Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

The video this article is reporting on is <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ</a>.<p>Normally we&#x27;d change the URL to the original source but I think most HN readers probably prefer to read a summary even if the article is cribbed.

&gt;Second, there’s the matter of how extensively Robux (Roblox’s in-app currency) are used to navigate the creator economy. Roblox creators are paid first by receiving a cut of Robux that comes from the sale, which they can use to purchase other Roblox experiences, in-game assets, cosmetics, etc. That means once a developer enters the Robux economy, their money is all spent inside the Roblox system until they’re able to withdraw it. ... But to withdraw it, they need to have raked in roughly $1,000 worth of Robux.<p>This part seems pretty indefensible. Like yeah to a certain extent all online content platforms have a gate like this, but I&#x27;ve never heard of one that high. YouTube e will pay you as soon as you make something like $20 iirc. And the fact that they pay you in their gated currency which they then allow you to spend but only within their system seems like am obvious self-serving money grab.

I read the article but have not watched the video so I may be missing some context.<p>It really depends on how you define “exploiting”. It doesn’t seem like you _need_ to buy the ads. A kid could make a game on any platform and would encounter similar barriers.<p>Would it be better if the kid played Call of Duty rather than creating something? Even if the chance to profit is low does the kid get something else out of Roblox?<p>To my knowledge kids aren’t dropping out of high school with hopes of being a Roblox millionaire. They may dream about it but I don’t think they act on it. I dreamed about being a pro eSports gamer in high school and I’d argue my time was much worse spent doing that.

My son makes some games on Roblox and plays a lot.<p>He has a great time, he&#x27;s not chasing $, he just wants to have fun. It works great for that.<p>As soon as you try to stand out and chase money, yeah it gets HARD. Just like streaming on YouTube... or just getting noticed online for your blog.<p>But what&#x27;s the alternative here? That&#x27;s a question of scale. Just not let kids even have a chance to make money?

My kids (and I) certainly don&#x27;t see it as exploitation - they <i>love</i> learning to create games, and would be happy to do it even without any chance of payout.<p>I don&#x27;t think the $1k minimum payout is crazy either, as the overhead of paying 10s of thousands of kids $11.32 would kill margins (leading to Robux having to take a higher %age). I&#x27;d have to think most kids are in the same boat as mine - if their games ever earn them any Robux, they&#x27;ll turn around and spend those Robux in another game, because that&#x27;s what they want to do with it anyway.

Upon further reflection, I think I&#x27;ve figured out why my kids and I don&#x27;t see this as exploitative - they&#x27;re not trying to get rich or famous.<p>I&#x27;m not trying to be mean to anyone, but if you look at all of the complaints through the filter of someone who wants to a) learn to make a video game, b) learn some programming, and c) make a cool game to share with his friends, then Roblox is a really fun, free, and easy way to do all of the above.<p>If your filter is a kid who a) wants to make a game that goes viral and earn a bunch of money off of it, then yeah - some of these are legit complaints.

This is no more exploitative than someone trying to make it big on Youtube, Twitch, or Spotify and gaining zero traction. If the content someone creates on these platforms doesn&#x27;t capture an audience, the hosting platform doesn&#x27;t generate any revenue and neither does the creator. It&#x27;s completely free to produce the content (minus your time) and the platform hosts it for free, even though 99% of it never receives any views&#x2F;plays&#x2F;listens.<p>At the end of the day I think the only worthy argument is whether or not the revenue sharing arrangement is fair.

See Carmack&#x27;s rebuttal: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ID_AA_Carmack&#x2F;status&#x2F;1428483898896535562" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ID_AA_Carmack&#x2F;status&#x2F;1428483898896535562</a><p>&gt; I have been impressed by the number of real world economic and business issues that Roblox is exposing my younger son to, both in the experiences and the larger ecosystem. There is a lot of thinking in terms of effort, reward, and risk.<p>&quot;You seem to be ignoring the thesis of the video. For the vast majority of their creators, their is very little reward, and mostly a lot of exploitative business preying on children.&quot;<p>&gt; I am disagreeing with the thesis of the video. Roblox provides opportunities previously unavailable; it is up to the individuals to decide if they are worthwhile to invest time in.<p>If the most legendary game developer of all time thinks Roblox is fine, are you sure he&#x27;s mistaken?

my son (not yet 14yo) has learnt to write a few games in Roblox<p>he&#x27;s learnt Lua, object orientated programing client side&#x2F; server side distributed programing (and how to optimse the speed)<p>he&#x27;s also learnt that the people who run the platform will screw you over in many different ways (he&#x27;s learnt a few tricks to semi counter this)<p>he&#x27;s learnt that advertising can be useless and costly,<p>learnt people are extremely fickle, there&#x27;s a far amount of people who have money to throw around<p>learnt that doing good graphics is harder than it seems. (also learnt how to use blender)<p>also that game dynamics and subtile changes can have big real world changes to peoples experiances<p>also that UI and UX are important<p>also to train other (kids) how to program - for money<p>I&#x27;d say as a learning platform it has been fantastic, he&#x27;s not made much real money, but has earned a far amount of robuks (platforms currency) that&#x27;s he&#x27;s spent in game

I have no experience of Roblox development, but if it teaches transferable skills to &#x27;real&#x27; programming then it&#x27;s still probably a net good.

A lot of people seem to be missing the point - Roblox is motivated to make money from kids. In pursuit of making money they are likely to ignore harms associated to their business model.<p>Yes, this is how business works, but this is also why child labor laws exist. Roblox is treading a fine line between game development for fun and game development for work.

Hard disagree.<p>The absurd vast majority of people will never make any money via Roblox, or any of the major app stores for that matter. I have a few apps on both Google Play and the App Store.<p>I&#x27;m never going to see a dime. If anything I like that Roblox is encouraging kids to learn game development, later on they can always move on to Unity or Godot( I&#x27;m not really an Unreal fan since the editor doesn&#x27;t run well on my computer). Then they can also enjoy making no money on Steam ! It&#x27;s very very rare for indie game devs to make money !!

These allegations, if true, are terrible, and Roblox should address them.<p>That said, maybe if these young developers learn first hand why digital sharecropping is bad at an early age they can avoid being chewed up and spit out by the &quot;AAA&quot; game development machine and instead focus on creating and promoting games on a platform they have control over.

Sort of orthogonal, but a perhaps culturally telling anecdote: a few months ago I was actively looking for a new job, and got a cold email from a technical recruiter from Roblox (via linkedin). I was curious, so set up a time to call, he asked for me to submit my cv (which is 90% things you could see on my linkedin, but sure, whatever) through a upload page on some recruiting site of their. Within minutes of submitting the cv, I got a rejection email from them, even though I had already scheduled the call. I figured it was an error, but nope, crickets when the time for the call came around.

Its not really surprising, this is a platform designed solely for the purpose of keeping kids glued to their screens and spending money. And they are excellent at it. My kids are obsessed with it to the point where I have been planning a complete ban on gaming for a couple weeks to try and break the addiction. I know several (4) other families who&#x27;s kids are going through the same thing. My kids are constantly asking for money as well to buy things in game, constantly to the point that it really reminds me of a drug addiction.

I feel like any criticism that centered around “it’s difficult to be in the top 200” is just ridiculous and sounds Like it’s just sour grapes from someone who failed at making something good and can’t accept that.<p>There is nothing any platform can do to have more items in their top 200. That’s just not possible. It’s not a problem in the platform that you didn’t make it to the top 200.

It&#x27;s all fun and games till people start talking about money and exploitation.<p>Back in my day, we made mods for fun, and then we used the skills we learned to get jobs doing something corporate.

What I find most disturbing about this is the possibility to use real money to promote the games. Due to the misrepresentation of the chances of success this turns the platform into a gambling den for ten year olds.

Wonder what the IRS would think of these earnings. If someone earns $5,000 worth of Robux but spends it all in Roblox rather than ever converting it to currency, is that taxable income? Or would it be like S&amp;H Green Stamps? While there likely aren&#x27;t many who make games that earn that much or whatever the IRS&#x27;s threshold is, this is the kind of edge case that ends up making headlines when (if) the IRS comes sniffing around.

An 11 year old is having trouble earning a living as an independent game developer?

If you&#x27;re interested in more info about the platform dynamics of Roblox, I found _So You Want to Compete with Roblox_[1] to be informative.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fortressofdoors.com&#x2F;so-you-want-to-compete-with-roblox&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fortressofdoors.com&#x2F;so-you-want-to-compete-with-...</a>

This probably is exploitative at some level. Although for my son, he has made a handful of very low budget games. And he&#x27;s gotten paid in Robux for them. He was actually pleasantly surprised when he got his first payout. Probably the equivalent of a few dollars.<p>While he can&#x27;t cash out his Robux, it turns out not to be so bad for him since he likes Robux. On his last birthday his biggest as was for Robux.<p>As far as gaming development platforms, it is probably the best I&#x27;ve used. I&#x27;m not a pro game developer, so I&#x27;ve used simple stuff like Unity. But I have found Roblox to be a really easy platform to get started with.

they should all go to sandbox. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sandbox.game&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sandbox.game&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a> Play, Create, Own, and Govern a virtual world made by players

If they were forced to change, I feel like the most likely outcome would be to remove the chance of renumeration for young developers, to sidestep any possible legal implications altogether. To turn experience-making, for kids at least, into a purely hobby effort. Maybe that&#x27;s not bad, but I figure the same negative pressures would still exist, for the most part.<p>It would be interesting to see the company&#x27;s reaction to a completely free, hobby Experience becoming the most played (and unpaid) game on the platform. It&#x27;s unlikely, but fun to imagine.

As a teen I spent many hours making games in Klik and Play and mods for Id Software games. Roblox and Minecraft both enable kids to craft experiences for and with friends. I think Roblox&#x27;s market, messaging, and cut set it apart. If it didn&#x27;t sell the dream of making money and maintain such a high bar to get money out and get discovered then it wouldn&#x27;t be so exploitive.<p>I don&#x27;t feel exploited by my time with other game toolkits because the expectations and outcomes were clearer.

I&#x27;m with others here in that this - while an extreme example - is just another version of common revenue-sharing that happens on pretty much <i>all</i> online creation platforms where the user isn&#x27;t responsible for hosting the content themselves.<p>I think it&#x27;s a bit ludicrous that the company is pushing that as a marketing point towards children, that the payout-threshold is so high, and that they take multiple cuts of that payout, but at the end of the day; <i>aren&#x27;t all monetized products aimed at children kind of a scam built on exploiting people who can&#x27;t recognize they&#x27;re being exploited?</i><p>Kind of egregious, but also just the same principle as <i>many</i> other platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Spotify, Medium, Google, etc.

I mean is a shit model but as long as you do all your transactions off marketplace it reduces fees significantly

Not sure what Roblox is in first place. An integrated game engine and hosting site?

It&#x27;s the epitome of what people have come to expect from Silicon Valley bro culture to exploit child programmers instead of paying them cash.<p>Roblox developer business model should be renamed Dickensian Development.

Cut is high, something like 91.25%. That should probably change. All the rest is whinging.

articles like this would do better to actually spell things out.<p>What <i>is</i> the cut. They say it&#x27;s worse than other platforms, but nothing stops them from actually saying what it is.<p>edit: the cut roblox takes for themselves is 30% at transaction time, <i>and 65% at withdrawal time</i>.

some people are jealous they didn&#x27;t buy the IPO when it was cheap, some FOMO in hopes they can buy some now lol<p>i am omniscient