Bloxburg goes deep south

If you’re not a gamer, you will know that peculiar feeling of playing a game that you’re simply not invested in. had his experience when my lovely seven-year-old daughter tried to teach me how to play on Roblox, the online gaming platform she is gradually becoming consumed by. I say gaming platform, because it is an ecosystem of games within games.

Sadly, Roblox simply did not grab me. This is possibly due to my pathetically short attention span, but more likely age. The last time I committed myself to a video game, it was closely aligned to Tetris, not any virtual world.

For the Roblox game was indeed set in a virtual world – the principality of Bloxburg. The tragedy, of course, was that I simply didn’t care. I had created a character, but had no interest in augmenting my environment, or furnishing, let alone spending money on such trinkets.

This of course, is where essentially all of my daughter’s pocket money goes these days – virtual clothing, accessories and capabilities for her avatar.

I have no problem with this – children have been spending their parents’ money on things beyond the physical world ever since music and movies. But what did strike me was the metaphor of my Bloxburg Apathy.

As a privileged, middle-class person, I am invested in this world. I care. I care whether I live or die and I certainly also care for my daughter’s future in it. I want this country, this world to continue and even to thrive and evolve.

I am plugged into an economy that provides a livelihood, my child attends an excellent school. I have mobility, even now.

However, most of our people do not. In a world as unequal as South Africa’s, the major proportion of our people do not have as big a material stake in the game as I do. Are they invested in the current social dispensation as a way to deliver a better life for themselves and their families?

This system that so badly fails to share its resources? Do they have any realistic hope of winning at this game?

Or would they just as easily crash the game and restart? Burn it all down?

Maybe, together, we can build a better Bloxburg.