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Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers

People Make Games · documentary · Watch on YouTube

Indie game developmentTech industry & business modelsLabor, work & inequality

What it is

People Make Games investigates how Roblox relies on young, often child, developers to build its content while paying them very little. It covers Roblox's monetization model, the revenue split, and the harms to kids who make games on the platform.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters cite it as the go-to evidence that Roblox exploits child developers, and parents are pointed to it before letting kids build games there.

  • 5 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “there is a nice documentary here[1]”

    Documentary on young developers earning little and other Roblox issues.

    DerArzt, 2022-01 · Recommendation · in “Roblox October Outage Postmortem”

  2. “Some interesting related investigation”

    Related investigation that puts the commenter off Roblox.

    pull_my_finger, 2022-10 · Recommendation · in “Roblox sued for allegedly enabling young girl’s sexual, financial exploitation”

  3. “People Make Games is one of the YouTube channels that I respect in this domain...”

    From a respected channel investigating Roblox.

    shagie, 2023-03 · Recommendation · in “Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access”

  4. “has a couple of reports that I'd suggest parents consider watching first before going down that road”

    Parents should watch this report on Roblox exploiting young developers before letting kids build games.

    follower, 2024-01 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?”

  5. “The one being exploited is the developer.”

    Points to video as more information on Roblox developers being the ones exploited.

    teddyh, 2024-05 · Recommendation · in “Lessons Learned from My First Roblox Game”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: roblox, child labor, game monetization, platform economics, investigative journalism

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