My Daughter Wants to Chat in Roblox—And She Has a Good Argument. I'm Still Saying No.
My nine-year-old's recent obsession with a popular Roblox game called 99 Nights in the Forest has brought up questions of where we draw lines online.
The game of the moment for my nine-year-old is a co-op survival crafting game in Roblox called 99 Nights in the Forest. The game is huge enough that Roblox specifically called it out during its most recent earnings call. There are more than 1.6 million people playing it when I’m writing this article, which notably more than the most popular game on Steam, Counter-Strike, at 1.3 million players. It’s a juggernaut.
(The similarly titled versions you’ll find on the App Store and Google Play are shameless rip-offs. The company who publishes on Google Play specializes in clones.)
Playing 99 Nights in the Forest will seem familiar to anyone who’s played a survival crafting game, where you’re managing limited resources (health, hunger, etc.) to see another day. Along the way, you continue exploring further and further and randomized danger is always looming. You’re tracking some missing kids. It is a game that you can play solo, but as with most games like it, it’s so much better with others.
It’s also the first time, I’d argue, that my daughter has fully wrapped herself around a game’s mechanics. She brags about making it further and further into the game, surviving more nights. (“Dad, I made it to day nine this time!”) She can talk strategy with her sister—and then quietly whisper off to the side about how she’s frustrated that her five-year-old sister is unable to fully follow the instructions she’s giving her.
She’s five, kiddo!
Anyway, this brings us to the heart of the matter: a lack of communication. My nine-year-old cannot chat with strangers in Roblox. Seems reasonable, no?
In Roblox, there are two settings under the “communications” parental controls related to this: “party” and “experience.” If my daughter is in a private party with someone who’s been approved to be on their friend list, they can chat with one another. But in the mass chat that’s part of every Roblox experience, she can’t talk.
Again, it’s reasonable.
She’s a fully capable reader but also fully capable of being manipulated. Drawing the line at being able to chat with friends but not with strangers (yet) is appropriate.
But there are good reasons for communication to exist in co-operative video games!
This prompted a conversation between the two of us in the car recently:
Nine-Year-Old: Dad, why can’t I chat with anyone in 99 Nights?
Me: You’re not supposed to talk to strangers in real-life, and you’re not supposed to talk to strangers in Roblox, either. You can only chat with your friends.
Nine-Year-Old: I know, but when I’m not playing with [FRIEND NAME], I can’t chat with anyone. All I can do is jump up and down and hope someone does what I’m asking them to do.
Me: Do they usually do what you ask them to do?
Nine-Year-Old: No, and then we die.
Me: I’m sorry, kiddo. That’s the rule for now and we can revisit it when you’re older.
Nine-Year-Old: [frustrated sigh]
She got over it.
But it was one of those conversations with your kid where you walk away from it going “well, they had a good point, and in a few years, I’ll probably admit that.” It wasn’t enough to move the goal post on access—she’s going to have to live with not accurately communicating with other players for now—but she did have a point.
It’s a cool part about your kids growing up, you know? They can make an argument.
It’s possible to grant temporary access to more “mature” content in Roblox on a one-off basis. I don’t think it’s possible to do that with chat? There is a scenario where I would, in theory, grant her chat access while she is specifically playing this game, changed specifically for the purposes of playing better, if I knew the rules would reverse after, say, an hour or whatever. That said, it’s probably better it just stays off.
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Also:
Roblox is still in the mix, but Fortnite is nipping at ours heels. We splurged on the Simpsons battle pass, though my nine-year-old was sad she couldn’t be Lisa right away. Dad is still learning what you unlock by purchasing the battle pass.
99 Nights in the Forest is a totally solid game. You will get nothing out of it if you’ve played “real” survival games, but it’s not shocking that kids are into it.
Like Minecraft, I am ambivalent on survival games on my own, but I do get a kick out of playing them with my kiddo and getting bossed around on what to do.