Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

matthewball.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 590 posts

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#161

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

dagmx wrote: post #145
justinclift wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam reportedly puts in a bunch of effort to earn it though. Whereas Apple's relationship seems more predatory/antagonistic (at best).

You think Steam puts in more effort than providing graphics APIs, system frameworks for everything from networking to controller handling, UI libraries, educational sessions and security critical updates? Like, one may argue that the 30% isn’t valid (and it’s 15% for the majority of devs) but to say Steam does more is absurd. I’m curious if people who hold this opinion have actually been involved in the process of re…

I mean, Steam did release the Steam Deck, so yes it provides everything you described.

I'm not sure why we are focusing on the 30%, the problem is that facebook, a very rich company, get charged 0.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#162

Post by RockRobotRock »

HaZeust wrote: post #156
RockRobotRock wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate how they left Java edition alone and chose Bedrock edition to dump all the MTX bullshit on.

For now.

i've been thinking that for 10 years. they forced msft accounts, which is annoying. other than that, hasn't been too bad

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#163

Post by h0l0cube »

itake wrote: post #78
bemmu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a full-time developer of Roblox games. It's wild that Apple or Google make as much from my games as I do. Obviously it still works out well enough since I'm not abandoning the platform, but strange anyway.

why is it wild? Microsoft keeps 30% of xbox store sales. Apple, Google, MS, etc. play a massive part in attracting users to the platform.

I never get this argument, but following its logic, is Apple and Microsoft being really charitable by not gatekeeping and taking a cut for every paid-for application installed on their respective desktop platforms? To answer my own question, it just seems that the status quo has inertia. In the way that we don't pay for online news, social media, or search, similarly, we've just accepted a large chunk of our purchase is feeding the app store.

Also, from memory, Xbox/Sony consoles are loss leaders to recoup profits from store sales. I'm not sure if that holds for Google and Apple phones, but I'd be more okay with app store fees if it did.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#164

Post by vasco »

justinclift wrote: post #112
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam also takes 30% despite all platforms it operates on being entirely open. So it doesn’t seem to be that unreasonable

Steam reportedly puts in a bunch of effort to earn it though. Whereas Apple's relationship seems more predatory/antagonistic (at best).

Effort has nothing to do with it. There's two things that matter, supply and demand.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#165

Post by mfld »

matsemann wrote: post #135
andyferris wrote: post #22

> Unlike other social platforms, Roblox’s revenue is nearly all via user spending rather than advertising. As such, Roblox pays 25% of its revenue to Apple and Google (30% of transactions on those platforms) whereas Facebook, Snap, et al pay effectively 0. Note that Facebook, which has structurally lower costs to service users than Roblox and is far more mature, has an operating margin of roughly 40% — if the company…

It also makes it almost impossible to compete if Apple/Google has a similar product. They get 100 % of their own earnings, you only get 70 %, so need a much much bigger operational margin. And they still make 30 % off you, so if you're equally big they in reality make 130 % and you 70 %, almost the double of you while having the same sales.

Makes me think of Spotify

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#166

Post by modeless »

tasoeur wrote: post #152
modeless wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not gray. Your examples do not violate policy because Apple has an explicit exception to allow stuff like that when specifically running in WebKit's JavaScript engine. That's why they use JavaScript, to qualify for the loophole. But as I said, Roblox does not use JavaScript or WebKit for running games and does not qualify for that exception. There is also an exception for "plug-ins" which seems like it could cov…

Going back to my prior example, selecting an AR Effect/Lens on TikTok/Insta/Snap and is kind of akin to a mini app store if you think about it: https://sh1ftdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IMG_8904...

If you think about it, a scrollable list of tiny free camera filters is not that similar to an enormous searchable catalog of complete and individually purchasable games.

Apple clearly doesn't think these are the same thing either as demonstrated by their explicit policies allowing the former and their attempt to block cloud streaming apps from providing the latter, later turning into explicit policies specifically allowing it for cloud streaming apps and only cloud streaming apps, not Roblox-like apps.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#167

Post by surgical_fire »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #136
surgical_fire wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is competition in that space though. A PC game developer can self distribute, can use alternative storefronts (e.g.: GoG, Epic), etc.

Exactly, but paying 30% stills seems like a very good deal for most developers.

As shown in Roblox case, it obviously is not. Especially as Apple also wants to take a cut from in-app sales.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#168

Post by croes »

itake wrote: post #78
bemmu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a full-time developer of Roblox games. It's wild that Apple or Google make as much from my games as I do. Obviously it still works out well enough since I'm not abandoning the platform, but strange anyway.

why is it wild? Microsoft keeps 30% of xbox store sales. Apple, Google, MS, etc. play a massive part in attracting users to the platform.

The games and apps play a massive part in attracting users.

That's why MS bought game studios to get more games and therefore users to the Xbox.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#169

Post by croes »

booi wrote: post #138
justinclift wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa and Mastercard provide entire global payment platforms, yet only (generally?) take a small fee per transaction. Apple seems to do a lot less, but wants ~1/3 of every transaction.

> Apple seems to do a lot less, but wants ~1/3 of every transaction. I would bet Apple has put more into R&D for iPhones, iPads and iOS than the entire enterprise value of visa and mastercard put together. If anything, they've worked for it more than visa/mastercard who are merely rails with distribution. Most of the heavy lifting, risk and work in the card ecosystem is done by the issuers (banks et. al.)

The high margins of iPhones and iPad gets already already justified with Apple's R&D costs.

And it would be morally wrong to put that costs on the app developers, without their apps the store is useless.

The lack of apps killed Windows Phone.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#170

Post by pjmlp »

wiseowise wrote: post #157
pjmlp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out supermarkets don't take pull requests, and not everyone wants to live in a community farm, doing NGO like work. Or placed in a less snarky way, capitalism spoils ideals.

Evil capitalism where people want to live nice and system provides means to do so.

I haven't said otherwise, only that people coming from FOSS like backgrounds might not get what they want.
Post reply on HN