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

clearleaf,

Bible Adventures for NES

toastal, (edited )

Don’t do Minecraft when Minetest is open source. It’s not meant to be installed as vanilla per se tho as mods are for building gameplay and vanilla is just a sandbox/canvas to build Minecraft-like or addjacent games. Especially if you can get him on PC, I could be a hopskip away from creating his own open mods (as opposed to the content farm of underpaid “devs” for Roblox which have wild stories if you look it up).

Veloran is also a good alternative for free software with an adventure MMO aspect that might appeal to the guy.

Being projects without a profit motive & a strong community where the players are the developers is a safer route where you would never expect loot boxes, microtransacitions, dark/addictive patterns because those aren’t fun & money isn’t an incentive. With the source available your son is more than welcome to read it to figure out how games work, contribute ideas/code, & learn to make mods which are all great, real-life skills learned while accidentally gaming & trying to make the game better for yourself & friends—and if he’s not a future coder, there are assets & stories to build, or just playtesting a friend’s mod.

haui_lemmy,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Sound idea. Additionally, it’s now possible to stream games to the tv quite easily. So pc is really the better alternative to get away from psychological abuse through console and game manufacturers.

Also, Minecraft on console is no better than roblox imo. It is a microtransaction pile of sh*t. You could argue that minecraft java works but I get the strong feeling that it wont stay like this forever since bedrock makes more money and allows for stronger manipulation through nonexistent mod support and everything is monetized there.

toastal,

If it’s set up correctly. The biggest selling point of a console is that it boots you to “play game” mode as the default & games have better expectations since the hardware is standardized. That said, in the case of Steam, there’s nothing to say you can’t install Linux & have it boot directly into Big Picture mode (but you’ll still need to remember to get software updates for the OS as they aren’t integrated like a console).

haui_lemmy,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

Two things I see differently:

  • the hardware of a pc is standardized as well and the performance of a console is not better afaik
  • there is something called unattended upgrades for linux which takes that away as well. You also don’t ever need the newest version of linux
modcolocko,

Minetest simply doesn’t have the content catalog of Minecraft, for a game that the appeal is the fact you can pretty much never get bored of it, that’s a massive drawback.

toastal,

Build it m8

WetBeardHairs,

We’re already firmly invested in minecraft. I have the java edition on my computers - and he has bedrock on the xbox. It sucks that they arent compatible, but he’s too young for a pc.

arlaerion,

Too young for a PC? My daughter got my old components with 8 years. Now with 10 years, playing Veloren, Minetest, Terraria and LotRO with me at her side on it…

toastal,

That’s adorable

riseuppikmin,
@riseuppikmin@hexbear.net avatar

If you/the kids are playing vanilla look into Geyser as it allows Bedrock and Java players to play on the same server.

WetBeardHairs,

I had no idea that was possible. I’m looking into it now. Is it any good?

riseuppikmin,
@riseuppikmin@hexbear.net avatar

I haven’t used it since the 1.16.5 days but it worked perfectly fine for vanilla back then and I’m sure it probably does now too.

If you have more questions after you read a bit more about it feel free to drop them here.

progettarsi,

fortnite

LemmyIsFantastic,

Lolol parents banning video games they don’t like. Name a better duo.

Gabu,

Roblox is an abusive platform that pressures kids into wasting real money - and that’s before mentioning how there have been MULTIPLE pedo scandals related to it.

pacoboyd,

Not constructive dude. Roblox is a bit of a cesspool, so completely understandable he wouldn’t want his kids to play. I remeber one of my kids watching what is normally a wholesome youtube streamer playing roblox and someone else came on and was like “I’m gonna show you my penis”. Roblox streams banned then an there. And you know what, my kids were slightly upset but since they were equally shocked as well after our convo they understood why. We had a talk about why roblox is different than minecraft in that respect and that was it. I still allow my kids to play “violent and bloody” games if they like because they are able to focus past that aspect. If they couldn’t, it might be a different conversation. And it would be just thst, a conversation not an ultimatum.

Scary_le_Poo,
@Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org avatar

Maybe introduce him to Beyond All Reason? It’s an RTS in the vein of Total Annihilation. Free and open source and very good looking.

WetBeardHairs,

Beyond All Reason

That game looks awesome. I need to check it out.

cuchilloc,

Spiderheck, should be cheap!

Aquilae,
@Aquilae@hexbear.net avatar

Terraria

FigMcLargeHuge,

Definitely have to get him Valheim, and they have an Xbox version now. Also, not multiplayer, but Kerbal Space Program is pretty fun. I have only played the PC version though, so can’t speak to the console version.

WetBeardHairs,

Oh I forgot valheim was multiplayer. Thanks. He even played it for a little while so I’ll have to get that one going again

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

At that age, maybe Among Us or Minecraft?

WetBeardHairs,

Those are already commonly played by him and his friends, so you were right to suggest them.

magnetosphere,
@magnetosphere@kbin.social avatar

For a second I confused Among Us with The Last of Us. I thought that was a pretty messed up suggestion for a little kid lol

pineapplelover,

All I’ve played is csgo growing up. Cool game

Nacktmull,

Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed Collection

stagen,
@stagen@feddit.dk avatar

I recommend Astroneer - a solo / multiplayer survival game about collecting resources, refining stuff and building up bases on several planets. It’s hecking fun in multiplayer and it doesn’t have combat. There’s a ton of things to do and if the kids are good at communicating with each other they can quickly conquer the game. The only microtransactiony stuff it has is cosmetics (but it’s not being pushed upon you in any way), but you can unlock some of these through progression as well.

HerbalGamer,
@HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works avatar

Just rediscovered Battlefield Heroes through the fanmade Rising Hub.
Pretty sure it’s the perfect kinda game for a group of 10 year olds to play and socialize on.

jack,

If you’re that kind of person, throw away the Xbox too, pure garbage. Everyone deserves the open environment of a PC where one can tinker and learn about the system, maybe even make some mods for games.

dominiquec,
@dominiquec@lemmy.world avatar

Minecraft has been suggested here but there’s also Minete St, free/open source version. The experience isn’t exactly the same but the basics are there. Works with PC and Android. You can also run one of the computers as a host and you can do multiplayer. Absolutely no microtransactions.

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