this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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As we all know, Roblox is garbage tier gameplay structured around psychological cues to get children to fill an endless pit with fake money bought with real money.

So I banned my kid from it. He used it a little bit socially with a few friends of his. What online or local multiplayer games should I help him to replace it with? (He's 10, so please don't recommend Diablo 4 or anything else that has quite that much gore)

He and his friends have an Xbox Series X|S at home.

Edit: keep your judgemental shit out of here. His whole social group (5 kids he knows from school) got banned on the same day. Me and the other parents are trying to be nice and replace it with better quality games so it isn't just a punishment.

Edit2: Thanks guys. I got him Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'm still confused as to why you guys don't just ban the spending of money on micro transactions and not the game itself? Every game is jam PACKED with mtx these days, from CoD to Fortnite to Forza.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

peer pressure. I fell for it in my TF2 days in high school. A buck there a few bucks there, all for a hat with particle effects that I never got. All because one of my friends I was playing with had one, and I wanted one too.

I learned a valuable lesson, but I was also 15/16 and had the ability of self reflection (and wanting to get Skyrim for $5 instead of a key). Can't expect this level of self control from most teenagers, let alone a 10 year old.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Personally, I want my kid to be able to buy a few things every now and then. Roblox got the axe for multiple reasons - mtx was only one aspect. He gets a vbuck or two with his allowance if he wants to earn them. It helps him get a healthy view of how little mtx are really worth, but a cosmetic here or there is kind of fun.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Oh duh. Also, I forgot you said it was because you didn't feel the gameplay/game itself was quality enough, which is fair enough, but I'm not too familiar with Roblox as I've never played it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Roblox is well-known for predatory practices aimed at children, and predatory behavior from other users who may or may not be looking for children to abuse.

Banning Roblox entirely seems like a very reasonable thing to do IMO.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Every *multiplayer game

I play about a hundred games a year, and haven't opened a game with microtransactions in about half a decade.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My squad has been addicted to Phasmophobia since Halloween, no microtransactions in sight!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lol I think survival horror might be a few years too early for him and his cohorts

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It builds character! Lol but, yeah phasmo is too intense for many of my adult friends, even.

Out of curiosity, do you generally know what he was doing on Roblox? I’ve heard of several horror games being remade within Roblox, such as Iron Lung. I’ve wondered what the limitations are. I definitely remember stumbling into some intense things when I was around that age, but the landscape is so different now

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

He was wasting time playing shitty games because his other friends played those same shitty games. I was taken aback at how mind numbingly shitty those games were. We were in the same room as an Xbox with gamepass and a Nintendo Switch and he chose to play some seriously bad games instead because his friend was addicted to it. Then he became addicted to it. Luckily, that whole friends group will now have much, much better games to play.