Throughout the unit we have been engaging in a lot of Games Industry research. Topics included are employment opportunities, workplace culture (crunch), and diversity within the industry as a whole. I have always stewed on the fact that I just don’t “get” what Roblox is. It is a massive, unbelievably in gaming IP that has remained foreign to me. Which is strange as I consider myself somewhat of a nerd for gaming news. It has been explained to me by younger people who engage with it, but it seems the marketing has always seemed to miss my unique ad targeted algorithms.
I started to look a little more into the platform as I saw some more news about it arising and then it clicked for me, Roblox is emulating the Silicon Valley approach of Platform Capitalism.
Definition — Platform capitalism refers to the activities of companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb and others to operate as platforms. In this business model both hardware and software are used as a foundation (platform) for other actors to conduct their own business.[1][2]
Roblox is not a Game per se, but a Platform in which Games exist and can be played and created by it’s users. My initial skepticism, pessimism included, arose when I saw marketing for young developers to be creative and make their own games; including profiting from those games. Something that on the face of it is not a bad thing; many software services act in this way. Uber being an example, where drivers sign up for the app and can work their own hours and be their own boss and or have a “side-hustle”. This raises red flags for me to say the least.
I didn’t have enough time to do a full, detailed writeup of the situation that I felt it deserved, but rather I wanted to let out a mood-board of thoughts and ideas I feel just aren’t right with what a platform that operates like this is. Also, how it fits into an industry (Games) I feel emotionally connected to in a way that is also strange. Those emotional connection to Games formed in my formative years, similar ages to the young people on the Roblox Platform currently.
I am linking a great video made by People Make Games that does do the investigatory deep dive below…
- Child Labor ??
- Roblox is specifically targeted to young children not with just the aesthetics, but the marketing campaigns as well.
- Young developers make games on the platform, which are sold on the platform, and then bought with Robux*. They are employed by nobody. So they have extraordinarily limited protections when it comes to worker’s rights. Which is something that might conceptually be foreign to a person under 18.
- Some developers work for companies within Roblox, but cannot sue Roblox for worker violations.
- Games with an Internal Economy
- Because Roblox uses “Robux” instead of real-world currencies, they can abuse unregulated market strategies and scams similar to other more public cryptocurrencies.
- The market is controlled on the platform. Making users beholden to Roblox unique terms and conditions when handling their own money
- The money is actually not the user’s, but Roblox’s.
- The game and platform is targeted towards children with little experience of real-world markets and regulations that are common amongst banks and other platforms.
- They create an ecosystem that the user, the naïve child usually, learns to be okay with. A manipulation of the market that is normal under these conditions, when outside experience would deem sketchy or illegal.
- An internal economy allows “rules” to be written around outside laws. Because the money on the users’ account is not technically in their own name, but controlled by Roblox, transactions such as minimum amount withdrawals can be exploited.
- The gamification of real world money is exploiting the fact that we as user’s are familiar with the fickle nature of in-game economies.
- Roblox is not a game
- Because there is no specific one experience that Roblox is, it is more of a platform for users to experience other games, interact with social networking aspects, or contribute to the development of Roblox games.
“Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers” by People Make Games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ&ab_channel=PeopleMakeGames