Roblox is betting on educational video games for classrooms. The gaming platform popular with young consumers announced it has invested $10 million to help develop three games for middle school, high school, and college students. One game will teach robotics, while the other two will focus on space exploration and helping students explore computer science, engineering, and biomedical science. Roblox worked with nonprofits including Boston’s Museum of Science and a small educational game studio to develop the games. While video games have faced scrutiny from parents and lawmakers, Roblox says it will give teachers the ability to create private groups (a.k.a. servers) for students to play games only among themselves on the platform. YPulse’s gaming research found that 59% of young consumers agree it’s appropriate to use video games to teach K-12 students (and 62% of parents say the same, compared to 57% of non-parents). (WSJ)
