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Kids of yesterday have problems playing old Roblox games. Roblox started in 2006, I can't even find Roblox games I grew up playing
Even if you find them, the scripts probably don't work anymore
Plenty of internet games out there too. I don't particularly miss neopets or gaiaonline but thats just me. Maybe flash games a lil bit though.
I think you’re right. Archive.org isn’t backing up every Roblox game.
There’s thousands and thousands of crappy browser games that kids play on their phones/Chromebooks. It seems (just from observation) that there’s less console/handheld usage. I wonder if the shared experience around game and game console releases has an influence on the collective nostalgia.
From my understanding its not possible to archive roblox games because the roblox platfrom is built to prevent that.
If there is a way can you please twll me about it.
My nephew wants to play Roblox but we won't let him. However I have a Minecraft server that we can control and it's been running for longer than he's been alive. So with any luck we should be able to keep the map/game for a while longer.
But I also realized what you're saying when he was watching YouTube videos. When I was a kid I was watching cartoons and kids shows that now I can simply stream/download and rewatch. It's however going to be much more difficult to do with random videos on YouTube.
How do long running Minecraft servers like yours handle updates? Do you need to delete and re-generate chunks somehow, to get new modern bits of the world?
It's been pretty easy because most updates are mainly just new mobs and they spawn on existing terrain. I pruned/trimmed the world only once, maybe about a decade ago, because we wanted better terrain and caves than what was originally generated. It left a big cube of the original map and everything around is relatively new. I haven't had to do it since. We just go further and further for new chunks now.
For example, I just updated to 1.21.11 and now there's just nautili in our waters. This world started well before bees, horses, polar bears, turtles and all that, but after updates, they are just there. It makes a somewhat weird mix of old terrain with new mobs, that gets progressively newer the further we go from the spawn point. Like, villages that are close were generated before professions and trading, and are very simple and boring. But as we venture deeper into the world, they start to look like modern villages, with profession blocks and trading now possible.
thank you for including the images!!
Indeed, that's handy.
Thank you very much, that makes sense!
The Internet killed nostalgia.
The before Internet time was the time when everyone caught onto fads together because we were all marketed to the same way and by the same people. With TV shows and commercials, we all watched Saturday morning cartoons and saw the same ads. Now we use ad blockers and ads are targeted, nobody sees the same thing anymore and nobody gets hooked on the same hobbies and interests.
Remember when holiday toy fads caused stampedes and killed people EVERY year? Occasionally we have a toy fad like those ugly booboo dolls but it's nowhere near as hyped as the tickle me Elmo.
Oh... I remember the last time someone said this about a decade ago. Good times!
Don't worry, they have enough YouTube videos of Roblox gameplay to keep them entertained with nostalgia until long after the sun burns out.
I always say, bttf2 had it right.
"Eww you have to move your hands? Thats like a baby game!"
"Kids these days" have all the best toys/games. It's been true for like 100 years now.
Something better will replace Roblox. It's as sure as taxes.
Yes, and? The point is that unlike the physical media of previous generations, these modern "games" won't be archivable and playable when they're older. That's irregardless of the game, Roblox is just used as a (very good) example.
Something will replace Roblox and its our responsibility to make sure that thing is FOSS/Fedi based.
Minecraft is also fairly popular and will definitely be available
Never be too sure about "will definitely be avalible". Microsoft/Mojang is doing evreything in their power to lock minecraft down and end the days of mods, backward support, and buy once own forever.
How? They continue to develop Java alongside Bedrock and maintain both equally. Microsoft has had a decade to wind down Java but they don't. It seems like a general distrust of Microsoft is tainting their support for a developer, which history shows is inaccurate.
The problem with that is people will have had to back up every individual update ( or at least the ones people will wanna play most of all at the bare minimum ) and find ways to make both java and bugrock edition work without need for an account if mojangles and macrohard ever decide to axe the game at any point.
I have no doubt the majority of updates have been backed up by some data hoarder for Java edition, but I don't know how that would work for bugrock edition.
I don’t understand Roblox. Wasn’t it a way to put things together and program them? How did it become a place for pedos to groom kids?
Wasn’t it a way to put things together and program them?
Yes, aimed at kids from the get go.
How did it become a place for pedos to groom kids?
When you make a platform targeted specifically at kids, they inevitably come. When you don't treat it like a problem, even more of them come.
they inevitably come.
Gross
But what is the medium for interaction with the kids? This seems like a game that could be offline. Is there some sort of “social” aspect to it?
If I'm not mistaken, it runs straight off the browser, so no need to download anything. You can easily browse through games (or "experiences", as they're called) and join in.
It's very social because every game is multiplayer by default. If you ever played or heard of Second Life or VR Chat, it's not too different from them.
I suppose some of its games could damn well be run offline and locally, but that'd be bad for profits.
Ah, ok. And I guess banning pedos is bad for profits. Sorry, kids!
"CEO of Roblox Says Child Predators on the Platform Are an “Opportunity”"
The Hard Fork hosts went on to grill Baszucki on a 2024 report by short seller and activist firm Hindenburg Research, titled “Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids.” As the colorful title outlines, the report’s thesis was that Roblox was lowering its spending on user safety in order to report growth to investors.
(...) In other words, Baszucki claims that the reason for the dip in safety spending is directly linked to the adoption of AI systems.
Roblox also has problems with child controls, low pay for their creators, “slop” even before AI, gambling, and more.
That is something ive thought about. You cant really have nostalgia for things today because theyre either A, not physical things anymore, or B, locked in walled gardens and shutdown servers .
Im sure kids will lament the loss of their bangin 2026 spotify playlist that in 2050 costs an extra $67 a month to access your "20s nostalgia mix", and all their game servers shutting down; they may try to cobble together a server (from obsolete data center parts) to play some old school retro Arc Raiders until the AI surveillance botnet targets them and fines them 1000 social credits for not buying season 38 of fortnite (world leader legendary edition!)
Did I miss anything 😄
We have nostalgia for stuff that has left a good mark on us, memories from "better times", the source of the memory being physical is irrelevant.
As a veteran WoW player, I can assure you that, despite never owning a copy and playing almost exclusively on private servers, I have a lot of nostalgia for the 2006-8 era. I can never get the characters I once played with and I'm ok with that, but I can still get a close enough experience by finding a server running the appropriate version or, if I'm feeling adventurous, get one of the emulators and run it myself.
There's also the iconic "you think you do, but you don't"
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Revisiting your childhood memories can be quite painful.
I'm looking at you, Robotech ;_;
If Roblox ever folds, there will be an open source reimplementation.
It won't necessarily have "that one game" that little Billy loved tho :P
I'd be shocked if someone didn't find a way to back up Roblox similar to how people did with old Flash games.
That said, when I checked it out again last year, a lot of the games on it were basically the same low effort copy and paste trash as when I originally played back in 2008, so I'd also imagine the vast majority of stuff on it really doesn't need to be archived unless you're trying to be a completionist lol
I'm not familiar with how roblox serves games and items, but flash was significantly easier to backup because it was a single file that you could download and run locally.
You might be right. That said, I've typically learned not to underestimate nerds with too much free time
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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ShowerThoughts
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Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.
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