I banned my kid from Roblox.... what next?

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

mp3, (edited )
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

My oldest kid (6yo) is currently having fun with Goat Simulator ¯_(ツ)_/¯ and yes, I bought the expansions.

He doesn’t play online yet, but I have Minecraft on the PS4 so that may be an option later on.

Other options I can think of that would be appropriate and multiplayer

  • Rocket League
  • Fall Guys
  • Party Animals
  • Portal 2
  • Astroneer
  • Human Fall Flat
GrayBackgroundMusic,

fill an endless pit with fake money bought with real money.

Honest question, if the money is the issue, then why not let him play the free stuff and not spend money on it?

WetBeardHairs,

I’m crumudgeony enough to remember when buying a game was buying a game. I disliked it when mobile games slowly changed into monitization via microtransactions. Heck, I remember buying games for full price and then they got changed to ftp overnight with mtx. That kind of stuff drove me nuts and I am firmly anti-mtx. That said, I let my kid earn money he can use on mtx for cosmetics and stuff on Fortnite. But it is a dedicated pool of money for mtx, his actual money kept separate so he can buy ice cream or save for bigger purchases without worry. Roblox on the other hand, is a company that exploits children for their labor to create the games and it hires psychologists to ensure kids dump as much money into it as possible all while having no moderation. Roblox is awful. Microtransactions in children’s games are harmful and exploitive. I’m letting my kid get a drip feed so he can get the little benefit from having non-stock costumes in fortnite while also having the learning experience that in games with mtx, you can never have enough - without him becoming a whale.

rubikcuber, (edited )
@rubikcuber@feddit.uk avatar

I’ve recently banned my kid from playing it too. I had only just unlocked it for the first time. I had previously blocked it because it was, IMHO, terrible. As a professional gamedev I find it offensively bad. But I relented, because lots of his friends were playing it. However, and this may be the experiences he was playing, it seems to be almost exclusively training kids up for gambling. Pretty much everything is dopamine based rewards. It’s like a casino. It’s worst than I ever imagined. I’m this close to banning online play in Minecraft because he is similarly gravitating to the same sort of experiences. In our case it’s not about money, he hasn’t spent a cent on these things. But the content is very problematic, I have concerns that it is encouraging developing minds that gambling is the norm.

WetBeardHairs,

I’m not a gamedev, but I do software development and you really echo my distaste for roblox very succinctly.

BleatingZombie,

It’s also just an extremely dangerous platform. They have a stock market, game mode development with children employing children (clearly neither one understands employment laws), and unsurprisingly a ton of pedophiles

unreasonabro,

why let your child play shit games

why not teach your child what good gaming can be

why just not care what your child spends his time doing

good grief

learningduck,

Buy him a cheap PC and introduce Factorio.

It would teach them logical thinking and teamwork. Could be a nice platform for programming also.

danque,
@danque@lemmy.world avatar

No no the kid has school to finish. Ive already given up on sleep to work in the factorio.

haui_lemmy,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Factorio is a great idea if you’re ok with school going to sh*t. I called factorio the „time machine“ since it could zap 12 hrs in one second. Cant remember any other game that I played till dawn in the last 20 yrs.

NOOBMASTER,

Cheap PC it is! Send him to Distrowatch.com and let him pick a distro to install.

WetBeardHairs,

I might as well just hold the crackpipe for him and light it

learningduck,

Good supporting dad 😁, lol. Now pass the pipe.

gunpachi,
@gunpachi@lemmings.world avatar

Some games you could consider -

  1. Krunker
  2. Minecraft java edition
  3. Stardew valley
  4. Terraria
  5. Starbound
  6. Dorfromantik
  7. Cities skyline
  8. Goat simulator
onlooker,
@onlooker@lemmy.ml avatar

Couple of issues with this list:

  • OP said their son in his friends use Xbox Series X/S, so that effectively removes Krunker and Minecraft Java Edition. That said, I believe Minecraft Bedrock Edition is available for XSX.
  • Stardew Valley is great, but the son’s social group has 5 people. Stardew Valley only supports up to 4.
  • Cities Skylines does not have multiplayer.

Can’t speak for Dorfromantik, because I haven’t played it, but the rest seem like great choices.

learningduck,

Easy solution for Stardew Valley. Unfriend one.

Joke aside, Factorio multiplayer would be nice to teach some logical thinking, but it’s only on PC

Kushia,
@Kushia@lemmy.ml avatar

Microtransactions aside, if you’re trying to protect your kids from creeps online you’re gonna have to ban every platform that supports interactions with strangers. This includes several other games you’ve mentioned in the comments including Minecraft.

Personally, instead of banning it I just play it with my kids on a regular basis. There’s plenty of actually decent games on Roblox and it enables game ideas that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. My favourite is the Ikea survival game.

Pietson,

The problem with Roblox is that they themselves are the creeps exploiting kids

Daryl76679,

Besides the obvious Minecraft recommendation, maybe Terraria, Satisfactory, and if you’re willing to allow it, something like Smite would be another good option for him to play with his friends.

Templa, (edited )

Maybe it would be cool to ask which games they used to play on Roblox and we could suggest alternatives to those too!

If they are into farming games I’d recommend Stardew Valley, in addition to other games already recommended.

Edit: Many games I wanted to recommend are PC only. 🥲

Edit2: I just saw someone else’s post about the social circle being of 5 which makes Stardew Valley more difficult, oof

danileonis,
@danileonis@lemmy.ml avatar

Oh, I’m sure we’re all great parents here. I applaud you for admitting a mistake and having the humility to ask for advice, both excellent parenting skills in my opinion.

I believe the answer is always culture. Once better videogames are discovered it’s likely that they will hardly go back to the bad ones (so that the problem of prohibitionism - which is only a temporary solution - can be solved).

Renacles,

I haven’t seen Splatoon being recommended here, it’s a ton of fun and has no micrograms actions. You can but your kid a Switch for cheap nowadays.

micnd90, (edited )

Pokemon? Despite many of its flaws, it encourages honest trading amongst friends, it is a classic JRPG, and has no microtransaction. You can play it on emulator if you don’t have a switch

Gabu,

OP has an Xbox, configuring emulators on that isn’t very fun.

Cagi,

Fall Guys, Among Us, Totally Reliable Delivery Service. These games are full of shenanigans 10 year olds love.

WetBeardHairs,

Totally Reliable Delivery Service

Thanks for that one. I hadn’t seen it yet. I bet they’d have fun with it.

Cagi,

Also Goat Simulator.

Aatube, (edited )
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

Please don’t make people play fall guys anymore. Epic has run that thing into the ground by laying off most of their creative team and basically deleting levels and over-monetizing cosmetics

Tau,

He could play minecraft with his friends on a personal server. I think making servers is easy on Minecraft Bedrock (The minecraft version available on Xbox)

pacoboyd,

Minecraft is definitely fun. I have a whole lab setup for my kids and neighbors to play minecraft and they are using Java version with curse forge so they can make endless modpacks. I think you mentioned xbox, so bedrock is definitely an option as well, but it won’t have the free flexibility that Java has.

I personally don’t think that a little gore is the end of the world, especially if you play with them. My daughter picked up D3 when she was probably 9, but I played with her and the gore just wasn’t a focus. Every kid is different though and bunch of boys probably not gonna gloss over that.

One you might consider is Fallout 76. It got a bad rap at launch, but it’s a great game and surprisingly has one of the most wholesome gaming communities ever (probably because most of the trolls gave up early on the game when pvp was mostly removed). There are options to turn down blood as well if that’s a concern.

Nomad,

Space engineers. Great game for cooperation amd if they work well enough they can get a working spaceship going together and explore the universe.

FigMcLargeHuge,

Who the hell would downvote this suggestion??? Space Engineers is a great game.

NateSwift,

Is it on xbox?

FigMcLargeHuge,

Not a clue. I have it on steam.

SatouKazuma,
@SatouKazuma@lemmy.world avatar

One pick that I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned yet is Overcooked 2. No profanity or anything. The only disadvantage is that the game is rather short.

only0218,

There is now a third release containing part 1 and 2 and I think a few of the dlcs

SatouKazuma,
@SatouKazuma@lemmy.world avatar

Good call out!

piyuv,

Overcooked may not have profanity but it certainly cultivates it

SatouKazuma,
@SatouKazuma@lemmy.world avatar

HAHAHA

YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH,

Sniper Elite Five is fun. It only has gore when you are shooting Nazis and it is always morally good to shoot Nazis.

WetBeardHairs,

Shooting nazis is acceptable. I’ll get him Wolfenstein one of these days when he’s a little older.

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