free v-bucks and I can give them a little bit now and then for them yo get a treat, but none of it is based around a game that needs you to pay more and more to be able to get through.
A lot of games on Roblox are the definition of a skinner box, and they move on from most things on it within a day.
On the creator docs for Roblox they have a specific area around telling you how to ensure you monetise your game and ways to put it in.
It's a time and a half when you cannot say children without getting censored or self censor..
The guy who made Lethal Company started with Roblox afaik?
When you as a politian, Governor of Arkansas, in this case, sign a law to make child labor legal!
They have so much money that they will never get punished.
funny since we are mad on this but some states have made it legal for 15 year olds to work in the usa
I'm sure it's rife with predators and all kinds of weird crap too.
Oh, it's Quinns from shut up & sit down! Cheers!
How utterly broken are our systems that you can't say child exploitation in a video about child exploitation because the algorithm will squash your ability to get that video watched...
I mean, considering everything on Roblox is practically community generated and its mostly those under eighteen but they can't get paid for their creations, it is technically child labor
Child labor laws are to keep kids out of the coal mines or factory work though the direction of someone else. If some brilliant kid is able to craft something of value through their own direction they should get rewarded for it
I think it should be allowed but an adult should be required to sign the contract with the kid to prevent them from being taken advantage of
I think the core issues is that incentives of roblox and the monetary gain angle. We see social pressure being put on kids in games like the fornite no skin/default thing from a few years ago where child where being mocked/bullied in person for not having their parents spend money to buy skins in game, this sort of thing means companies are incentives to create negative social structures incentive for users that don't spend money on the latest microtransactions.
With roblox that type of incentive structure is very clear, its easy to talk about the few that made it big from making roblox games what about the vast majority that don't. Thing is roblox to bulk out its portfolio is incentivized to 'encourage' those not making money to keep working on roblox games and 'just keep trying till they make it big' when they could be doing something else productive for their future. Afterall Bellular talked about a CV in front of him but what if he had two CV one from the person he imagined and the other is from a person whose only experience was making games within roblox.
This is the issue with roblox model it incentives is to maximize its revenue like every corporation so for them the best thing to do is keep these young people only making games within the roblox ecosystem and not wider development like learning unity or unreal so they keep increasing the amount of things within roblox and at the same time they are incentivized to increase to amount needed for payout and to change revenue sharing to maximize that revenue. This means the long term incentive for a company like roblox is to create a developer/user group only able to work within the roblox framework while continuing to decrease the amount of money given to this group.
What is ideal would be some sort of none profit lite version of commonly used tools like unity and unreal that have a starting point game like framework for how to make simple games in them that can be shared with friends. The reason for not direct monetization is the incentive for something like unity or unreal would be the long term benefit of more dev capable in their engine increase the long term likelihood of their engine being used vs a platform like roblox that incentive is simple to keep you within there platform for them to monetize.
Should also talk about roblox off site gambling sites that roblox isn’t doing much to shut down and that one roblox game sol’s rng that is just nothing but gambling that’s it
THE SMALL ONES DEMAND SOUL CRUSHING LABOUR
As long as they aren’t breaching child labor law in the local provenance, I don’t see the issue. There could be an issue if a child labor doesn’t exist, so maybe an internal code of conduct would be good.
Here is Australia, you can get a job from the age of 15, so as long as they comply with that here, then there isn’t really as issue. The guidance really should come from there parents (ie staying grounded and realistic )
Child labor getting table scraps while Roblox keeps the majority of the money.
I think you should turn up the heat where you are.
It's interesting that RUclips might censor the term child labor when we're seeing a push in a good chunk of America to re-legalize that exact practice.
Although as a platform that monetizes the creation of content and there are probably a statistically significant number of minors creating content, maybe it's a projected insecurity :P
On one side, you have bleeding heart leftists banging on about children "going back to the mines" while the opposing side knows that teenagers need some money to live.
Then again, the former are drowning in a non-bankruptable debt (hence why the promise to "terminate student loans" is promising to leftists).
Doesn't all social media work in the same way
The only real counter argument I can see is that most major esports games came from mods/creation tools in another game. Ex Dota and lol came from a warcraft mod
Don't forget the RubenSim content moderation videos that really make me think the moderation team at robloxs might be part of their child predator problem.
Being one who started playing in the '06 days of Roblox. Those in charge of this platform just *love* to ignore the audience. And I'm all for watching its fiery downfall. Tix? Poof, don't care. Rthro? You don't want it, but THEY do. Robux? Gotta work extra hard on your games and merch if you want any paychecks that are even considered "OK" while we reap the vast majority of the profits. School? Who needs school when you have all the tools you need to learn how to be -profitable- rich with money to probably just circulate back into Roblox anyway; because everyone else is probably using the same predatory tactics as EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Blizzard and many other greedy companies, including countless mobile games! Jobs, work? Oh, you may be a kid now but you already have one- you were specifically trained for this when you grew up after all, weren't you?
This isnt Roblox anymore.
I think the moment you bring real money into the mix it becomes a bit of a problem.
I think it could create stress, anxiety, pressure on kids while at the same time removing structure and discipline from having a actual 7-15 job.
Allso this is yet another one of the "lets push people into high tech jobs", but i think people are forgetting that we need farmers to grow food, masons / to make buildings ect. ect.
So, the problem is that one can find plenty of examples of teenagers making games and actually going commercial before reaching the age of 18. Beyond the hoard of cheap ZX and C64 tapes, The developers of Dizzy were teens, and some of the members of Argonaut Software (i.e., the guys behind the SNES Super FX chip and Starfox) were under 18 when they got started. I myself started writing code at a very young age and was working as a software dev at 16. That said, the problem is one of scale, power, and transferability. Roblox routinely profits from work that takes a considerable amount of time for children to do, while offering most of them relatively little. At least the bedroom coder had a chance to do well if their software did well. Writing assembly code in the 80s absolutely transferred, as does writing a 3D graphics engines for a variety of CPUs. Roblox does not.
I guess it's one thing for children to take tools offered to anyone and run with it, enjoying the rewards of a job well done. It's another thing for a company to use psychology to trick kids into doing the work with those tools.
I don't mind it my son is currently trying to make a game on roblox his gone as far as to even buy a course off udemy so he can learn how to code in the roblox engine. he can also earn up to £70 a month I give him £15 as pocket money £5 for washing the car, for every 2 hours trying to make his game, keyboard and mouse practice and making meals his 12 he can make his own pizza banger and mash. I want him to understand what life is actually like that you need to save money and work hard to earn big money so his not struggling later in life
I can’t believe these people just think this way. What the heck man. No one thought, is this even legal?
How dare they, only gambling is allowed for children, of course! 😂
Younglings yearn for the mines
Matt used to be in these, where did he go?
Roblox needs to focus on itself as a service where people can make content and sell that content with roblox getting a cut. Direct hiring of youth should be done under appropriate child labor laws, and we all know 16 year olds can work a certain amount of hours so as long as that's adhered to it should be okay.
The bigger child labor concern is the way microtransactions tempt kids and grinding endlessly is used as an alternative so kids "work" to earn their in game microtransaction stuff. Even "log in daily" rewards and "daily quest" rewards have elements of this, trying to build habit, and putting demands on time. That stuff worries me way more.
Well if the parent report to labor laws find this information there will be lawsuits?
I don't see the basics of this as a moral problem, only specific situations.
A. Is it wrong for kids to make money by doing work? (I'd say no, if kids do work that has value, they should be paid.)
B. Is it wrong for kids to do work? (Again, no. Chores are work, homework is work. What we don't want is them to be exploited for their labor.)
So if kids choose to be creative in a game, and people choose to pay those kids for their creative work, then that's not exploitive in and of itself.
C. Is it wrong for anyone else to make money on a child's work? (I'd say, not if what they are doing is adding value to the kid's work. So if they are selling the products the kid makes, marketing them, providing raw materials, etc... It would be exploitive if they are not contributing in some way or are taking an unfair share. So it comes down to whether roblox's cut of the transactions is reasonable or not as the creators of the software platform.)
I think what we want is not to abolish children's ability to do work or make money, but to prevent their exploitation and to prevent situations where they are compelled to labor rather than go to school or enjoy play, etc...
My own child loves playing in Roblox Studio happily crafting houses and placing props, and he's only six years-old. He's built out entire maps now intuitively without being able to read. I'd rather have my child try and make games than simply consume them as endless content. When he plays a normal game now or sees me working in a game engine, he recognizes the similar interface from Roblox and sometimes comments about the design of the map... actually quantifying the labor and tools required to have made some parts of the map in question. Is it child exploitation? Well, the point at which a Roblox game can generate income is actually much farther along than people realize. Most Roblox games created by young children are nonsensical. So the children are learning... something.. and generating no income, while Roblox has to host all their stuff. Fair trade maybe? And no young child will be able to interface with Roblox in any meaningful way without the participation of a parent from start to finish due to the constant need for using a PC or device. So the exploitation question should probably land on the parents. As one, I don't see the problem at this point. Teens are another question.
Of course some of those kids didn't feel exploited, most of us don't realize we were exploited as children until well into adulthood...