Cole, it never fails to astound me how many people who aren't familiar with Roblox culture buy into the idea broadcasted by a sleazy hit piece, that people choosing to participate in a free market are being exploited because they haven't reached success yet.
Some of us get started at 13 years old and that's fine. A lot of people *wish* they started earlier than they did, and would call that a great advantage. You don't usually learn the lessons to start making good amounts of $ at that age yet, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Does anyone criticize YouTube for letting 11 year old aspiring YouTubers publish videos? No, because it's not a real problem and doesn't make for as believable clickbait.
How many 13 year olds are building top Roblox experiences from scratch? Or even an engaging experience that's getting a few players? Not many, because when you're a beginner at something you're usually not good at it yet. Again, there's nothing wrong with that and it's natural.
Are you working for a group that *is* building a top game? Okay. Are you getting underpaid? Probably not. You have a few options, listed from worst to best: undercut yourself, choose not to work for that group, or be so good that someone would rather overpay you than underpay someone else. Anyway, if you or I get the short end of the stick in a deal with an individual, it's not Roblox corp's fault. We live and learn.
A 13 year old who just started out probably isn't going to make a hugely successful game, so Roblox corp probably won't profit off of this work. Even if they did? Roblox takes the same cut from every user on the platform no matter how old you are. They provide the infrastructure and tools, you can build a game if you want. Nobody's forcing you to do anything. If you feel like a victim, you have some growing up to do and some more work to put in.
"But Wrathsong, Roblox corp sold these kids a pipe dream! They said it'd be easy!" Did they? I'm not so sure. But so what if they did? You'll quickly learn that building a career in *any* free market is *not* easy. Are you trying to protect children from scraping their knee and learning the value of struggle and hard work?
Call me Victimsong, but I took an interest in development at age 15, having been a player since age 11, running military roleplay groups where most of us treated it as a full time job! You know what encouraged me to take the leap into game dev? When Roblox advertised DevEx to us! "Wow, I could make a lot of money by creating the games that I play every day on my favorite website!"
I had high hopes and was probably disappointed when I realized that it wasn't going to be easy. After all, if it was easy, everybody would do it.
Even if you try for a few years and quit before you ever reach your goalpost, you didn't come away with nothing. You should have built skills that will help you in other areas of life and business. But like anything else, you get out what you put in.
Hot take:
Roblox is NOT exploiting children! They're providing an easy way for anyone to learn how to make a game... and make money doing so.
Since I was 15 years old, I've been paid an INSANE amount of money from Roblox, so much so I could move out into my own apartment at 18!