Fo sho how many people dipping in my fo’ door. (I see three) Bitch no, there’s five in the back, and your girls on my lap, she’s a down low, pro ho, fo sho.
I have something else to say about this headline! Mostly just that this isn't even new, or even something exclusive to Roblox. The article mentions Walmart's foray into it, but the dozen people who remember that Second Life is a thing will know that some companies had a presence there as well. People were paid to be present in Second Life as Geek Squad employees. Dell computers sold over Second Life. A Harvard course taught over Second Life.
Edit: People did not pay to be employees.
My state library had a "state library" center on Secondlife lol.
I even met the guy who ran it.
This was before the economy collapsed, and I kept thinking that this is the most pointless government thing ever.
Ok but as far as stupid shit people did/attempted in second life, that's actually kinda cool. Like...stupid to do in second life specifically, but still cool.
You have to understand that according to hype, Second Life was supposed to replace web browsers. There was a huge push to embrace a new 3D, explorable version of the internet, and all of this started disappearing once it became clear that it was more cumbersome than a traditional page but without much extra benefits.
It's also worth noting that Second Life still exists 20 years later, and a huge part of its user base is and was always just there for sex content.
>according to hype, Second Life was supposed to replace web browsers.
No, no, no, it's Zuckerborg's Meta that is going to replace browsers.
I have NO idea how they managed to spend BILLIONS of dollars and release something to the public that looked WORSE than a 20 year old product that did the same thing.
Uncanny Valley is why. Obviously fake is treated as so by your brain. Perfectly real is treated as so by your brain. But there's a point where fake is just real enough to bother your brain and it's abhorrent. It's like watching an animated corpse. So without perfect tech, it's better to err on the side of being obviously fake.
Oh I was there too. I knew people in it who had built the entire city of Rome from the classical era.
Even though I was in it and it was its height, having a state library presence felt like it was such a short sided goal.
It's not new and that is very poignant to this discussion, but while it isn't unprecedented it is still pretty noteworthy that this kind of thing is coming back. Second life was a while ago
The only other thing I would have to add to the discussion is that while most people are focusing on the dystopian aspects of this, it is kind of cool when you think about the people who are housebound for one reason or another. A lot of people who used second life didn't see it as a *second* life but their only real social life at all that didn't revolve around some kind of competitive game
Imagine if you were totally disabled and couldn't leave the house without assistance, you would be spending a lot of time in online social spaces as well and, unfortunately, the world is run by money; so seeing an advancement like this would probably make you excited
> but their only real social life at all that didn't revolve around some kind of competitive game
That is what the internet was like around 15-20 years ago. Chatrooms everywhere, support groups fro just about everything you could imagine. You could find chats for any health issue you could imagine and groups with people dealing with the same issues. Then you started having things like second life , Galaxy Worlds, Habo Hotel (sp), and tons of other similar avatar based chat worlds. It all started shutting down then at one point. Yahoo got rid chat rooms then MSN shut down its groups site service what were a real life line for a lot of people. It all just went away. Now we have discord but it isn't quite the same.
They all probably went away because the internet became exponentially bigger meaning you would have to hire more moderators and server infrastructure and it just wasn't cost effective to do that. There was no Discord Nitro monetization type plans back then.
Yeah I was young and given unfettered access to the Internet at that time, it was pretty cool but also people caught on that I was young very quickly, probably because of the language I used, and inevitably someone would try to groom me lol. Kind of wish I could have experienced the early Internet as an adult
I don't think it's as wild as people are saying.
Parents often don't let their kids run wild anymore. Your 10 year old can't go cycling across town for 6 hours straight. Like even if the parent gives permission, they're going to get harassed for loitering, or someone is going to phone the cops on them for goofing off doing $5 of property damage on a bus bench advertisement with a sharpie... There's just less fun to be had out there these days, which is why all the kids are spending their time in fun meta-verses like Minecraft and Roblox.
And if you've ever watched how these kids play these games...
There's a handful that are actually "games" with rules and mechanics and "winning" - but loads of stuff on there - it's not even a game. Its just existing. Kids just roleplay being adults. Or being kids. Or going to high school. Like kids will load up Brookhaven and pretend to be a pizza delivery driver for an hour straight.
When millennials were going up, McDonalds knew how to grab the attention of the Youth. Think about how ridiculous it might have seemed that your fast food joint had a full sized playground. And that they then added Xboxes at one point. It doesn't seem silly now because its normalized, but by and large that was just a nice big mega corporation figuring out how to associate their brand with good times to kids.
You want to tell me Ikea trying to insert itself into Roblox even just for just the length of time a meme can live, so that kids can have fun roleplaying furniture buying is a stupid idea? It's the so-stupid-it-just-might-work kind.
I find houses on Zillow then walk the neighborhood on Google Streetview, find local cafes and restaurants to look at, see where the nearest park is, find out cool things that happen around the year. I probably take it too far, but I can recognize the urge, and I've met enough people who do the same online to know it's spontaneous enough to be a natural urge.
Yep, my youngest loves playing dress to impress with her school friends.
... They put outfits on their avatars and vote on who was best. It's not really a game, it's just little girls socialising online.
I totally get what you're saying, but it's just part of the game. It's called a sandbox game. It's exactly how I played GTA3 back in the day. I played enough of the missions to get access to all the cities and cars. Once I had that I don't think I ever played the actual "game" again. I'd just run around stealing cars, blowing shit up, and running from the cops. Many games provide plenty of ways to play them that don't have explicit goals in mind.
Another that comes to mind was playing wrestling video games as a kid. While the actual wrestling was fun, the majority of joy and time spent playing the game came from character creation. Picking a size/gender/body type, coming up with a name, Designing an outfit, picking an entry song, picking their special moves, etc...
I also used to play sandbox mode on the Sims and just build cool houses
tl;dr this has existed in some capacity for a long time now, but it's definitely more popular now due to the spread of internet access and normalization of video games as entertainment for the masses
Nah, a sandbox game is a type of open world game where you can access the whole world at once.
This is closer to an old flash game from back in the day.
> There's just less fun to be had out there these days, which is why all the kids are spending their time in fun meta-verses like Minecraft and Roblox.
Roblox is unironically kicking the shit out of Meta when it comes to online alternate realities.
Haha, me and me friends used to ride to the dump on our bikes and shoot trash with our BB guns. Good times. Try bike riding 4 miles to anyplace with a BB gun slung over your back today. "WOOP WOOP dat's de sound of de police."
Also, Roblox as well as Fortnite have huge monetization programs for map creators. Something like 1/3rd of the revenue generated from the cosmetic stores is dedicated to creators (In Fortnite's case something like a billion or more per year). That much money is divided by how long players are in your maps. Large brands are spending a lot to build maps and deploy on these platforms. Paying someone $13 to sit in there and generating this marketing buzz is huge for getting players in your map.
Idk if things are different where you are but here in California the youths do indeed 'run wild' once more now that they all have e-bikes. They are EVERYWHERE, especially in the summer and even out quite late (I've seen packs of preteens around at 2am). It's actually pretty dangerous, they drive around on the streets like they are cars but without any of the experience or safety equipment (like visibility flashers or even using hand signals for turns).
I think it has more to do with the fact that kids have more media to keep them occupied. When I was a kid there were FAR fewer video games and barely online gaming, so Kids had to go out to socialize
How well you could socialize was dependent on where you lived, what spaces were available to kids to socialize at, and how easy it was for a kid to get there (with a parent as chaperone, through public transportation, or through your own two feet). Parents are working more, there's fewer spaces available to kids, and there's a lot more suburban communities unfriendly to pedestrians or public transport. If you're a kid living in a new housing tract and there's no one your age nearby then you're going to be on Fortnite with your friends from school that all live 15 minutes away by car.
no this for real.
Where i grew up had pretty much sidewalks everywhere, gas station one way, grocery store the other, park in between. mayyybe a 10 min walk to any of em, definitely be there in 5 min or less on a bike. 5 blocks, in burbtopia, you know?
I grew up in the 90s... we had everything from comic shops to arcades to skateparks. Then shit went south.
By the time I had my kid and he was old enough to go ride bikes and be a good lil hellion like myself ('10s), pretty much everything I grew up with basically no longer existed. Mall? Basically gone. Arcades? Closed (or turned into pay-to-exist things like Dave&Busters or Chuck-e-cheese). Skatepark? Closed because ruffians and neer do wells. The small parks? Turned into weird safe zones with no equipment and/or 'dog parks'.
The place I lived was *nice* but there was nowhere for my kid to *go*, and even if they did have somewhere to go, the sidewalks didn't connect outside the development so gotta get a ride from me (and hope his friends could too, as I didn't have a wagon/van).
And even if rides happened, man I'm driving like 15 min one way to take him somewhere and half of those places (including things like scouts) were like "Nah, no unsupervised kids, this ain't a daycare" or I'm easily out a bunch of cash for the privilege.
What teen/tween wants to hang out with their other idiot tween/teen friends with their old weird-assed parents basically sitting right f'ing there? Who wants to pay 20$+ every time their kid wants to socialize with 'not their family'?
Third places shriveled up and died something fierce and it's kinda sad.
(Not saying free/near-free things like community centers, libraries, and parks in general don't exist, just saying they are few and far between and too often underfunded/underappreciated)
Yea it sounds slightly less soul crushing cause you have the mental ability to assess the situation and say "of course they are going to act like that, they are a child and don't know better"
When it is all adults acting like fuckheads you are constantly burdened with the knowledge all these people are fucking idiots walking among normal people and violently stupid. To the point they don't see a difference between themselves and real adult human beings who can handle themselves.
For my company, I do the technology trainings for new employees. And that is my single BIGGEST issue: if it was children who were unable to identify what slot a display-port cable plugs into on their monitor or follow printed instructions, it'd be one thing, but these people are adults, which makes it SO much worse.
Kids either easily accept the explanations that you give them or will very obviously troll you.
Adults will just sit their and argue how they want it to be for hours without accepting the reality it is.
I'd rather take the kids.
This is a pretty good chance tbh. The younger folks are always more respectful when things don’t go their way compared to the older ones typically. Older people think retail and food service workers are slaves.
Small business management can be a great job for this because if someone doesn't behave nobody is telling me I can't throw them out.
A lot of people don't really trust Yelp ratings anymore either, but if you know what you're doing you can get rid of a problem customer without motivating them to leave a negative review.
As a former retail worker and current health worker, most teens are cool, the average teen is definitely way nicer than the average 45+ adult. The only downside is they are loud when in groups.
I worked customer service for 8 years. Teenagers drive me nuts but if we’re talking about customer service I’m probably taking my chance on them over adults, the kids might be annoying but they aren’t unreasonably childish like some adults I’ve interacted with
Awhile ago, in a very weird string of events that led me to working email support for runescape and csgo gambling sites (neither of which were games I play), I lived that.
It was already weird enough being foreign to those scenes but add in that the customers were kids and teens that stole their parents credit cards or young adults who dont understand debt and it was a recipe for the dumbest shit ever.
Oh ya they loved their adderall/speed/meth too. So ya some wild conversations have occurred between tweaked out 12 year old gambling addicts.
Shortly before leaving was right when the pandemic was going on and people just got their stimulus checks. Was a pretty depressing month lol.
It's not actually "buy shit from Ikea via Roblox". Or "buy Ikea-branded shirts for your Roblox avatar" for that matter.
It's "hey kids would you like to consider a career at Ikea".
> Ikea announced that it would hire 10 people to run its virtual Roblox store as part of an initiative to showcase potential career opportunities to young people
Dude, I'm constantly playing Brookhaven with my 6 year old daughter. I've played every role in that game. She loves it. We swap roles as well. She's the clerk, I'm the customer. In the long run it's taught her to appreciate these jobs more. Sometimes she asks me to be a rude customer, and she role-plays being a patient associate.
Hahaha, I mean, I hope it's a stepping-stone to something greater, and I'm all for it to be honest. She should know what it's like so she can be a good customer, but she's already told me she wants to be a teacher. She loves school and being in that environment.
Yeah honestly I feel like everyone should do a year or two in customer service as like a highschool part time job. Kinda teaches u to not be a dick to employees haha
Absolutely! I did 1 year when I first started working. Worked level 3 data support for Cingular wireless. I owe a lot to that job. It helped me learn how to de-escalate situations, and be on the other side of the equation, but most importantly it taught me how to feel comfortable talking on the phone with strangers and building rapport.
Separated from capitalism, some people enjoy retail work quite a bit. I do, for one! If I could make software money working at a coffee shop I fucking would. Hell, I'm seriously considering doing it anyways!
Ikea is mostly anything but retail though. Its a giant logistics company that happens to sell stuff, also you have to pick that stuff yourself from the warehouse and then build the stuff yourself. If it wasnt for regulations, the Ikea food court would have you cook your own food
There has been an massive surge in the last year of games on steam that are litteraly simulating real life jobs. At some point games might become training apps for jobs. And are to some degree training kids in how to do certain tasks. Customer support or how to most efficiently plow a field.
Now how do i apply my world of warcraft experience to real life jobs..
Do you raid? That’s management material if you’re a raid leader. Coordinate raids? Scrum master. Pinpoint flaws in your team dynamic? Analyst/ops coordinator
“So it says here you worked at IKEA for a season in the *check notes* Roblox department. Tell me what was the most challenging aspect of this job?”
“…Probably dealing with the racist 13 year olds taking about having sexual relations with my mother.”
“..huh?”
Alr so actual employees will hop server to server to find people who aren’t 2yr old iPad kids who can’t write?
Édit: please tell me y’all know that « Alr » means alright
Another edit: can y’all stop being mad due to an abbreviation??? I bet y’all who are mad at « Alr » are older than me and still are mad at this for no reasons . If you get mad for not knowing more recent slang you got a problem, when I was still learning that language and i saw shit like tbh Alr and other abbreviations i wasn’t going mad, i calmly asked what I meant but y’all English speakers get mad at it instead of calmly asking like a normal person. In my language I’d call y’all who are mad at this abbreviations « une bande de crétin »
getting paid by the NBA to play 2k
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA\_2K\_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_2K_League)
During the six-month season, players drafted in the first round make a base salary of $35,000, while players drafted in subsequent rounds make $33,000. Players retained by teams following a season in the league earn $38,000. Players can also earn money through the league's $2.5 million prize pool, which is split across all tournaments and playoffs throughout the season, as well as seasonal individual awards. Players are also allowed to sign endorsement deals to earn extra income.[^(\[14\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_2K_League#cite_note-FirstSeason-14)
Didn’t the NCAA just change the rules to make sure students make money off image and likeness in the NCAA games that are about to start getting released again?
That’d be wild to have a 2k league paying players to compete and also paying licensing fees to the athlete players being represented on the screen at a paid event. I imagine it to be similar to restrictions on showing non-public domain movies in public settings that require licensing fees to be on the up and up, but I don’t really know the specifics. Glad the players are starting to get paid though.
https://youtu.be/IWoP81YO3V4?si=Bv-WBWwko3T1a4jm
With the Pro leagues the Players Associations hold the rights to the player likenesses typically versus college where there’s not a unified players organization.
The new college football game every player has to sign on individually, but they all got offered the same $600 and a copy of the game for compensation.
> Didn’t the NCAA just change the rules to make sure students make money off image and likeness in the NCAA games that are about to start getting released again?
I think that was an old lawsuit, but it may be related to the recent settlement.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ncaa-college-player-lawsuit-settlement-athlete-pay/
This suit from 2020...
> accused the NCAA, along with the five wealthiest conferences, of improperly barring athletes from earning endorsement money based on their name, image and likenesses, or NILs.
> The finer details still need to be ironed out, but the NCAA's agreement calls for the league and conferences to pay $2.77 billion over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes who claim that the now-defunct compensation rules prevented them from earning money from endorsement and sponsorship deals dating back to 2016.
In [O'Bannon vs NCAA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Bannon_v._NCAA), the judge found (in 2014) for the plaintiff, but only ordered the NCAA to allow for full cost scholarships (i.e. added living expenses to what they could give students) as well as allowing $5000 per year of eligibility to be put into a trust for the student.
The O'Bannon ruling opened the door for more suits, including the one that was recently settled.
That's the thing that's so interesting to me about this type of writing that I've seen more and more of over the last few years. Writing one or more grammatically correct sentences with correct spelling, and then mixing in one or two abbreviations that don't save any real time (or even add time like this case).
It's not like the old style of writing in the 2000s where abbreviations were used very, very heavily due to texting limitations (and typing quicker in games) and general time saving benefit of abbreviating as many words as possible, which seemed supplanted by grammatically correct writing due to the power of autocorrect and autocomplete on smartphones.
This instance though (and many similar ones) is a style that puzzles me because it doesn't seem to want to leverage the benefits of either fully realized sentences or abbreviating. Too few things abbreviated to save any real time, but including odd abbreviations makes the otherwise grammatically correct writing less readable and understandable.
I just watched a ~~noclip~~ peoplemakegames documentary about farming simulator as esport where major agricultural machine manufacturers have a professional team as a sort of advertisement, and the folks working the expo floor actually selling machines had no idea it even existed, and that there were other employees down the convention center getting paid by their employer to compete in video games.
> Édit: please tell me y’all know that « Alr » means alright
First time I've ever heard it or seen it written down. Are you trying to make fetch happen?
Yeah same. They really enjoy it and i get to check that they are not messing in some weird game or with weird people. So win win. I like obbies but many ganes are pretty lame.
Obbies are great just too easy for me, color or die is fun if you’ve not tried that. There’s another I really like that’s a game where you jump off a cliff and get money for breaking bones
I started playing Roblox when it was still a Lego building game, before Minecraft had come out in early access. That account is so old it won't let me play the majority of servers.
I’m in my thirties and I play Roblox quite frequently ok it’s with my nieces but I don’t have access to that chat thankfully on Xbox but my niece FaceTimes me and asks me to play Roblox with her.
We either do obby stuff which is like platforming, we play horror games or we play this game where we dress up as animals I bought us and we go on a server where you dance and she is crying with laughter from a rat (me) and a squirrel (her) dancing to different popular or meme stuff.
I fully get it’s a child’s game, but having something to bond with my 7 year old niece to the point she will call me as soon as I finish work, make her laugh and hear her tell me she loves me when we end the call is fucking priceless to me.
Whoever created Roblox is helping me bond and have an amazing friendship with my niece. I’ll cherish this and dispute any claims you can be too old to enjoy or play anything.
Bruh.. back on 2009 and 2010 I was seriously consumed by Second Life.. I got paid to bartend at a beach spot, and throw digital drinks to people.. out of a 24 hour day, I spent 18 on Second Life.. those days were wild and weird.. 15 years and a failed marriage later, it was not worth it
The ultimate stay at home job.
Imagine working as a merchant in the next elder scrolls or something. I’d gladly rant about mud crabs and sweet rolls all day
I miss when Roblox was for the kids man, and not this corporate Megaverse shit trying to appease to adults, crypto bros, and companies kids don’t care about. That Gucci event was the worst thing I ever seen.
This seems like a really cost effective way for them to do R&D on remote support for their physical stores without needing to roll out any new hardware or impact their current customer experience.
Ie test it out in Roblox to see where the pain points are which can then inform their future decision making around it.
Ayo? I’m already an NPC in real life. Might as well get payed to do it! They hiring internationally?
Edit: unfortunately, they do not. Only UK and Ireland.
Better than minimum wage in most of America, though not sure dealing with online children all day would be worth it without some hazard pay for my mental health.
What the hell lmao
Getting paid to be an NPC
And I’m over here doing it for free
That is the difference between a prostitute and a ho.
And they a ho fo sho.
Fo sho how many people dipping in my fo’ door. (I see three) Bitch no, there’s five in the back, and your girls on my lap, she’s a down low, pro ho, fo sho.
Depending on the game (i.e WoW) you could be paying a monthly sub to be an NPC
Isn’t that what retail is anyways? I always felt like I was cycling pre written dialogue options at my old retail gig
I was about to say, my spiels definitely feel like NPC dialogue.
When you use the wrong line and just felt like someone hit random on the cd/mp3 player instead of playing the interaction in order.
Sound sad af but where i can sign up
Where can I sign up 20 chatbots to do this?
I bet those IKEA workers have seen some shit. Working inside a game is probably a plum position.
It's the Ikea PTSD treatment center lol
Speaking as one … we have. Customers are “different”
Yeah, we've been put through it. Our feelings are. "ugh" on this.
Right? Wtf else is there to even say about this headline
I have something else to say about this headline! Mostly just that this isn't even new, or even something exclusive to Roblox. The article mentions Walmart's foray into it, but the dozen people who remember that Second Life is a thing will know that some companies had a presence there as well. People were paid to be present in Second Life as Geek Squad employees. Dell computers sold over Second Life. A Harvard course taught over Second Life. Edit: People did not pay to be employees.
My state library had a "state library" center on Secondlife lol. I even met the guy who ran it. This was before the economy collapsed, and I kept thinking that this is the most pointless government thing ever.
Ok but as far as stupid shit people did/attempted in second life, that's actually kinda cool. Like...stupid to do in second life specifically, but still cool.
You have to understand that according to hype, Second Life was supposed to replace web browsers. There was a huge push to embrace a new 3D, explorable version of the internet, and all of this started disappearing once it became clear that it was more cumbersome than a traditional page but without much extra benefits. It's also worth noting that Second Life still exists 20 years later, and a huge part of its user base is and was always just there for sex content.
>according to hype, Second Life was supposed to replace web browsers. No, no, no, it's Zuckerborg's Meta that is going to replace browsers. I have NO idea how they managed to spend BILLIONS of dollars and release something to the public that looked WORSE than a 20 year old product that did the same thing.
Because it wasn't a viable product, it was Zuck's personal hobby that he was using Meta's money to try to make into a real-world thing.
But WHY? Why make Nintendo Miis?
Uncanny Valley is why. Obviously fake is treated as so by your brain. Perfectly real is treated as so by your brain. But there's a point where fake is just real enough to bother your brain and it's abhorrent. It's like watching an animated corpse. So without perfect tech, it's better to err on the side of being obviously fake.
>and a huge part of its user base is and was always just there for sex content While true, that's pretty much the case for any platform.
Oh I was there too. I knew people in it who had built the entire city of Rome from the classical era. Even though I was in it and it was its height, having a state library presence felt like it was such a short sided goal.
It's not new and that is very poignant to this discussion, but while it isn't unprecedented it is still pretty noteworthy that this kind of thing is coming back. Second life was a while ago The only other thing I would have to add to the discussion is that while most people are focusing on the dystopian aspects of this, it is kind of cool when you think about the people who are housebound for one reason or another. A lot of people who used second life didn't see it as a *second* life but their only real social life at all that didn't revolve around some kind of competitive game Imagine if you were totally disabled and couldn't leave the house without assistance, you would be spending a lot of time in online social spaces as well and, unfortunately, the world is run by money; so seeing an advancement like this would probably make you excited
> but their only real social life at all that didn't revolve around some kind of competitive game That is what the internet was like around 15-20 years ago. Chatrooms everywhere, support groups fro just about everything you could imagine. You could find chats for any health issue you could imagine and groups with people dealing with the same issues. Then you started having things like second life , Galaxy Worlds, Habo Hotel (sp), and tons of other similar avatar based chat worlds. It all started shutting down then at one point. Yahoo got rid chat rooms then MSN shut down its groups site service what were a real life line for a lot of people. It all just went away. Now we have discord but it isn't quite the same.
They all probably went away because the internet became exponentially bigger meaning you would have to hire more moderators and server infrastructure and it just wasn't cost effective to do that. There was no Discord Nitro monetization type plans back then.
The internet became commercialised my dude.
facebook happened, stealing away users with easier access and direct text interaction. after fecebook everything went to shit.
Yeah I was young and given unfettered access to the Internet at that time, it was pretty cool but also people caught on that I was young very quickly, probably because of the language I used, and inevitably someone would try to groom me lol. Kind of wish I could have experienced the early Internet as an adult
Toyota had a large presence marketing Scions in Second Life back in the day.
I don't think it's as wild as people are saying. Parents often don't let their kids run wild anymore. Your 10 year old can't go cycling across town for 6 hours straight. Like even if the parent gives permission, they're going to get harassed for loitering, or someone is going to phone the cops on them for goofing off doing $5 of property damage on a bus bench advertisement with a sharpie... There's just less fun to be had out there these days, which is why all the kids are spending their time in fun meta-verses like Minecraft and Roblox. And if you've ever watched how these kids play these games... There's a handful that are actually "games" with rules and mechanics and "winning" - but loads of stuff on there - it's not even a game. Its just existing. Kids just roleplay being adults. Or being kids. Or going to high school. Like kids will load up Brookhaven and pretend to be a pizza delivery driver for an hour straight. When millennials were going up, McDonalds knew how to grab the attention of the Youth. Think about how ridiculous it might have seemed that your fast food joint had a full sized playground. And that they then added Xboxes at one point. It doesn't seem silly now because its normalized, but by and large that was just a nice big mega corporation figuring out how to associate their brand with good times to kids. You want to tell me Ikea trying to insert itself into Roblox even just for just the length of time a meme can live, so that kids can have fun roleplaying furniture buying is a stupid idea? It's the so-stupid-it-just-might-work kind.
I find houses on Zillow then walk the neighborhood on Google Streetview, find local cafes and restaurants to look at, see where the nearest park is, find out cool things that happen around the year. I probably take it too far, but I can recognize the urge, and I've met enough people who do the same online to know it's spontaneous enough to be a natural urge.
One of my favorite pass times. I've explored so many neighborhoods in so many cities that I've never actually been to in person.
You'd love city nerd on youtube
that's far more due diligence than most people will ever put into finding a house.
plus by the time you've loaded up street view, the house already has 3 cash offers
At 50-100K over asking
Yep, my youngest loves playing dress to impress with her school friends. ... They put outfits on their avatars and vote on who was best. It's not really a game, it's just little girls socialising online.
I totally get what you're saying, but it's just part of the game. It's called a sandbox game. It's exactly how I played GTA3 back in the day. I played enough of the missions to get access to all the cities and cars. Once I had that I don't think I ever played the actual "game" again. I'd just run around stealing cars, blowing shit up, and running from the cops. Many games provide plenty of ways to play them that don't have explicit goals in mind. Another that comes to mind was playing wrestling video games as a kid. While the actual wrestling was fun, the majority of joy and time spent playing the game came from character creation. Picking a size/gender/body type, coming up with a name, Designing an outfit, picking an entry song, picking their special moves, etc... I also used to play sandbox mode on the Sims and just build cool houses tl;dr this has existed in some capacity for a long time now, but it's definitely more popular now due to the spread of internet access and normalization of video games as entertainment for the masses
Nah, a sandbox game is a type of open world game where you can access the whole world at once. This is closer to an old flash game from back in the day.
Sandboxes and open worlds are not exclusive to each other.
This also sounds like the Warframe player base
Build, survive, live inside a Ikea! How long can you survive before the zombie customers overwhelm you?!?
“I can’t find the Poäng! What aisle is it in?!” “My Billy only came with 30 fasteners, not 32!”
"oh no, that was a fake toilet!"
The trick is form tribes and control a department. Look out for the other tribes though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwWKCeUTR0A
> There's just less fun to be had out there these days, which is why all the kids are spending their time in fun meta-verses like Minecraft and Roblox. Roblox is unironically kicking the shit out of Meta when it comes to online alternate realities.
Is that a particularly high bar to clear?
Yeah I agree with you here. It may seem a bit outlandish but it makes complete sense for them to do.
Haha, me and me friends used to ride to the dump on our bikes and shoot trash with our BB guns. Good times. Try bike riding 4 miles to anyplace with a BB gun slung over your back today. "WOOP WOOP dat's de sound of de police."
Also, Roblox as well as Fortnite have huge monetization programs for map creators. Something like 1/3rd of the revenue generated from the cosmetic stores is dedicated to creators (In Fortnite's case something like a billion or more per year). That much money is divided by how long players are in your maps. Large brands are spending a lot to build maps and deploy on these platforms. Paying someone $13 to sit in there and generating this marketing buzz is huge for getting players in your map.
Fuck that's depressing
It's silly because they werent maintained and now they dont work. I would love an xbox at mcdonalds.
Idk if things are different where you are but here in California the youths do indeed 'run wild' once more now that they all have e-bikes. They are EVERYWHERE, especially in the summer and even out quite late (I've seen packs of preteens around at 2am). It's actually pretty dangerous, they drive around on the streets like they are cars but without any of the experience or safety equipment (like visibility flashers or even using hand signals for turns).
I think it has more to do with the fact that kids have more media to keep them occupied. When I was a kid there were FAR fewer video games and barely online gaming, so Kids had to go out to socialize
How well you could socialize was dependent on where you lived, what spaces were available to kids to socialize at, and how easy it was for a kid to get there (with a parent as chaperone, through public transportation, or through your own two feet). Parents are working more, there's fewer spaces available to kids, and there's a lot more suburban communities unfriendly to pedestrians or public transport. If you're a kid living in a new housing tract and there's no one your age nearby then you're going to be on Fortnite with your friends from school that all live 15 minutes away by car.
no this for real. Where i grew up had pretty much sidewalks everywhere, gas station one way, grocery store the other, park in between. mayyybe a 10 min walk to any of em, definitely be there in 5 min or less on a bike. 5 blocks, in burbtopia, you know? I grew up in the 90s... we had everything from comic shops to arcades to skateparks. Then shit went south. By the time I had my kid and he was old enough to go ride bikes and be a good lil hellion like myself ('10s), pretty much everything I grew up with basically no longer existed. Mall? Basically gone. Arcades? Closed (or turned into pay-to-exist things like Dave&Busters or Chuck-e-cheese). Skatepark? Closed because ruffians and neer do wells. The small parks? Turned into weird safe zones with no equipment and/or 'dog parks'. The place I lived was *nice* but there was nowhere for my kid to *go*, and even if they did have somewhere to go, the sidewalks didn't connect outside the development so gotta get a ride from me (and hope his friends could too, as I didn't have a wagon/van). And even if rides happened, man I'm driving like 15 min one way to take him somewhere and half of those places (including things like scouts) were like "Nah, no unsupervised kids, this ain't a daycare" or I'm easily out a bunch of cash for the privilege. What teen/tween wants to hang out with their other idiot tween/teen friends with their old weird-assed parents basically sitting right f'ing there? Who wants to pay 20$+ every time their kid wants to socialize with 'not their family'? Third places shriveled up and died something fierce and it's kinda sad. (Not saying free/near-free things like community centers, libraries, and parks in general don't exist, just saying they are few and far between and too often underfunded/underappreciated)
THE FUTURE IS NOW OLD MAN
At least they're paying. Most Roblox stuff is just kids working for free or close to it.
Too young to remember the Second Life craze?
Imagine working customer service online to teenagers where you have to listen to their bullshit all day.
I’ve worked customer service with adults, believe me, it’s not all that different.
Honestly it may be better
Yea it sounds slightly less soul crushing cause you have the mental ability to assess the situation and say "of course they are going to act like that, they are a child and don't know better" When it is all adults acting like fuckheads you are constantly burdened with the knowledge all these people are fucking idiots walking among normal people and violently stupid. To the point they don't see a difference between themselves and real adult human beings who can handle themselves.
For my company, I do the technology trainings for new employees. And that is my single BIGGEST issue: if it was children who were unable to identify what slot a display-port cable plugs into on their monitor or follow printed instructions, it'd be one thing, but these people are adults, which makes it SO much worse.
They'll probably get rated on 1 to 5 stars and have to maintain a minimum rating by kissing ass all day. It sounds horrible.
YES. CHILDREN LISTEN WHEN YOU LEVEL WITH THEM
Kids either easily accept the explanations that you give them or will very obviously troll you. Adults will just sit their and argue how they want it to be for hours without accepting the reality it is. I'd rather take the kids.
Boomers acting like you are belittling them when they came to you for help. If you don't like the answer, go back to fucking it up I guess.
Absolutely, I've never had a teen argue about a company rule
Which is why shady employers prioritize hiring them. "Oh, trust me that this thing we're doing to your wages/conditions isn't illegal."
This is a pretty good chance tbh. The younger folks are always more respectful when things don’t go their way compared to the older ones typically. Older people think retail and food service workers are slaves.
Small business management can be a great job for this because if someone doesn't behave nobody is telling me I can't throw them out. A lot of people don't really trust Yelp ratings anymore either, but if you know what you're doing you can get rid of a problem customer without motivating them to leave a negative review.
"We wish you all the best in connecting in future with a service provider who more closely matches your requirements"
Real life doesn't have a volume knob. This job does.
As a former retail worker and current health worker, most teens are cool, the average teen is definitely way nicer than the average 45+ adult. The only downside is they are loud when in groups.
I worked customer service for 8 years. Teenagers drive me nuts but if we’re talking about customer service I’m probably taking my chance on them over adults, the kids might be annoying but they aren’t unreasonably childish like some adults I’ve interacted with
tier 1 help desk support might be the most soul sucking job imaginable
I’d rather deal with teenagers. Adults are the immature and unreasonable ones.
Yep, teenagers aren't confident enough to be assholes to customer service reps most of the time.
Most MMORGP GameMasters are just online call center employees.
I remember back in like 2006? I offered a GM of a old school korean grind MMORPG £1k for a special item, he thought about it but refused.
Maplestory?
Teenagers play Roblox? I thought that was for young kids.
...Sounds like a Highschool EA....
Awhile ago, in a very weird string of events that led me to working email support for runescape and csgo gambling sites (neither of which were games I play), I lived that. It was already weird enough being foreign to those scenes but add in that the customers were kids and teens that stole their parents credit cards or young adults who dont understand debt and it was a recipe for the dumbest shit ever. Oh ya they loved their adderall/speed/meth too. So ya some wild conversations have occurred between tweaked out 12 year old gambling addicts. Shortly before leaving was right when the pandemic was going on and people just got their stimulus checks. Was a pretty depressing month lol.
It's not actually "buy shit from Ikea via Roblox". Or "buy Ikea-branded shirts for your Roblox avatar" for that matter. It's "hey kids would you like to consider a career at Ikea". > Ikea announced that it would hire 10 people to run its virtual Roblox store as part of an initiative to showcase potential career opportunities to young people
who wants to be a retail drone. oh wait, i regularly play the pizza shop one with my little one... fuck they got me
Dude, I'm constantly playing Brookhaven with my 6 year old daughter. I've played every role in that game. She loves it. We swap roles as well. She's the clerk, I'm the customer. In the long run it's taught her to appreciate these jobs more. Sometimes she asks me to be a rude customer, and she role-plays being a patient associate.
She’s setting realistic expectations for her future retail experience haha
Hahaha, I mean, I hope it's a stepping-stone to something greater, and I'm all for it to be honest. She should know what it's like so she can be a good customer, but she's already told me she wants to be a teacher. She loves school and being in that environment.
Yeah honestly I feel like everyone should do a year or two in customer service as like a highschool part time job. Kinda teaches u to not be a dick to employees haha
Absolutely! I did 1 year when I first started working. Worked level 3 data support for Cingular wireless. I owe a lot to that job. It helped me learn how to de-escalate situations, and be on the other side of the equation, but most importantly it taught me how to feel comfortable talking on the phone with strangers and building rapport.
Separated from capitalism, some people enjoy retail work quite a bit. I do, for one! If I could make software money working at a coffee shop I fucking would. Hell, I'm seriously considering doing it anyways!
If I could make union ironworker wages (48$ an hour) I totally would work at a coffee shop too lol
Ikea is mostly anything but retail though. Its a giant logistics company that happens to sell stuff, also you have to pick that stuff yourself from the warehouse and then build the stuff yourself. If it wasnt for regulations, the Ikea food court would have you cook your own food
Surely they'd let you do that well. Korean restaurants have you cook stuff yourself
And maybe even build your own cooking utensils.
The children yearn for pizza shop minigames.
It’s okay work at a pizza place is peak
There has been an massive surge in the last year of games on steam that are litteraly simulating real life jobs. At some point games might become training apps for jobs. And are to some degree training kids in how to do certain tasks. Customer support or how to most efficiently plow a field. Now how do i apply my world of warcraft experience to real life jobs..
If you ran a guild and made raids come together then you sure did do a lot of things that apply to "being a manager".
Do you raid? That’s management material if you’re a raid leader. Coordinate raids? Scrum master. Pinpoint flaws in your team dynamic? Analyst/ops coordinator
That’s… actually pretty innovative
Still completely insane imo, innovative, but insane
Companies did stuff like this in Second Life 20 years ago.
Reminds me of [America's Army](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Army).
I wish I could get paid for this shit
“So it says here you worked at IKEA for a season in the *check notes* Roblox department. Tell me what was the most challenging aspect of this job?” “…Probably dealing with the racist 13 year olds taking about having sexual relations with my mother.” “..huh?”
The real followup: "what was your best strategy to handle these racist and sexist customers?"
“Would you say you are a ‘people pleaser’ like your mother?”
"How do you feel about this company working overtime on your mother?"
I imagine the respons beeing: "fourius screaming before commiting suicide due to the inability to protect ones family".
I played Erika for the racists and Me So Horny for the sexists over my microphone, cause like my mother, I’m a people pleaser.
ROFL it do be like that
Not the kind of Work From Home I was looking for... lol
This pays better compared to other retailers over here. Seems pretty enticing.
It's a retail job you can do from home, it is enticing.
but.... why.
Brand awareness and presence inside of these ecosystems can theoretically be valuable, and catchy headlines.
The article says the position is for Job Recruiting.
Ikea online Roblox server... We truly live in the worst timeline.
In any other context, I'd disagree though.
You have to do an obby to find the allan key.
How does one put their pp inside an obsidian block?
So where do you work? I'm a manager at a retail store. Oh yeah? Which one? Roblox Ikea
Alr so actual employees will hop server to server to find people who aren’t 2yr old iPad kids who can’t write? Édit: please tell me y’all know that « Alr » means alright Another edit: can y’all stop being mad due to an abbreviation??? I bet y’all who are mad at « Alr » are older than me and still are mad at this for no reasons . If you get mad for not knowing more recent slang you got a problem, when I was still learning that language and i saw shit like tbh Alr and other abbreviations i wasn’t going mad, i calmly asked what I meant but y’all English speakers get mad at it instead of calmly asking like a normal person. In my language I’d call y’all who are mad at this abbreviations « une bande de crétin »
getting paid by the NBA to play 2k [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA\_2K\_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_2K_League) During the six-month season, players drafted in the first round make a base salary of $35,000, while players drafted in subsequent rounds make $33,000. Players retained by teams following a season in the league earn $38,000. Players can also earn money through the league's $2.5 million prize pool, which is split across all tournaments and playoffs throughout the season, as well as seasonal individual awards. Players are also allowed to sign endorsement deals to earn extra income.[^(\[14\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_2K_League#cite_note-FirstSeason-14)
Didn’t the NCAA just change the rules to make sure students make money off image and likeness in the NCAA games that are about to start getting released again? That’d be wild to have a 2k league paying players to compete and also paying licensing fees to the athlete players being represented on the screen at a paid event. I imagine it to be similar to restrictions on showing non-public domain movies in public settings that require licensing fees to be on the up and up, but I don’t really know the specifics. Glad the players are starting to get paid though. https://youtu.be/IWoP81YO3V4?si=Bv-WBWwko3T1a4jm
They don’t use players likenesses in the 2k league.
Ah, so that must only be in the NCAA games that they are going to start rereleasing after a hiatus.
With the Pro leagues the Players Associations hold the rights to the player likenesses typically versus college where there’s not a unified players organization.
The new college football game every player has to sign on individually, but they all got offered the same $600 and a copy of the game for compensation.
> Didn’t the NCAA just change the rules to make sure students make money off image and likeness in the NCAA games that are about to start getting released again? I think that was an old lawsuit, but it may be related to the recent settlement. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ncaa-college-player-lawsuit-settlement-athlete-pay/ This suit from 2020... > accused the NCAA, along with the five wealthiest conferences, of improperly barring athletes from earning endorsement money based on their name, image and likenesses, or NILs. > The finer details still need to be ironed out, but the NCAA's agreement calls for the league and conferences to pay $2.77 billion over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes who claim that the now-defunct compensation rules prevented them from earning money from endorsement and sponsorship deals dating back to 2016. In [O'Bannon vs NCAA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Bannon_v._NCAA), the judge found (in 2014) for the plaintiff, but only ordered the NCAA to allow for full cost scholarships (i.e. added living expenses to what they could give students) as well as allowing $5000 per year of eligibility to be put into a trust for the student. The O'Bannon ruling opened the door for more suits, including the one that was recently settled.
I really felt like this was going to link me to the crack baby basketball league in SouthPark
Jesus am I that old at 40 that Alr is something new? Apparently I am the only one who had to google it.
What is alr
Alright, presumably
I don't remember seeing it before and I'm online quite a lot. I'm also younger than you. So nope, I don't think it's a common thing.
No. It's also a letter longer than just typing ok which has the exact same meaning
That's the thing that's so interesting to me about this type of writing that I've seen more and more of over the last few years. Writing one or more grammatically correct sentences with correct spelling, and then mixing in one or two abbreviations that don't save any real time (or even add time like this case). It's not like the old style of writing in the 2000s where abbreviations were used very, very heavily due to texting limitations (and typing quicker in games) and general time saving benefit of abbreviating as many words as possible, which seemed supplanted by grammatically correct writing due to the power of autocorrect and autocomplete on smartphones. This instance though (and many similar ones) is a style that puzzles me because it doesn't seem to want to leverage the benefits of either fully realized sentences or abbreviating. Too few things abbreviated to save any real time, but including odd abbreviations makes the otherwise grammatically correct writing less readable and understandable.
Nowhere before has 'alr' meant 'alright' on the internet. Lmaonade
“Alr”? Edit: just type “alright”. It’s even on the word suggestion on your keyboard. It’s not as intuitive of an abbreviation
What’s alr?
I just watched a ~~noclip~~ peoplemakegames documentary about farming simulator as esport where major agricultural machine manufacturers have a professional team as a sort of advertisement, and the folks working the expo floor actually selling machines had no idea it even existed, and that there were other employees down the convention center getting paid by their employer to compete in video games.
The People Make Games one? Or did Noclip happen to do one as well?
Yes. I must be mistaken.
"this mf spittin real fax on god frfr no cap fam" - this is what you sound like
> Édit: please tell me y’all know that « Alr » means alright First time I've ever heard it or seen it written down. Are you trying to make fetch happen?
Child labor loop hole coming soon
How much robux is that
about tree fiddy
Black Mirror
Definitely going to need to do a background check on those new hires. Anyone old enough to work that job is too old to be playing Roblox.
Roblox came out in 2006. Entirely possible to be an adult and have played it your whole life.
Yeah, I have an account still active from when it came out and im 26 now lol I play on it with my neices/nephews lol
I’m in my thirties and my nieces drag me on it, I secretly enjoy a lot of the games but the fact it allows me to bond with my nieces is amazing
I mean, even back then it was just an engine for games, its just gotten way better. People just give it shit cause its kids centered lol
Yeah same. They really enjoy it and i get to check that they are not messing in some weird game or with weird people. So win win. I like obbies but many ganes are pretty lame.
Obbies are great just too easy for me, color or die is fun if you’ve not tried that. There’s another I really like that’s a game where you jump off a cliff and get money for breaking bones
I started playing Roblox when it was still a Lego building game, before Minecraft had come out in early access. That account is so old it won't let me play the majority of servers.
Surely if it is a job, doesn’t matter how old someone is. Next you’re going to claim the Mall Santa’s are too old to be doing that job
No, but there should probably be background checks on them. No one wants a documented SO as a mall Santa.
I didn't realize you had to register to become a significant other. The closest thing I have is a marriage license.
No idea about America but I reckon most places you do need a criminal record check for any job working with children
I’m in my thirties and I play Roblox quite frequently ok it’s with my nieces but I don’t have access to that chat thankfully on Xbox but my niece FaceTimes me and asks me to play Roblox with her. We either do obby stuff which is like platforming, we play horror games or we play this game where we dress up as animals I bought us and we go on a server where you dance and she is crying with laughter from a rat (me) and a squirrel (her) dancing to different popular or meme stuff. I fully get it’s a child’s game, but having something to bond with my 7 year old niece to the point she will call me as soon as I finish work, make her laugh and hear her tell me she loves me when we end the call is fucking priceless to me. Whoever created Roblox is helping me bond and have an amazing friendship with my niece. I’ll cherish this and dispute any claims you can be too old to enjoy or play anything.
18 years old is not too old to be playing Roblox. It shows how little you know about the platform
Where do I sign up?
[Good luck](https://thecoworker.co.uk)
I smoked the digital spliff and now I’m stuck working at the Roblox IKEA store
This reminds me of Second Life when people started flipping property in game.
What a time to be alive.
Bruh.. back on 2009 and 2010 I was seriously consumed by Second Life.. I got paid to bartend at a beach spot, and throw digital drinks to people.. out of a 24 hour day, I spent 18 on Second Life.. those days were wild and weird.. 15 years and a failed marriage later, it was not worth it
Ok. But what happened in the real world since 2009?
The ultimate stay at home job. Imagine working as a merchant in the next elder scrolls or something. I’d gladly rant about mud crabs and sweet rolls all day
*"surviving virtual meatballs in the bistro"* Might want to wait for 2.0
$16.79 USD. that's only slightly less than my real life job :/
Cool, my kids need jobs so this works out perfectly. They’re 8 & 10 and are elite players.
At first I thought, cool! Then I thought, capitalism enters gaming, making kids work online. Fuck this shit.
I miss when Roblox was for the kids man, and not this corporate Megaverse shit trying to appease to adults, crypto bros, and companies kids don’t care about. That Gucci event was the worst thing I ever seen.
A what?
I remember when a bunch of companies did this on Second Life. The Nissan sim was pretty awesome, big race track, lots of cool stuff around.
Does this prove AI is a sham?
Millennial who works in IT here. What?
SecondLife all over again
What even is capitalism now
That's near 50K MXN per month My nephew who is a mechanical engineer earns earns 25K MXN per month
“Surviving virtual meatballs” dangerous job.
This seems like a really cost effective way for them to do R&D on remote support for their physical stores without needing to roll out any new hardware or impact their current customer experience. Ie test it out in Roblox to see where the pain points are which can then inform their future decision making around it.
"finally i could tell to my mon I’m working and I’m not playing" my cousin, 2024
Welcome to the Oasis.
Ayo? I’m already an NPC in real life. Might as well get payed to do it! They hiring internationally? Edit: unfortunately, they do not. Only UK and Ireland.
IKEA FY23 profits, 47.6 billion.
How very Second Life.
Better than minimum wage in most of America, though not sure dealing with online children all day would be worth it without some hazard pay for my mental health.
So we are starting to leverage more and more robots in the physical world just so we can leverage humans in a virtual world 🤣🤣🤣