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    Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers

    People Make Games

    5 HN recommenders · recommended in 15 months, 2021–2026

    YouTube

    22:44 · 2.7M views · Aug 19, 2021

    People Make Games investigates how Roblox relies on young, often child, developers to build its content while paying them very little. It covers Roblox's monetization model, the revenue split, and the harms to kids who make games on the platform.

    HN commenters cite it as the go-to evidence that Roblox exploits child developers, and parents are pointed to it before letting kids build games there.

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    20 comments from Hacker News

    1. @followerJan 2024· in “Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?”

      The YouTube channel "People Make Games" has a couple of reports that I'd suggest parents consider watching first before going down that road: * "Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers": this video * "Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper.": [LINK]

      RecommendsView on HN
    2. @pull_my_fingerOct 2022· in “Roblox sued for allegedly enabling young girl’s sexual, financial exploitation”

      Some interesting related investigation (I think they mention this girl in the second video) related to roblox is anyone is interested. I had never used it, but after seeing these I don't think I would ever use it or encourage anyone to use it. this video [LINK]

      RecommendsView on HN
    3. @DerArztJan 2022· in “Roblox October Outage Postmortem”

      To add, there is a nice documentary here[1] which also has a followup[2] that show even more of the issue at hand. Kids making games and only getting 24.5% of the profit is one thing, but everything else that Roblox does is much worse. [1] this video [2] [LINK]

      RecommendsView on HN
    4. @shagieMar 2023· in “Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access”

      People Make Games is one of the YouTube channels that I respect in this domain... Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - this video Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - [LINK]

      RecommendsView on HN
    5. @teddyhMay 2024· in “Lessons Learned from My First Roblox Game”

      The one being exploited is the developer. From the article: > I spent $100 on advertising after publishing the game More information: < this video >

      RecommendsView on HN