Black market and gambling for children: what’s going on behind the scenes of the Roblox marketplace

The new People Make Games video was released a few months after the release of the first part. Last summer, it caused a great resonance, because it described in detail the means by which Roblox actually exploits young developers.

Yesterday, the author of the channel Quintin Smith (Quintin Smith) published the second part of the investigation. According to him, Roblox tried to force People Make Games to remove the first video. However, instead, the team talked to the users of the platform and released a detailed analysis of the shadow side of the economy of the popular platform.

The new video People Make Games touches on the insecurity of teenagers who make games inside large teams. Smith also spoke in detail about how the company turns a blind eye to moderation and neglects its rules for the sake of profit.

However, the most interesting thing is happening in the market of Roblox cosmetic items. The internal store sells various avatars, clothes and other items that users can buy with the in-game currency “robucks”.

The company itself sells “cosmetics” either in limited quantities or for a limited amount of time. Here, among other things, you can find collaborations with brands like Vans or with blogger / rapper KSI and other celebrities popular among teenagers.

After the end of the sale period, players can get these items in only two ways — by exchanging with each other or buying them directly from other users. Of course, the price of such “cosmetics” instantly takes off and can reach tens of thousands of dollars (instead of the initial $ 5-10).

For Roblox itself, this is the most profitable, since it takes 30% from each transaction on its platform. Thus, the more expensive the item is, the more money the company receives.

There are many reasons why this is dangerous and simply irresponsible. I'm not sure how much Roblox knows about children, but they tend not to realize the value of money and tend to make the wrong decisions.

Quintin Smith

author of the channel People Make Games

To highlight the shortcomings of the Roblox trading platform, the People Make Games team told the story of an Australian teenager Jack. At the age of 13, he made the game Secret Pet Hatching Simulator, which brought him 200 thousand robucks. Being a keen teenager, he spent all that money on buying cosmetic items.

After these transactions, Roblox set a withdrawal limit of 100 thousand robucks for Jack. Initially, he could get a thousand Australian dollars for his game, but in the end he was left with nothing. Jack himself admits that now he would not buy “cosmetics” and would rather wait for real money to update his computer.

However, the problem is not only that children are allowed to buy expensive items for real money. Owning virtual valuables, teenagers sometimes resort to fraud and hacking other people’s accounts for the purpose of virtual enrichment. And Roblox does not prevent this in any way.

After shopping, Jack was contacted by his friend and sent him a file with “assets for a future game”. It was posted on the official Roblox website and did not arouse suspicion, but instead of assets it contained a cookie file. With his help, a friend was able to access Jack’s account and sell all his items for 50 thousand robucks. At the same time, Roblox support refused to return the funds, since “Jack himself sold all these items.”

Jack’s problems didn’t end there. As a result, his game was officially banned on the platform, allegedly for using illegal assets. Jack himself took them from the official free library available to every developer on the site. Later it turned out that some attacker stole these assets from another game and uploaded them to public access without asking. Thus, Jack was deprived of income, and his game was removed from the platform, in fact, due to the fact that Roblox itself allowed illegal assets into the official library.

However, the biggest problem, according to Smith, is the presence of a virtual market on the platform, which acts by analogy with the real securities market. Users see graphs of changes in the cost of items and can find out the original cost of “cosmetics”. According to People Make Games, this turns Roblox into gambling for kids.

In addition, the internal economy of Roblox has led to the emergence of a large black market. Due to the fact that the company takes 30% from each transaction and often converts robucks into real money at an unfavorable rate, users are looking for third-party ways to withdraw funds and purchase “cosmetics”.

Now there are many sites on the web like OPrewards.io , rbx.place and rolimons.com which contribute to the development of the black market and are not regulated in any way by Roblox itself. Users can sell their robucks on these sites at a favorable rate, getting more money, and buy items at lower prices.

Of course, the black market hides many pitfalls. Among the most obvious problems are phishing, malware and the presence of hidden fees, the presence of which teenagers initially do not suspect. However, Roblox itself does not struggle with such sites in any way, some of which are given out in search results above the official site.