In an interview with Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza at GDC in late March, where a new suite of AI-powered creation tools was demoed, I asked about the reputation Roblox hac gained and the notion that it was exploitative of young developers, since it takes a cut from work sometimes produced by children.
“I don’t know, you can say this for a lot of things, right?” Corazza said. "Like, you can say, ‘Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labour,’ right? Or, you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income. So, I can be like 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now, with just a laptop, I can create something, make money and then sustain my life.
Awe yes, all the people living in slums with laptops. I mean I’m not saying it isn’t possible, but feels a bit out of touch by a douche who’s trying to give child labor a silver lining.
If his best counter-argument is, “on one hand it could be child exploitation… On the other ___” he probably isn’t going to salvage that first hand lol.