For the longest time, we always thought of Roblox as “that kids game with ridiculous numbers of active users.” Yet as we reported last August, this cheery and popular facade was covering up a predatory business model that basically exploited child labor to make money.
If Roblox was hoping that such allegations were to be swept under the rug, it’s in for a rude awakening as more and more sectors of the games industry are waking up to its unethical practices. YouTube channel People Make Games (which Roblox Corp. attempted to pressure into silence) and GamesIndustry.biz both posted new exposés on the dark side of Roblox — and it’s pretty damning stuff that includes the solicitation of minors and kids being encouraged to gamble with real money.
“If you need a takeaway, it’s that Big Tech and video games in general are aggressively pushing into areas that are understood poorly and regulated even worse,” GamesIndustry.biz said. “Child labor laws were not designed to account for kids creating digital items for other people to resell within a closed ecosystem for company scrip that can be cashed out into actual currency after the company takes an outsized cut of the proceeds.”
