As a platform for user-created content, Roblox is fascinating. If games like Phantom Forces, Arsenal, and Bad Company are anything to go off of, it can pull off First Person Shooters shockingly well--granted, the creators put the effort in. Roblox is mainly associated with cute novelties like Jail Break, Adopt Me, and Work at a Pizza Place and although those games aren't for me, I understand and respect their value.

What I don't respect is how Roblox is engineered to favor games built around in-game microtransactions. Let's not forget about how Roblox exploits its young and fascinated user base, either! I can't go into as much detail as People Make Games does (video link is here for the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ), but the general idea is that the odds are stacked against most of its userbase.

An excellent example of the former is a game that I mentioned earlier, Phantom Forces. As somebody who has been playing it for years, I can say that it's a great diet-Battlefield for those who can't afford Battlefield or don't care. But over the years, it's become a total grind to get through. It used to be that you could save up for new weapons with credits you earned by ranking up or rank up to get those weapons in a reasonable timeframe. But the prices have gone WAY up, so getting to access some of the game's new content means you'll either be playing the game for eternity or whipping out your credit card. Neither is fun. Let me also not forget to talk about melee weapons. It used to be that there were only two: a knife and a machete that you could unlock through ranking up. Now there are probably more than twenty, and a vast majority are unlocked through loot boxes. If the fact that the game had to switch from being engineered for fun first and now needs to be made as addictive as possible to keep its userbase scares you, doesn't that say something about the way Roblox is as a platform?