A teacher in Singapore has even been using the platform to teach game design to students from 11 to 18 years old.
Roblox
is still rife with unimaginative clones of popular games, but there’s plenty of invention and innovation to be found.?Plus, all of the building blocks and tutorials you need to get started are freely accessible.
“
Roblox
offers quite an easy starting point for students new to game design while also offering the opportunity to develop high-level coding, modeling, and game design skills,” says Philip Williams, head of Library Services at United World College of South East Asia's East Campus, via email.
The platform's in-game economy is Robux, which you can buy with real cash. Money for developers comes through premium payouts, which give them a share of subscription fees based on how much time players spend in their games or virtual worlds. Developers can also sell game passes and virtual assets, usually clothing and accessories, but in some games, you can buy vehicles, weapons, and special abilities. My daughter tells me you can identify “noobs” by their default outfits, which is why she wanted to subscribe.
Robux can also be used by developers to advertise their games within the platform. Discoverability is key when there are so many other virtual worlds to choose from.
Roblox
has a slightly confusing bidding system where the higher you bid the more often your ad will appear. Converting those ad views into profit is complicated. My kids say they rarely click on ads and discover most games by word of mouth.?
Creativity Hotbed
Next up is
Brookhaven
, a role-playing game set in a large city. You can buy a house, drive various kinds of vehicles around the streets, and even get a job. My daughter leads me on a bank robbery, after which we escape through underground tunnels. Then I get a job as a pilot, we trigger an emergency, and we parachute back to the streets below. It’s chaotic and random, but undeniably fun.?
Most
Roblox
players are
under the age of 13
, almost half are female, and I get the sense that the platform is keen to increase its appeal for older gamers?everyone I speak to says it’s not just for kids. That's especially true with kids who grew up with
Roblox
and continue to play it as they become adults.
But growing pains are inevitable.
Roblox
has largely built its player base as a family-friendly environment, yet now there are concerns about online dating and inappropriate behavior from some players on the platform. My kids chat and play almost exclusively with real-life friends and say they haven’t run into anything disturbing, but a few games I tried have a more adult vibe. Inappropriate language is filtered for younger players, and there’s human moderation, but a platform this large will inevitably have darker corners.?
If you have worries, you can dip into
Roblox's
settings to choose who your kids are allowed to chat with, limit chat to friends only, and vet their list of friends. You can also set up account restrictions to dictate which games your child is allowed to play, or even turn chat off altogether.