You've probably heard of Roblox, which is famous in one way or another, or you probably know one of your friends playing this game, and the game is one of the most popular games right now among players of different age groups even more than Minecraft, which is very similar to Roblox, with an average of 190 million users and players in 2021 only and more than Minecraft.
I didn't come here to talk about the numbers of players in the game or the statistics achieved by the game in 2021, but to talk about shameful and immoral acts that happen within the game and these actions must stop happening within the game, and these actions are the exploitation of young developers — children — to make games inside the game and exploit them financially and may even be sexually exploited. In the following lines, we will learn about these acts in detail and how to stop them.
First of all, before I talk about the disgraceful actions that happen within the game and how to solve them, we need to understand how games are made within Roblox to show us more details.
How are different games made in Roblox?
First of all, to understand what's going on inside Roblox, we need to get to know the real start to allow players to create their own games within the game. At first, Roblox developers made in-game games and as the number of players in the game increased, they decided to put the right tools in front of the players in the game to make their own games and make some money.
The game offers a large number of different paid and free games but the vast majority of those games are free and all players can access them. You can make games through Roblox Studio, one of the free programs you can access through your Roblox account, through which you can create your own game of your design and then spread that game to players, and make some money through microtransactions — items you buy within the game with real money — if that game is free.
For a while, you think it's normal and there's no harm to the players — mostly children — they're just toys made by kids to enjoy their time, but as the game spreads more and more, interest in making games inside Roblox is greater than ever as children who make toys are exploited. Follow the following lines to see how children are exploited.
Exploiting small developers to make more money
As the game began to spread more and more and the public was left to make their own games and make money, the so-called semi-companies appeared because they are not really companies, semi-companies this role is to make many games with the participation of dozens of developers — up to 100 developers — to work on one game and each developer has a different role, the ages of developers range from nine to 17 years, i.e. most of them are children, semi-corporate owners agree with children Workers have a certain amount to pay, but often little will be paid.
Some may wonder and say why you called it semi-companies?... Well, my role here is to answer your question: I called it semi-companies because they are not complete companies, by all accounts are fictitious companies that do not exist on the ground, and there is no evidence to prove to us that there is official communication between the owners of semi-companies – and by the way, the owners of these fictitious companies may be children in their own right – and those who develop the game, often through the servers of the famous Discord site.
Roblox's game developers are partners of the fictitious company's owner, with both parties agreeing on a certain amount that the owner of the fictitious company will pay to the developer if the game they created succeeds. But since we said there is no evidence to prove that there is official communication, this leaves room for the owner of the fictitious company to transfer the developer from partner to employee, which means that the developer will get a monthly salary for this work but it will be much less than the agreed amount if the game succeeds and this is what happened with someone already, I will remind you of his experience shortly.
If you don't get the idea of turning a partner into an employee, each partner collaborates with the founder of the fictitious company to work on a game and has a specific percentage of the profits that the game reaps, but what the owner of the fictitious company does is turn everyone he works with into employees with a fixed monthly salary instead of the percentage of profits he takes which is of course much lower than the profits.
Encouraging children to gamble
You often don't know that Roblox developers themselves sell items on their platform at astronomical prices, as well as allowing players to sell their own items on the online marketplace — we can call it a black marketplace — designed by game developers at astronomical prices of up to $15,000 per item.
This huge market allows players to reach out to each other and sell and buy those items between them and even gamble with their money. And certainly, dear reader, you might think of the question, "What is the development company's position on gambling?" The company did not object to this and even encouraged players to gamble, and even provided them with tools to preview different items around the clock.
The company encourages players because it benefits greatly from buying and selling between players, as up to 30% of the amount of the sale is allocated and the rest goes to the seller, do not think friend that this percentage is small, but it is very large because the items are sold at astronomical prices, for example, if the amount sold the item is $15 thousand the company will get about $4500, and this price is just an example that may be much higher. Of course, if Roblox is the seller, you will get the full amount.
Since Roblox gets a high percentage of sales, some people have set up other sites to buy and sell these items and Robux currency without the above ratio, much cheaper than the official market provided by the game.
People who have been exploited in Roblox
In the paragraph above, I said I would remind you of the experience of someone who was exploited inside Roblox, well, according Quintin Smith of People Make Games via YouTube, he confirmed that he had spoken to a developer named Jordan, who developed one of the most successful games on Roblox.
The developer confirmed that he was a partner in the game development process and takes a percentage of the profits for the game but the fictitious company he worked for turned it from partner to employee with the request to work longer hours and continue to get the same amount which is less than the amount he took when he was a business partner.
Don't think, my friend, it ended up there, but it came to sexual exploitation of a child, journalist Smith spoke with a little girl with the alias Sarah who was collaborating with a 24-year-old developer named Doc to work on Sonic, the girl's collaboration with the developer quickly turned into sexual exploitation, which is unacceptable. You can find this information in the video above.
Solutions to what's happening within the game community:
- First of all, Roblox must stop exploiting children for money, and their main concern should not be how to raise more money, even by encouraging children to act immorally. Also, the community of game developers is managed within the game, specific laws are put in place for them, and an appropriate tool for connecting developers under the name Roblox is put in place to be official.
- Secondly, anyone who exploits children must be punished, especially those who sexually exploit them, whether by permanently banning their devices from accessing the game or punishing them by law.
- Thirdly and finally, if the game developer does not stop encouraging children to commit immoral acts, or punishing those who exploit children, we must not remain silent about what is happening in the game at the moment and players must protest so that the exploitation of children in the game stops.
What is happening within the game community of exploiting children or even adults is morally unacceptable, the owners of semi-companies not only exploit children financially but also want to exploit them sexually like the girl you mentioned above. The developer must stop encouraging children to act disgracefully immediately and punish all those who have exploited the children. If the company does not move shortly, the players must protest and not be silent about this farce.
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