„If companies were to do the right thing, they would lose the most valuable customers on earth, preteen kids”
Jonathan Haidt: ‘If companies were to do the right thing, they would lose the most valuable customers on earth, preteen kids’
I have young kids and recently learned what Roblox actually is. My kids will never be allowed to spend a cent on that. I am happy to buy them suitable games.
I'm out of the loop. What is Roblox actually?
It's a platform for playing and creating video games. The stated intent was for kids to make games for kids, but as soon as game creators could make real money from it, professional devs took over. The in game currency is called robux, and it seems like every game is littered with buttons to get a higher jump or faster car or whatever for a few dollars' worth.
Because young kids are not savvy consumers, the platform is chock full of identical games with the same name and logo hoping to steal players stay from whichever game is on trend at the moment.
There are certainly some games in there worth playing, but it's a very small minority.
Child labor
There's two videos from People Make Games about that topic, both very interesting:
From what I understand, it's a platform where you can create games and monetize them by doing things like adding subscriptions, item or ability shops, add access fees, etcetera, that require real world money to be exchanged for them. Though, I think it could also be robux, but I wouldn't know because I avoid that service like the plague.
There's a whole entire webpage dedicated to this monetization thing that's out in the open, if you wanna read it.
The most popular game among groomers.
Trouble is, most of the other games out there for kids are the same thing as the roblox games, and many of them cost money upfront, then sell the kids on skins, and tiny game functions just like roblox games. It's hard to find suitable games for kids, and takes a ton of energy. I have gotten my kids into satisfactory, raft, and games like that. But my youngest keeps coming back to the grinders which all have pay to win. Good games are just not as profitable.
I was about to say... What does "suitable" mean? I grew up in the 90s, and "suitable games" ranged from SimCity or the settlers to age of empires, crusader Kings, quake, doom, unreal tournament or half life.
There is no need to over protect kids from the "simple" evils: when I was very young, I didn't want to play violent or scary games, even knowing they exist. Later I got curious and explored them. Depending on your choice a game such as the settlers, age of empires or crusader Kings could well be classified violent and "unsuitable". But violence is everywhere, and those were some of the games that I fondly remember for instilling a huge curiosity in history and cultures in me. And yes, we were marketing victims as well: everyone spent way too much on Magic, Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards and related toys. But it didn't infect every part of our lives.
Help your kids reflect on their choices and wants. Help them find out why they really want to pay too much money for that shiny Roblox skin. And offer alternatives with free, open content sharing so they realize they are being swindled. Media literacy is much tougher today because companies got much more insidious marketing vectors to infect kids.
Nowadays there are thousands of games being released per week, in addition to classics such as Minecraft, Terraria, Rimworld, Eco, which still have very strong modding and multiplayer communities.
worst part is when they have 57 AAA games but all their friends play fucking roblox have become obsessed with making content with roblox so they can join the child labor pool it uses.
fucking worst company in the universe.
When I was interested in mobile development, one of the big takeaways is to gear your game towards preteens. They have the free time to play, the numbers to add player count, and the opportunity to give you money.
I heard it's why YouTubers gear their content towards that audience too, even if they aren't actively admitting to it.
and the opportunity to give you money
What? Remembering myself as a preteen, even if I didn't consider microtransactions as a no-no, I don't think I would be able to do it anyway. Preteens don't have bank cards. If we are talking about begging their parents - I don't think it would have worked either. Mine, just like average parents, would have probably thought spending money on games was stupid and not allowed it. That is the reason I had pirated Minecraft too - just like most kids around me.
Maybe his analysis considered this, but the article doesn't mention real-world factors like the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis, and what feels like the resurgence of fascism and the spectre of World War 3. It's noted that liberal families seem more susceptible - perhaps it's because right-wing families are more likely to believe these things aren't real, or aren't a problem?
This is what keeps being ignored in these studies, and it seems like the only reason is that copping to the real reasons young people are showing higher rates of mental illness would require admitting that the status quo is unsustainable and frankly evil.
A report that said “gen z is profoundly distressed by the reality of global warming” means admitting we need to fix the climate or see our kids suffers deaths of despair in unprecedented numbers. The same is true if we admit that the economy won’t provide most of them a job that allows basic survival, much less a comfortable fulfilling life; or that these factors have combined to cause a turn to fascism.
Yes, I am predicting that at some point society will reach a tipping point when certain parts of the society will start to revolt against the status quo. Because younger generations are really screwed.
I don't think they can even afford paying their rents and buying their own food by simply working. And this is pushing more and more young people to stay with their parents as long as possible, which ultimately is responsible for lowering birthrate in developed economies. And this puts additional pressure on the social system and weakens the economy of the said country as there would be less working age people for a pensioner.
Social media is creating this social stigma, where everyone pretends to be a better selves and you have a lot of comparing and this of course is unlocking mental diseases. It doesn't help that now we are living in a looming climate crisis, extreme data collection, and exploitation that benefits very few, creating an even bigger social divide.
And call me sceptical but I think a lot of things will change in the future and probably not for the better. We see what is happening in Gaza and this is just like a sneak peek of a bleak dystopia, where the working class will be controlled by the upper echelon with buzzing drones monitoring their every step, and everything monitored for even the slightest signs of descent and violently crushing them in order to preserve the status quo. We already have something similar in China with their social credit system. Authoritarian governments would become more common across the globe and it will be way harder for their population to overthrow them.
Either this or we will experience a big financial crisis when a lot of people will lose huge chunks of their savings and their livelihoods destroyed. And this will be followed by perhaps full restart or the dystopian future, where we won't own anything and everything will be loaned to us by huge corpos.
My good deed for the day: https://archive.is/fxufa
2 of my kids are young enough that they were targeted by the micro transactions, but the total lifetime spend on gaming stuff is under $1k, mostly spent on a PS4 and a PC for gaming, bought some Steam games, some PS games and both spent a little in Genshin. But not ever from my money, except for the equipment, I split that cost with them. $0 before they were 15. And they both UNDERSTAND money, both got part time jobs in high school, they make money. I don't think it's unreasonable to throw a little cash at a game you enjoy but it needs to be a decision not an impulse, turn off the game and think about it.