Roblox and Walmart are now selling real-world items in-game to anyone over the age of 13: 'It's very safe'

SoftwarePlatformsRobloxRoblox and Walmart are now selling real-world items in-game to anyone over the age of 13: ‘It’s very safe’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

A bird, a cat, and a dog all sitting on a shelf in Walmart in Roblox

Walmart and Roblox have teamed up to provide a service I didn’t know anyone needed: letting anyone over the age of 13 browse and buy goods from Walmart via Roblox, which amounts to an Inception-style headache.

At the moment, this is just limited to a pilot test, which will be taking place throughout May. For now, Roblox will also not receive any money from sales as it will be more of a test of players’ willingness to purchase items off the gaming platform rather than acting as an actual revenue source.

The limited scale of this test also means that Walmart will only be selling three items. These are Roblox-themed versions of Walmart products, which three Roblox creators (Sarabxlla, MD17_RBLX, and Junozy) made: theNo Boundaries festival hobo bag, aTAL stainless steel tumbler, andOnn wireless headphones. But if all goes well during the May test, Walmart won’t just keep the storefront going but will also look into selling more items via Roblox.

“Shopping for virtual items is already an important element of how people engage and express themselves on Roblox daily, so our goal is to gather feedback, test the technology, and learn what resonates with Gen Z customers the most when it comes to shopping for physical items,” Roblox vice president of economy Enrico D’Angelo says.

Is it particularly ethical for a major business to drop something that just seems to glorify consumerism to a very young user base while making a game out of purchasing items from its store? Probably not. And while it does feel oddly queasy to shove online shopping masked as an innocent game into the faces of countless children, it’s still in a pilot test phase, so who knows what it ends up looking like.

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