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[People Make Games] Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers

lwkmd

lwkmd

Member
Oct 29, 2017
124
this was eye opening

it's outrageous what they're doing but also par for the course for tech companies who run app stores, platforms or in fact disguise other predatory or exploitative practices within digital conceptions like games - see lootboxes

the governments of the world need to sort their shit out and get on top of it
 
Toma

Toma

Scratching that Itch.io http://bit.ly/ItchERA
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,831
What the crap, Shut Up and Sit down videogame edition?
How ... did I not know that this exists.
 
Toma

Toma

Scratching that Itch.io http://bit.ly/ItchERA
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,831
Holy shit, this is disgusting.

Holy. Shit. This. Is. Disgusting.

Everybody should watch this. How has this never been a Jim Sterling topic.
 
VariantX

VariantX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,880
Columbia, SC
Wow. This is straight up the scummiest shit I've seen in a long time. Kids'll potentially be burned out from the game industry long before for they're legally old enough to hold a job. They won't even be able to take their work and move it to a better market either. Its completely fucked.
 
Messofanego

Messofanego

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,131
UK
It's crazy how the lack of regulation has led to the tech industry treating workers like dirt, recalling the coal mining era and we now back to the child labour era of early industrial times! That platform capitalism is some cult like shit, poor Roblox fan developers.
 
Habs

Habs

Member
Mar 10, 2021
1,540
Just finished the video. What an eye-opener. Didn't know how disgusting and exploitative Roblox is. One of PMGs best videos yet.
 
Oreiller

Oreiller

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,831
Finally took the time to watch the video. This is beyond disgusting. More people need to lambast them.
 
shan780

shan780

The Fallen
Nov 2, 2017
2,566
UK
Back when I was a teenager, I made a Roblox game that I didn't expect to take off. I balked at the robux to real money exchange rate, which actually seriously undervalues what people are willing to pay for the robux through other means. I ended up cashing out through selling my virtual hats through some PayPal deals, which, while breaking the ToS, got me a whole lot more money which I was able to use to build my first gaming PC.

it's definitely a cool environment to fiddle around with coding in, but roblox makes SO much money off of it. they're always talking about Roblox being a platform like steam, so hopefully this video can create some pressure on them to offer fairer terms
 
disparate

disparate

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,904
michaelle said:
the royalties are low because 25% goes to server infrastructure, 25% to moderation, and 25% goes to roblox , so the developer ends up with only 25%. which is not great...but I do think the costs here are much bigger than say running just an app store like steam and epic
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Steam operates online infrastructure and develops controller and VR software and APIs lol
 
apocat

apocat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,047
Messofanego said:
It's crazy how the lack of regulation has led to the tech industry treating workers like dirt, recalling the coal mining era and we now back to the child labour era of early industrial times! That platform capitalism is some cult like shit, poor Roblox fan developers.
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It's crazy that I read that and didn't even think you wete exaggerating when calling this child labour, but I guess that's where we are now. There needs to be legislations about this.

Toma said:
What the crap, Shut Up and Sit down videogame edition?
How ... did I not know that this exists.
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This isn't quite that.

You want Cool Ghosts. (Which comes out incredibly seldom, but still.)
 
Messofanego

Messofanego

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,131
UK
apocat said:
It's crazy that I read that and didn't even think you wete exaggerating when calling this child labour, but I guess that's where we are now. There needs to be legislations about this.



This isn't quite that.

You want Cool Ghosts. (Which comes out incredibly seldom, but still.)
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Annoying thing about tech capitalists is they have this faux veneer of being progressive or liberal, when they are anything but when it comes to race, gender, sexuality, or labour. It's all about the profit motive, humanity be damned.

Cool Ghosts RIP, pretty sure it's been abandoned and they are now doing different things like Shut Up And Sit Down. Was my mainstay after Matt Lees left Videogamer.
 
apocat

apocat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,047
Messofanego said:
Annoying thing about tech capitalists is they have this faux veneer of being progressive or liberal, when they are anything but when it comes to race, gender, sexuality, or labour. It's all about the profit motive, humanity be damned.

Cool Ghosts RIP, pretty sure it's been abandoned and they are now doing different things like Shut Up And Sit Down. Was my mainstay after Matt Lees left Videogamer.
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I sometimes even think they buy their own bullshit. I absolutely think they see themselves as the heroes of their stories. But that falls apart pretty quickly when you interview an 11-year old who feels as jaded as any young adult caught in the gig economy.

And yeah, I realized after I posted above that the last Cool Ghosts was released literally years ago. It's probably as dead as the characters presenting the show by now.
 
mjhaas

mjhaas

Member
Aug 28, 2019
146
This is my first time seeing a video or even a screenshot of Roblox. First time watching this channel too. Great video.
 
Doopl

Doopl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
227
This is so shady. There needs to be regulation on how digital platforms pay people who produce content for them.
 
PrettyBigPotato

PrettyBigPotato

Member
Oct 27, 2020
238
A very informative video. I never realised Roblox operated like a company town and uses child labour to build their wealth. It's so disturbing and on a personal level it makes me worried because my nephew has recently gotten in Roblox and I've heard him take about wanting to make games.
 
Messofanego

Messofanego

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,131
UK
The odds of making it big being the odds like a lottery and paying for advertising just seems so sad, and kids deserve to be informed so they can set their expectations accordingly, while the company is pressured to be less exploitative.
 
jetpacks was yes

jetpacks was yes

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,081
Messofanego said:
Annoying thing about tech capitalists is they have this faux veneer of being progressive or liberal, when they are anything but when it comes to race, gender, sexuality, or labour. It's all about the profit motive, humanity be damned.

Cool Ghosts RIP, pretty sure it's been abandoned and they are now doing different things like Shut Up And Sit Down. Was my mainstay after Matt Lees left Videogamer.
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Corporations co-opting social causes for profit rather than principle is the norm, and it's so disgusting.
 
Zeouter

Zeouter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,605
Ireland
We need regulation, badly, particularly where you are forced to transform your currency into a locked in per-app or platform model.
 
riotous

riotous

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,325
Seattle
dex3108 said:
It is kinda disservice to video creators sum up things in few sentences. It also wouldn't cover everything that is said there.
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Some people consume content differently.

I'd gladly read a long form article that took me 22 minutes to read over watching a video.

But that's why I like forums as people watch videos and then summarize so I at least get some of the bits ;)

Good thread either way and I honestly had no idea Roblox was even a platform to sell games until someone mentioned it in a thread about Apple's rules surrounding cloud gaming providers.
 
HK-47

HK-47

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,586
michaelle said:
the royalties are low because 25% goes to server infrastructure, 25% to moderation, and 25% goes to roblox , so the developer ends up with only 25%. which is not great...but I do think the costs here are much bigger than say running just an app store like steam and epic
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You have no idea what goes into Steam. Certainly more than Roblox is giving its creators.
 
foolishoptimist

foolishoptimist

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,844
Just saw this video. Holy crap Roblox is dodgy.

That $1000 minimum on withdrawing earned money essentially means they're using unpaid child labor to make money at a massive scale.
 
foolishoptimist

foolishoptimist

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,844
michaelle said:
the royalties are low because 25% goes to server infrastructure, 25% to moderation, and 25% goes to roblox , so the developer ends up with only 25%. which is not great...but I do think the costs here are much bigger than say running just an app store like steam and epic
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Only insofar as what you earn in Robux. Withdraw those Robux and it gets translated into dollars at a vastly reduced ratio to dollars going into Robux.
 
chandlerbing55

chandlerbing55

Member
Sep 22, 2019
331
HK-47 said:
You have no idea what goes into Steam. Certainly more than Roblox is giving its creators.
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you have no idea how hard it is for roblox to create scale like this and a development infrastructure that even kids can use. its like super mario maker on steroids

is mario maker labor exploiting kids who make maps too?
 
Conditional-Pancakes

Conditional-Pancakes

The GIFs of Us
Member
Jun 25, 2020
10,830
the wilderness
HandsomeCharles said:
It's very different. Nintendo isn't implying anywhere that a creator would be able to make "real money" from their creations, and markets the game purely as that - a game. Roblox on the other hand is leaning very much towards the "get rich quick!" side of things.
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Very good points.

And Roblox and Nintendo are in a completely different situation.

Unlike Roblox, the success of Nintendo as a company doesn't directly depend on kids making content in games like Super Mario Maker. And unlike Roblox, the stock prices of Nintendo wouldn't be directly affected if kids stopped making stuff in games like Super Mario Maker.
 
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