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

EnderMB,

Given that you’ve got some great answers already, there seems to be very few guides on how to deal with this sort of shit as a parent.

Gaming today is very different to what we grew up with, particularly microtransactions, and I think a lot of people would be surprised at how many kids spend insane amounts of money on things like FUT packs, VBucks, etc. Much of this is down to peer pressure, so saying shit like “my kid will never pay money on microtransactions” is wishful thinking.

TORFdot0,

Kids also have different attitudes on what constitutes value to them. So while parents see robux as total ripoff, kids don’t have the experience of playing a game and receiving the whole thing and not being expected to pay real money to skip the hard parts.

Kids aren’t the only ones who waste their money on frivolous gaming transactions though. Millions of adults by battlepasses for games or we wouldn’t have that crap in games either.

WetBeardHairs,

Yeah that’s why I let my kid do specific chores to earn money for mtx. So he has his dripfeed to support whatever costumes or other mtx he sees - but not enough to get truly addicted. Plus I have been very forward with him that the money he spends on mtx is literally worthless the moment he buys it - so I give him normal allowance at a higher rate than his small mtx earnings. My goal is to balance it out so he can have non-standard skins and not feel made fun of for it, but also not grow psychologically dependent on them like some kids.

JackGreenEarth,

Minecraft Java. Minecraft bedrock is full of microtransactions, and we both dislike those.

Gabu,

Minecraft Java isn’t available on Xbox, is it?

haui_lemmy,
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com avatar

No but pc is now available on tv. The more people use it, the faster these monetization machines called this decades consoles can wither and die.

JackGreenEarth,

Idk, on Android you can run Pojav Launcher, but I don’t really know much about x boxes. Probably a mistake to buy such a closed ecosystem in the first place, from the little I have heard.

Evotech,

They are ten. They’re not going to use third party launchers

JackGreenEarth,

Why would being ten have any relation to using Pojav Launcher?

Maggoty,

At ten I was coding basic stuff and figuring out lan networks to play multiplayer games in the early 90’s. An average 10 year old is very capable of figuring out tech stuff.

Nacktmull,

Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed Collection

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.

Crashumbc,

Dark Souls

Gabu,

Do you want OP’s kid to grow up to become a masochist? Because that would do it.

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.

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.

FlavoredButtHair,
@FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world avatar

Diablo II, III, IV. It’ll teach him how to build character with the skill points.

spuncertv,

Sea of thieves is great, but only plays 4 at any given time. It also has alcohol and some T rated violence, but it depends on what your boundaries are for the kids.

Gabu,

Hello, fellow pirate! I would argue nobody could actually take the violence on Sea of Thieves as being T-rated - it’s a bunch of goofy, heavily deformed people fighting with swords that don’t draw blood.

FigMcLargeHuge,

This is a good suggestion. I like this game as well. There’s a lot of customization that can be done without paying extra for it, but I am an old fart and don’t care to have all that crap in my game. Give everyone the same pair of pants and lets go. Time to go change the onion on my belt.

maltasoron,

StarCraft 2. No friends, only ladder. Get him practicing now and he’ll be winning RTS tournaments before he’s 20 like Clem.

ArmokGoB,

I was playing Goldeneye in the early 2000s and I still couldn’t get out of diamond in Overwatch.

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.

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

Aquilae,
@Aquilae@hexbear.net avatar

Terraria

Fizz,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

You could try Dungeons and dragons. It could be fun for his friend group.

teawrecks,

I wish someone had taught my friends and me how to play D&D when I was 10, but my parents were part of the “satanic panic” generation, and had zero interest in anything to do with fantasy or improv. Once you get out of highschool, finding a night that everyone can meet up for D&D gets exponentially harder, let alone finding someone who wants to put in the time to DM.

GreenEnigma,

This!

My friend group would have thrived from something like that.

But our parents were always afraid of what we’d get up to in this very non-conceptual way, so instead we stayed close to home. And drank.

teawrecks,

Let’s be real, D&D is a gateway drug to alcohol. And lots of doritos 🤭.

WetBeardHairs,

DnD is fantastic. I was planning to buy some campaign materials for xmas. Might as well get that started!

FigMcLargeHuge,

Oh yeah, DnD is a great idea, and if they aren’t into dragons (but who isn’t) there’s all kinds of variations of rpg games. Mutant Year Zero, Vaesen, Alien, Pathfinder, Starfinder, etc. The list goes on and on. And since you have mentioned you have a pc, you can use a virtual tabletop like Fantasy Grounds, for them to play where you don’t have to get them all together in the same room. I play a few different games each week with people I have only met in game. You could buy the FG Ultimate license for one pc, whomever is going to be the DM, and all the other kids could connect with the free beta license, and only the DM needs to own the books. Everyone else can just get on and read the manuals, or play the game with no expense.

WetBeardHairs,

Personally I have played dnd with those virtual tabletops and… they’re pretty bad. You spend about 3x as much time fiddling with it than you do playing. Plus you then get distracted by electronics when you should be getting into your character.

FigMcLargeHuge,

Well I guess it all depends on the dm and the material. I play a couple of games each week, and one is a 4 hour session and it’s pretty immersive. We have a few hiccups now and again, but it’s not anything that bad in my opinion. There is some work on the dm side, but since we are all spread about the planet, it allows us to get together and run a campaign. Even my local board game peeps use FG to play. We talk about playing local, but when we get together it’s usually to break out some board games we have and want to play, and one person playing our dnd game is a couple of states away. We joke about putting him on an ipad and facetiming him with his head sitting on the table. LOL.

retrieval4558,

Dnd (and tabletop gaming in general) is really fun, but I can foresee problems when you try to replace the electronic gambling skinner box of Roblox with a game where the core features are math and imagination.

WetBeardHairs,

I’d say the main hangup with any tabletop game is availability. My family is already planning to do dnd sessions at home.

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