Roblox and the Pervasiveness of Play: What Game-Making Communities Can Teach Us About Participatory Practices in Affinity Spaces

Based on a multidisciplinary analysis of the current development of gaming in contemporary society, this article explores the learning potential that game environments offer from childhood and throughout one’s lifespan. A comprehensive review of the existing literature is presented, along with a methodological investigation of an online, multiuser, sandbox video game environment in which players are actively engaged in building games. This article identifies elements of pedagogical value in the Roblox game-making community that allow users to design games independently in a virtual environment or to play games created by others. Using an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses pedagogy and media sociology, we speculate that the success of Roblox is due in part to the inclusion of game types that align with the psycho-cognitive development of childhood as described by Piaget and further developed by Resnick. Similar to kindergarten, where games serve as important mediators of learning, Roblox can be seen as an educational space supporting social processes within affinity spaces and encouraging peer education and participation, from exploring virtual environments to designing games.