That sounds like me when my parents made me go to bed instead of watching "The A-Team" or "Knight Rider".

Broadcast TV (UHF/VHF) was exclusive timed events which gave everyone FOMO, at least until the VCR became commonplace and affordable.

That gave you the ability to time-shift, as long as you could figure out how to set your VCR clock.

Any social games have this. I wasn’t an Everquest or WoW player, but I knew some, and scheduled raids with friends were a common thing. Minecraft servers hold events, etc.

> The games are complete brainrot - trying to find servers to get money measured in the billions to spend on rare items to collect to increase the money you earn per second to get more things, etc. And of course if you spend Robux - you can pointlessly accumlate fake billions even faster!

There’s at least two whole genre of games like this: idle games, and the more aggressive gacha games (which more often let you pay to win). I guess the differentiator with Roblox is the social aspect.

I do think pay to win is a problem, FWIW.

> So the games are completely pointless and are nothing like playing Counterstrike or Doom or starcraft at a LAN party.

Those games are pointless too though? As are nearly all games.

There’s legitimate criticisms of Roblox moderation and the business model. But games are games, and I feel like criticism of some Roblox-specific issues are getting entangled with normal gaming behavior. I get that you may not love to see kids who ignore you when they’re engrossed in a game, but that’s just how games are. Limit game time if it’s a problem, and/or make them earn their own money for pay-to-win junk. You’re the parent.

If you think DOOM and CS aren't brain rot, you might be just falling into nostalgia. Shooting demons and other players and spraying bloody gibs is absolute brain rot.

I play Roblox with my 9 year old, and no, they're not anymore brain rot than DOOM or Quake deathmatches were. Capture the flag or tower defense was almost never the point. It was being first in a deathmatch.

Quite frankly today's Roblox games tend to be a lot more enlightening, innovative and entertaining. Not all of course but many.

These arguments are nuts. The kids I know play roblox games ... honestly because they like the games. That is really really it. I am very confident they are not earning rare robux on it, because I know what they play.

> So the games are completely pointless and are nothing like playing Counterstrike or Doom or starcraft at a LAN party.

Frankly, Doom was pointless for christ sake, as pointless as it gets. And yes, obviously a game appealing to 8-12 years old is pointless to a teenager or adult. No, kids wont play the grandpa games. And yes, they do not want to play only games adults deemed educational or training whatever you think counter strike trains enough. They play them literally because they find those games fun.

OP didn’t mention those, the focus was on a room of kids “locked” to their screens as if that was the primary issue. That’s what I was responding to.

I think porn came slightly later, in Duke Nukem 3D

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Still, I don’t see too much in modern gaming that’s different from what we had as kids. The gacha/gambling mechanics are overused and this might be detrimental. But I definitely spent days glued to the screen back in the day even without that stuff.

(The moderation problems in the article are clearly a new and separate issue that needs to be dealt with.)