Why I Decided Roblox Isn’t Suitable for My Child – A Personal Assessment

We had a wonderful weekend. One of the mothers—the mother of my son’s best friend—had the great idea of going camping together as families. Unfortunately, when our boys meet, they often sit in front of digital devices for hours. So we packed our stuff, found a nice campsite, and met there with several families.

The boys slept (or rather: didn’t sleep) together in a tent—they were awake until 4 a.m. But it’s exactly these kinds of moments that stay in our memories. The next day, one of the fathers even brought some boats, and together we did a 10 km tour. It was simply fantastic—talks, nature, activity, and lots of laughter. During this weekend, a deep conversation arose about a topic that affects us all: What do our children actually play online?

In one of the families, the son regularly plays Roblox, so my son has also encountered it when visiting his friend. Therefore, I decided to write down my reasons why I don’t allow Roblox for my child.

The Most Important Criticisms of Roblox

Roblox is free. And that immediately raises all my alarm bells.

Because if something is free, then we often pay in other ways—either with our children’s data or—worse—with the children themselves as the target audience.

Roblox looks at first glance like a harmless game for children. But beneath the surface lurk many dangers—some of them extremely serious. Here is an overview:

🧑‍⚖️ 1. Sexual Abuse & Grooming

• In Germany, cases have been documented where children were contacted via Roblox and later abused. The police confirmed that Roblox was the initial point of contact.

👉 MDR-Artikel

• In the USA, a lawsuit was filed against Roblox in 2025, in which several parents describe how their children were approached, manipulated, and exploited by perpetrators via Roblox and Discord.

👉 Bericht bei Local News Matters

💬 2. Sexual Content – so-called “Condo Games”

• In these games, children take on avatars and play out sexual role-playing.

• Naked characters, explicit content, often hidden behind harmless titles.

• Roblox deletes these games, but they keep popping up.

👉 Kids exposed to simulated sex and graphic images in “dark side” of popular computer game Roblox

🎮 3. Violence and Hate

• There are games that contain racist or glorified violence.

• Examples: “police operations against protests” or hunting specific groups.

• Misogynistic, racist, far-right, and antisemitic groups are also present on the platform.

👉 Rechtsextreme Aktivitäten auf Gaming(-nahen)- Plattformen

🎰 4. Gambling Mechanics

• Many games include “spin-to-win”, loot boxes, or reward crates—for Robux (which is real money).

• This teaches children gambling behavior early.

👉 Roblox erhält neue Altersfreigabe ab 16 Jahren

💸 5. Monetary Pressure through Robux

• Almost all popular games on Roblox eventually require Robux.

• Children see their friends with cool skins, items, or advantages—and want to join in.

• There have been many cases where children secretly spent money on these items

👉 Mit Roblox Geld verdienen – wie es funktioniert und was Sie steuerlich beachten müssen

😵 6. Reizüberflutung & Konzentrationsverlust

• Roblox offers millions of games—most of them very short and geared toward quick stimuli.

• Children constantly jump from game to game—this promotes impatience and concentration problems.

• Roblox offers many “brainrot” games (mindless distractions).

👉 Was sind Brainrot-Spiele: Auswirkungen minderwertiger Spiele auf Menschen

🧑‍👦 An Honest Discussion with My Son

I had an open and honest conversation with my son about all these risks. It was a long talk, during which he explained that he mainly wants to play Roblox because his friends do — and that, after all, it’s just a few problematic servers among 50 million. He asked me: “How likely is it that I’ll even come across something like that?”

I tried to find statistics. But: they don’t exist. And that is exactly the problem. Roblox is a platform on which any user can create content—without prior control. This means that neither we parents nor Roblox itself know exactly how many problematic contents or dangerous contacts exist on the platform. The risk cannot be quantified because no one can really control it. And that is something perpetrators and those who exploit children sexually repeatedly take advantage of.

To better understand and answer my son’s arguments, I continued researching—and stumbled upon several shocking reports and police documents. Some of them clearly show: even if the probability seems low, one single experience is enough to traumatize a child permanently.

🔍  Comparison: Minecraft vs. Roblox

But our discussion didn’t end there. My son said: “It’s the same with Minecraft!” Great—now I had my “homework”: I had to research the topic again thoroughly to draw a fair and well-founded comparison between Roblox and Minecraft. So I created a comparison table—as best I could, of course with support from research. It was important to me to place the two platforms as objectively as possible against each other, to understand whether my son’s argument really stands.

Of course, if you install the wrong mods or visit problematic servers, Minecraft can also become risky for children. There are certainly servers with inappropriate content. However, the likelihood of stumbling upon such servers is much lower than with Roblox. In fact, accessing such content in Minecraft usually requires deliberate effort. Especially if you play on Bedrock servers — which, although I personally prefer the Java version, are generally more controlled — the risk is even lower than on Java platforms. So, compared to Roblox, I would say Minecraft is clearly the safer option. But that doesn’t mean we parents can just relax completely. We should still pay attention to what our kids are actually playing. I often smile when parents proudly say, “My child plays Minecraft; it fosters their creativity!” — only to find out later that their child has been spending hours on a PvP shooter server, and the parents had no idea.

🧠 Researching, Evaluating, Deciding—But How?

“You’ve only read a few articles — that isn’t enough!” my son insisted. And honestly, he’s not wrong. I openly admitted that I’m not an expert. My research isn’t in-depth; I haven’t explored dozens of Roblox servers, spent weeks reading Reddit threads, or conducted a comprehensive user study. I would have liked to. But I’m a father of three kids, I juggle two jobs — and I’m the “Raketenmann,” not a media educator. My mission is to spark children’s enthusiasm for technology and help them connect the digital and analog worlds.

Fortunately, there are professionals who do exactly this kind of work. In fact, I came across an excellent piece of investigative research by ARD television. Their editorial team did everything I would have wanted to do: they played the game themselves, gathered experiences, conducted thorough research, analyzed the content, and objectively assessed the risks. I can only recommend every parent to watch this video until the end. It’s truly eye-opening — and if German isn’t your first language, I suggest turning on the English subtitles.

After this video, I found another ARD video. It shows how Roblox collects money from children.

My Conclusion and One Last Thought

I do recognize that Roblox offers creative possibilities. But safe play is only possible if a parent sits next to the child continuously—and that is simply unrealistic in everyday life.

That’s why Roblox isn’t an option for my child.

I don’t want to spread panic — my goal is to speak honestly about the risks. Digital gaming can be wonderful if we play together with our children, watch, listen, and offer them alternatives. Will my son still play Roblox at his friends’ houses? Of course. In fact, some parents even reached out after reading this blog and told me they would stop offering Roblox when my son visits — which I deeply appreciate — but they also don’t want to impose stricter limits on their own children. They explained that they’ve had extensive conversations about the risks with their kids and ultimately left the choice up to them. And you know what? I think that’s perfectly fine. The one thing we’ve all agreed on is to regularly check which servers our children are using. That’s enough for me.

This blog wasn’t written to criticize other parents or dictate what their children should or shouldn’t do. It emerged because my son wanted to convince me that Roblox is harmless — and I wanted to get a clearer picture for myself.

Stay on course, your