All you need to know about Roblox

All you need to know about Roblox: In the UK, a million kids regularly utilize the artistic gaming platform. How appealing is it, and is it secure?Although Roblox isn’t as well-known as Fortnite or Minecraft among kids, the game just revealed that it had over 100 million active monthly users.

It has escaped the notice of the media more than those competitors, so parents of kids who are suddenly requesting to play it—or just playing it—without asking—need a refresher.

Is Roblox good or bad for you? If parents follow the advice made by our specialists carefully, Roblox is a gaming platform that is suitable for children. However, just like any other kind of technology, it is not without its dangers; thus, it is advisable to begin talking with your children as early as possible about how to keep them safe.

What is Roblox?

It is a collection of over 50 million games made by its user community rather than a single game. The most straightforward analogy is with YouTube, which offers a vast array of “user-generated content,” although in this instance, the content is games rather than films.

Kids (and adults) can browse and play the Roblox game library by downloading the program to their computers, gaming consoles, smartphones, or tablets. Its social features—such as adding friends and conversing with them while playing—are also essential to its allure.

Roblox is not a brand-new product; it was first released in 2006 and has grown consistently ever since.

How many children play it?

Roblox states that 40% of its 100 million users are women and girls, although it does not divide this number between children and adults.

According to Kids Insights, a research organization, around 1.5 million kids play Roblox in the UK alone. Based on an annual study of 20,000 youngsters in Britain, their research indicates that 24% of children aged 10 to 12 use Roblox, which is higher than the usage of TikTok (13%) and Snapchat (20%) combined, and almost as popular as Instagram (25%).

According to the firm, 19% of seven to nine-year-olds in the UK play Roblox, which is higher than TV brands like CBBC (11%), Nickelodeon (10%), and Cartoon Network (8%), but still far behind YouTube (43%).

Why is Roblox popular?

Our business doesn’t engage in a lot of marketing. The most common way for someone to learn about our platform is through a friend’s invitation to play. Additionally, they’ll watch users play on YouTube, according to Craig Donato, chief business officer of Roblox. Thus, it’s an organic phenomenon.

Additionally, he contends that part of the appeal of Roblox is its focus on “unstructured play” in a time when many kids have less freedom to engage in physical activities than in the past.

“I used to ride my bike, go on walks in the woods, and play pick-up baseball after I got home from school. However, he notes that it’s difficult for kids these days to go outside and play unstructured with their pals in our modern environment. “Most of the interactions on our platform include more than merely winning an item. It is a shared experience that you have with other people.

How do people make games for it?

By installing the independent Roblox Studio program, anyone can create a game (or “experience”; they can just be virtual environments) for Roblox. The firm claims that up to 100,000 individuals may be seen playing its most popular games at once and that it has over 2 million “creators,” or around 2% of its total user base.

Many kids’ aspirations end with making a primary game or virtual area to hang out with pals. Still, some kids create more giant, intricate games and even start earning money by keeping a portion of in-game sales using Roblox, the virtual currency. The business anticipates giving them more than $100 million in 2019 alone.

Donato claims, “We have these teams starting businesses and bringing in millions of dollars annually.” To support this community, Roblox released its curriculum in 2018 that teachers may use under a Creative Commons license. Donato claims that throughout its first year, it reached over 500,000 kids.

Are people really making businesses out of this?

Indeed, they are. One of the British developers of Roblox games is Josh Wood. Although he is now eighteen, he first became aware of Roblox in 2013 and began creating games for it the following year.

After that, he says, “I kept learning and working with other people on projects until I released Game Dev Life, which has had over a million play sessions to date and is my most successful game to date.”

In addition to recruiting more developers, artists, and testers, Wood has established his own business to create games for Roblox. He has also partnered with Roblox to offer a line of toys based on Game Dev Life.

“I have been able to pay for my university education and continue to reinvest in my business with the money from my games,” he claims.

Abbie Leigh is another young British developer who works on Roblox games. She began using Roblox in 2011 and developing it in 2017, producing assets for other people’s games. She is currently 19 years old. She is currently developing three games, one of which is her own sports-themed game, to turn freelancing development into a full-time job.

Of course, the most excellent part is that it never feels like a job. When it comes to doing what I love, I’m rewarded. I enjoy constructing and doing it in my spare time.

Is Roblox safe for children?

The majority of Roblox’s media coverage has been negative—reports of adults attempting to groom minors on the platform date back to 2017. The most famous incident occurred in June 2018, when two male avatars who had hacked the game’s code to display explicit imagery attacked the avatar of a seven-year-old player.

A Sun investigation that claimed Roblox was “a haven for roleplaying as jihadis, Nazi leaders, and Ku Klux Klan members” was published the next month. The corporation claims to have been working very hard to address wrongdoers and close any gaps in its platform.

If anything has ever gone wrong, we’re not defensive. Laura Higgins, a seasoned British child safety professional recruited by Roblox in January 2019 as its “director of digital civility,” says, “We hold our hands up and say, ‘This is what we’ve done to fix it, and this is what we’re doing to make sure it never happens again.'” Her responsibility is to turn such mishaps into lessons and to stop anything that might endanger the athletes.

“Safety is our first focus from the very beginning. You need to be as proactive as you can be in terms of safety because we recognize that some of our athletes are younger,” she explains.

An ancient saying goes, “Those with bad intentions toward children will tend to congregate where children are.” We’re constantly evaluating and seeking methods to make our tools better.

How can parents keep informed about it?

Another step made by Roblox is creating a “For Parents” section on its website, which details its safety features, such as its reporting mechanism for offensive talk or material and algorithms that ban names, addresses, and swearwords in text chats. Even the algorithm used to determine whether or not player avatars are dressed in “appropriate attire.”

Higgins acknowledges that when a terrifying safety-related article appears on a kid-friendly website like Roblox, parents may get “extremely frustrated.” “You wonder how difficult it may be. [to prevent these things from occurring],” she states. “And the answer is—it’s tough. When anything goes wrong, it’s usually because someone is seriously attempting to disrupt your systems.

She uses the example of a game developed by a teenager whose father had just passed away to highlight how important it is that parents see the benefits of the games that kids are making on Roblox.

She claims that “he created a game about managing mental health and well-being as a journey for other young people experiencing those kinds of issues.” “Not only did it provide him with a wonderful outlet, but playing it allowed many young people to explore their emotions as well.”

That’s something developer Abbie Leigh also brought up. “I adore the developer community in its whole. We all stay together, encourage one another’s endeavors, and provide a hand to one another in times of need,” she adds. “From game reviews to personal matters.”