As a teacher of thousands of children over the years, and having been an AF to boys of a variety of ages and across two generations, I am now going to put on my ageing millennial cap and say... Roblox sucks.

I've never been that interested in the Roblox 'grooming' controversies despite having been asked to cover the topic by a couple of readers. This is because the controversies were almost entirely devoid of substance, with no evidence of Roblox interactions leading to sexual assault, referring only vaguely to 'predators' who were 'grooming' children with very little elaboration on what that entailed. Admittedly, I was able to find stories of people supposedly having taken their life as a result of chats on Roblox, but to me they sounded like a severe misplacing of blame... one of parents and mental health services passing the buck for their failures.

Watching my new YF play Roblox, one thing that actually has horrified me is just how mindless the games are, almost completely absent of strategic planning, skill-building, or any of the other attributes that may have applied to games I played as a kid or younger adult.

As a kid, I enjoyed strategy games like Age of Empires, as well as simulation games that required some degree of planning and economic management. Hell, even racing games I liked such as Gran Turismo taught money management skills and the need to build from the ground up. The black sheep Grand Theft Auto taught kids about the real world in societies that sought to shield it from them until they turned eighteen. Even the much-maligned troll-fest that is League of Legends educates players on judgment, knowing when to fight and when to not, as well as making the best of getting behind. The same might apply to battle royale games like Fortnite or PUBG.

Adults raging at Roblox about 'predators' have gotten everything backward. They should really be outraged at how a platform has replaced imperfect yet mildly educational games with outright brainrot that teaches kids nothing, damaging cognitive skills rather than expanding them.