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Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

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Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#201
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for mentioning Minetest, I didn't know it existed!

I tried it, but unfortunately it is no where close to Minecraft. Crafting items is a pain from what I can tell, unless I'm just not recognizing some shortcuts.

i only play minetest so i can't compare. for complex items you have to craft the ingredients first, so it can end up in a chain from raw materials until you got your actual item done. it can be a bit tedious, but on the other hand if you need an item many times, bulk crafting works well, it is just as easy to create a single item as it is to create hundreds of them.

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#203

Does anyone remember Blockland ( http://blockland.us/ )? It was arguably the precursor to Roblox and in some ways the building portion of Minecraft... the creator Badspot just never embraced it and it fizzled out around 2007. Arguably he could be a billionaire these days if he had kept at it. He had the right idea... but did not execute.

I played it back in the day. It performed better and looked better than early Roblox. My first exposure to programming was actually thanks to Blockland as it inspired me to download the Torque game engine and mess around with it.

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#204
Denying your child access to an internet connected computer in 2019 would put your child in a very disadvantaged position in life. It has become necessary to be fluent in computer operating system GUIs and the ways of the internet. For school, work and now for socializing. There was never a centralized decision to make things this way. Nobody was ever asked if they were ok with this. It just happened.

Imagine that neuralink tech starts to become normal. Inevitably, some parents will opt to have their child linked. Many children will be linked regardless because it is medically necessary. The linked children perform five times better than the linkless. They socialize by electronic telepathy, even though they only have threads in their motor cortex in the early days. Being linked also enables them to engage in wildly addictive and inappropriate behavior that had never been widely anticipated before. You become a parent in the midst of this. Do you imagine that you would opt out? Do you imagine the parents of yesterday thought they would opt out of allowing their children to do what children do now?

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#205

Does anyone remember Blockland ( http://blockland.us/ )? It was arguably the precursor to Roblox and in some ways the building portion of Minecraft... the creator Badspot just never embraced it and it fizzled out around 2007. Arguably he could be a billionaire these days if he had kept at it. He had the right idea... but did not execute.

Closer to being the same idea developed at the same time with both being influenced by LEGO.

Blockland: November 15, 2004 (Freeware) February 24, 2007 (Retail)

ROBLOX: March 23, 2004 (Beta) August 27, 2006 (Retail)

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own son had this period where he was obsessed with playing on the XBox. When I tried to limit his time, he became agressive. So I said "Wow, if XBox has this influence on you, maybe you should stop completely. What do you think?". His smart reaction was to show that he could play a limited time, and be good afterwards. Now I don't have any problems with him. The thing with kids is that you will not be there all th…

I typically use this approach also. One of the most successful developments was the gamification of tasks to earn play points (minutes of playtime). Vacuuming could earn 10 mins for example, with a maximum of 90 minutes, and only possible after doing homework etc. They ended up enjoying both the tasks and the reward.

Or you could make a game out of vacuuming, or you could explain why vacuuming is needed, or ...

The alternatives have merits too.

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#207
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was only allowed 2 hours of Sega Genesis play, which was just enough to get to the final boss in Sonic and die. Never beat it. In hindsight this prepared me for the 2 constants in the real world: Never having enough time, and constant disappointment.

Reminds me of playing GTA3 on my PS1 which did not have a memory card.

Or Jurassic Park for SNES, which didn't allow you to save.

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#208
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone in their early 20s who dabbles on Roblox with some frequency, this completely contradicts my own experience. Granted I only play games that show up in the popular games section on the homepage. I don't go out of my way to find the weird stuff. I suppose it is similar to the Elsagate stuff kids were getting into on Youtube, kids have a remarkable talent to go down rabbit holes you didn't know existed and fi…

Reminds me of GTA. I stayed far away from it because it had an awful reputation in the media. Finally when GTA5 came out I tried it for the first time and it was nothing like the stories. I was expecting terrible awful very bad things. But it wasn't anything like that when I tried it. So I think the bad stories are more a reflection of the players playing it than the game. For whatever reason certain types of people…

Keep in mind early GTA was a different beast, especially in the eyes of the rampantly vocal suburban moms whose understanding of videogames consisted of frogger and tetris, if they were particularly savvy. How should they react when they see their 8 year old beat a policeman and a dozen civilians to death with a three foot purple dildo on the living room tv, then get head in an alley in a stolen car?

It really does seem outrageous on paper, but we know now that M games are no worse than a kid seeing an R rated movie.

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#209
post #35

Roblox has grown big on other peoples IP. My kids are only interested in it so they can play a Minions game or a Spiderman game. I guess that's how YouTube got big too.

Much of TikTok is content sucked in from other networks—-often without creator license. Then remixed to a meme or “trend” inside the app. It is actually amazing because it somehow has gotten around the walls of fb, ig, snap and YouTube.

Fb et al. probably don't care because the memes circle the drain gaining compression until they inevitably end up on someones newsfeed.

Re: Roblox hits 100M monthly active users, bigger than Minecraft

#210

Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft are the new social networks right? Well when I was 15 and we used to play Counter Strike and Quake 3 the "social network" was hanging out on servers with maps just chatting and walking around the map aimlessly or just hanging out on IRC. So I can totally relate to how kids nowadays are going back to this sorta hangout. Text only can be boring (kinda like IRC for many people who couldn't to…

My coworker once found his son playing Minecraft when he was supposed to be doing homework. When my coworker called his son on it, it turned out that the kid was actually using minecraft to collaborate with his friends and do their assignment. I'm not sure if they were doing anything other than using the chat capabilities, but it's sounded like a fun way to meet up with your friends without having to actually go over…

Your coworker got suckered by his kid
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