Technology

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:

https://youtu.be/_gXlauRB1EQ?si=g0WlQz5qC3_pmswX

https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY?si=blVIQv15W7sws6wY

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.

Trash.

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.