Leveling Up Together: Fostering Positive Growth and Safe Online Spaces for Teen Roblox Developers

TL;DR

This study addresses how teen Roblox developers experience online developer communities, balancing opportunities for technical growth, social connection, and career pathways with risks such as scams, conflicts, and safety concerns. It employs semi-structured interviews with 18 teen developers and analyzes the data with inductive thematic coding to map usage patterns, benefits, and coping strategies across platforms like DevForum and Discord. The findings reveal substantial learning, mentorship, and monetization benefits, yet also highlight challenges around access, balance with schooling, and exposure to inappropriate behavior, underscoring the need for empowerment-focused governance and continuous stakeholder support. The work offers practical takeaways for designing safer, more effective teen-friendly online spaces that sustain creativity and skill development while mitigating risk.

Abstract

Creating games together is both a playful and effective way to develop skills in computational thinking, collaboration, and more. However, game development can be challenging for younger developers who lack formal training. While teenage developers frequently turn to online communities for peer support, their experiences may vary. To better understand the benefits and challenges teens face within online developer communities, we conducted interviews with 18 teenagers who created games or elements in Roblox and received peer support from one or more online Roblox developer communities. Our findings show that developer communities provide teens with valuable resources for technical, social, and career growth. However, teenagers also struggle with inter-user conflicts and a lack of community structure, leading to difficulties in handling complex issues that may arise, such as financial scams. Based on these insights, we propose takeaways for creating positive and safe online spaces for teenage game creators.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Games and elements made by study participants shared upon their permission. (a) and (b) are User Generated Content (UGC) that could be added to decorate personal avatars like (c). The images of (d) and (e) are game spaces.
• Figure 2: Different online developer communities
• Figure 3: Comparison of online developer communities. We only visualize the most commonly used with at least one differing usage.
• Figure 4: The final themes from interviews with 18 teen Roblox developers.The themes are organized into three major findings areas: (1) Community Use Patterns (RQ1, Community Usage, Changes in Use, Developer Experience), (2) Community Benefits (RQ2, Growth, Community Benefits, Career Paths), (3) Community Challenges (RQ3, Community Challenges, Language Barriers, Offline Relationships). Each category connects to corresponding sections in the Main Paper, including a few themes that emerged from the interviews but weren't central to our findings.