Roblox isn’t a game.
That’s not an exaggeration or a cute introduction. Roblox isn’t a game, it’s a platform which hosts user-made games. Roblox makes it easy to make your own game and release it to the public, with little to no oversight. So when a young person tells me they’re playing Roblox, I know I have to follow up by asking which game they’re playing on the platform. Some are appropriate, some are not. Some are mindless, some are dangerous. And with tens of millions of games available, I’m almost never familiar with the one they’ve been playing recently.
I’ve written previously about video games’ benefits for stress reduction, usefulness in building motivation and positive social spaces, and how they can be used to help teach kids to read. I even use them with my clients in the therapy room. I love video games. But Roblox scares me.
Roblox is currently being sued in at least thirty-five different lawsuits alleging that they facilitated communication between young children and adults who groomed children, exposed them to inappropriate content, and blackmailed them, in some cases leading to suicide.
Hindenburg Research, a group that investigates companies for investors, created accounts claiming to be minors and explored various games available to their selected age group. They were so shocked by their findings that they concluded that Roblox was “an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.”
What makes Roblox games addictive?
Roblox has a number of features available to game developers, including every psychological trick that would make a game habit-forming. Because Roblox makes it easy to find and play a variety of games, game developers must find creative ways to keep users’ attention. This means that even people who want to create a fun, ethical game risk losing their players to one that includes manipulative tactics. In practice, this means that almost every game on the “charts” uses some form of manipulative or addictive features.
Having a popular game on Roblox can be extremely profitable. Roblox does not release exact numbers, but most estimate that the top games have earned tens of millions of dollars. This means that, in addition to including addictive features, game developers also heavily monetize the games using small, optional purchases like loot boxes or cosmetic changes to one’s character.
What makes Roblox dangerous?
Most online multiplayer games allow communication between players. This allows the games to be social spaces, as people are able to chat with one another while playing. In any given game, players can change their individual settings to permit or restrict others from contacting them. In Fortnite, for example, players can choose from allowing anyone, only one’s in-game friends, only one’s in-game friends and current teammates, or no one to speak with them.
Roblox only allows players to select “Everyone” or “No one.” This means that children who want to chat with their family or classmates while playing must also allow strangers to communicate with them. This baffling decision allows predatory adults to communicate with any children who want to talk to their friends.
This level of access to children has led to extremist groups using Roblox as a way to find minors to radicalize. Parents have also alleged in various lawsuits mentioned earlier that this allowed predators to contact and harm their children. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton called platforms like Roblox “digital playgrounds for predators.”
How can you keep your children safe?
Although many parents have decided to keep their children off the platform entirely, there are ways to keep children safe while playing Roblox. The first is to set up parental controls and manually switch “experience chat” and “direct chat” to “no one.” Children who use Roblox to connect with peers will balk at this, so make sure to both explain why you are doing so and also provide an alternate, safe way to communicate with their friends.
For example, they can voice chat with their friends on a private Discord server, which only people they know in real life can access. They might like to communicate using a live video chat with their friends while they play together.
Parental controls are extremely easy to circumvent, so you should also make sure to explain why you aren’t letting them talk to their friends in-game. Try something like, “Talking to strangers online is dangerous. Some people use games like these to try to meet kids and hurt them or steal their money. We want you to be able to talk to your friends, but we don’t want strangers to be able to talk to you, so we’re turning off public chat. Let’s find other ways for you to talk to them while you’re playing so you can still have fun together.”
Explaining why you are enforcing this boundary and providing an alternative minimizes the chance they will break the rule. Kids are much more likely to break rules they don’t understand or agree with.
The second way is to play alongside your kids. As I’ve written about previously one of the most effective ways to keep your children safe is to play with them. This will allow you to not only spend time with your kids, but will also let you covertly monitor the games they like on Roblox for appropriateness and make sure they are acting responsibly. It will also give you important context, like what they’re spending money on and what it is about the game that makes it hard to put down.
Overall, I would not recommend that parents allow their children to play on Roblox. However, playing alongside them and blocking strangers from communicating with them can help mitigate the harm the platform can facilitate.
Andrew is the author of the upcoming book Parenting a Gamer: Help Your Child Build Healthy Habits, Make Positive Choices, and Find Balance in Virtual Worlds.
