So, it was a cold and stormy night (jk jk it's never cold and stormy here in the G-D-Damned Desert!) when my daughter told me she was playing Roblox and asked if I wanted to play. Now, prior to this, I knew all my kids played it, and that there were a bunch of different games, but I had never played myself, because I am always just too busy. I had a little free time though so I agreed and thus began my ridiculous addiction to Roblox.
I am ashamed to admit this. This is a game that is marketed to little kids. But damn if FarmTown isn't both fun and addicting...I LOVE having fake cows on my fake farm with my fake crops. Just let me live my life ok?!?!?!
(This guy is called a "dabbing noob". Like, the weird is endless in this place.)
Ok so I am a numbers nerd and so of course a game where you calculate how many crops to plant and when and for how long in order to get money to buy new and better crops in order to lather, rinse and repeat would naturally appeal to me. What I didnt realize is that this isn't just a game, but a HUGE network of games all linked together under a system of money called Robux. Now of course, if you want to buy anything cool in these games, it takes real money, and that makes sense because each game has an individual creator who made it, and there are thousands of games on this site. So naturally, creators are going to want to make money from their work.
It was not one of my proudest moments when I dished a cool $20 USD over to Roblox in order to afford magic bean seeds so that I could finally afford a big enough plot of land for my fake barn, fake milk-o-matic 5000 and fake cows.
(I realize I likely have deep seated issues, but for the love of God, let me live my life!)
Ok, so anyway, what occurred to me is just how many users are on Roblox. Yes, most of them are young, my guess is 7-14, but what better age group than this one, the born and raised with a tablet in their face, age group, to start introducing crypto to?
Now I know there have been some attempts to create fun games where you can earn a specific coin or what not, but what if there was a website, just like Roblox, that encouraged young people to create fun online games, and what if instead of creating a currency that just exchanges USD online, it had a real crypto to back it? Like if Robux were worth more than just a USD amount, and could be traded for other cryptos?
Kids are crazy savvy. I have complained in the past about the complexity of decentralization and that the average person isn't going to understand it, but that's the average adult my age, not the average kid. It never really occurred to me to start hyper-focusing on kids. Make crypto and decentralization just the norm. Make it the new cool thing. Make a decentralized Roblox, a decentralized Tik Tok...have kids lead the adults into the future.
Maybe it sounds crazy, but I really think this would be a solid way forward.
What do ya'll think?
xx - Beth
Yes, but I have a warning... Centralized IT is setting up these virtual worlds (similar to 2nd Life that was popular for a while back in 2006-07) and they realized that if they can get people addicted to these platforms, they can control you. These games muck with dopamine receptors in the brain and whoever controls the algorithm ultimately can program who you become. They can also shut you off. We are headed toward the dystopia forecast by the Matrix movie.
If I was ever to participate, I would need a combination of blockchain checks and balances to make sure that the algorithms weren't being tampered with and that verifiable hashes can prove it.
I've played this with my kids. We've experiemented with making our own "obbys", have made custom clothing items
My eleven-year-old daughter also loves Roblox. It sounds just the kind of platform Steem with its main currencies and SMTs as well as Scot tokens is made for. Roblox is a centralized platform and that comes with a risk of the company owning the platform going under. Steem is decentralized, which offers protection against that risk and also a true ownership of any digital assets on it. Suppose the developer of a game that uses Steem and smart contracts on Steem as the back end. The assets are stored as transactions (text) on the chain. A new developer may come a long and pick up from where the bankrupt one left any time because the transactions are not the property of the original developer and can be continued by the players with their private keys. If the back end of the game were decentralized with the game logic implemented as smart contracts and it were played using desktop or mobile clients instead of a website as the front ends, then there would be no third party dependencies. Just the assets and the players. All open source.