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

171–180 of 590 posts

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

#171

Post by croes »

guiambros wrote: post #97
danielheath wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also hadn't thought about it before, but when you present it that way it's dazzlingly clear - thank you! Get money from your users: 25% platform tax Get money from advertisers: No platform tax

More like: - Get money through the platforms' users and their payment methods, without having to worry about asking for users' credit card information, billing, chargebacks, or individual invoicing: 25% platform tax. - Get money through your own means, similarly to what Amazon did with Kindle books: no platform tax.

You should definitely worry about cashbacks.

You refund 100% but Apple and Google keep their share.

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

#172

Post by aikinai »

wolpoli wrote: post #113
itake wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo subsidize the development and cost of their dedicated gaming system from the 30% cut of the store sales. It's very different on the mobile side: Apple sells iOS devices at full cost. With Android, it gets even more mucky as Samsung, the hardware vendor, gets 0% of the sales on their handset (unless the user, for some reason, uses the Samsung store), and Google gets the full 30% for only their…

So if you sell your hardware at a profit, you forfeit your right to profit off the platform post-sale? Nintendo never sells hardware at a loss either, by the way.

And your Samsung comment doesn’t make sense. Samsung gets the operating system for free and then sells hardware for whatever profit they can get for it. Plus all of the post-sale platform services profit they can manage, just like Google and Apple. What is wild?

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

#173

Post by raxxorraxor »

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.

They do play a massive part because their platforms are designed to lock users in. You do not really have an many alternatives to using their stores on console or mobile platforms. In case of consoles or Apple there are none.

They don't attract people, they gatekeep solutions/entertainment. It is the exact other way around, the products on their store attract people into their environment.

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

#174

Post by conductr »

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.)

If desktop pc users saw Microsoft taking a third of every transaction from yourmoms.com to Amazon.com because they did the heavy lifting of popularizing the home pc and web browser usage, I think you’d realize how ridiculous that argument sounds.

They built it to sell something else, operating systems and then some ancillary stuff. They became one of the most valuable companies in the world off just that.

Just like the iOS was built to sell phones. They make plenty off phones. They’ve made Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world too. Access to an App Store has become a requirement of a modern phone, so they wouldn’t sell many without it. But it doesn’t mean they should be able to tax the entire economy so heavily. Just like how running a browser is a requirement of modern browsers for an operating system, but that doesn’t mean the operating system should be allowed to tax the entire economy of activity that takes place on said operating system.

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

#175

Post by lupusreal »

nradov wrote: post #50
kamikaz1k wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that true of games but not other businesses?

Almost all games have an inherently limited lifespan. How many games released 20 years ago are still selling well today? Games aren't like other software where you can keep enhancing the product and keep getting new sales. Thus games developers have to focus more on maximizing short term revenue rather than building a sustainable business around particular products. There are a handful of counterexamples like Madden…

In 2000, a 10 year old game was positively prehistoric, some unrecognizable thing only distantly related to the current forms.

In 2010, a 10 year old game was quite old, but a recognizable ancestor of new releases.

In 2020, a 10 year old game was kind of old. You could tell the difference if you had high end hardware and were tuned into certain details, but the new games were essentially the same kind of stuff as the 10 year old games.

The pace of advancement is slowing and game design has reached a mature plateau; games having greater potential to last longer each year. If a game can last more than a few months then there is a reasonably good chance it can survive for several years at least (presuming the publisher doesn't decide to cut it off to sell a new version, which is a popular tactic.)

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

#176

Post by lukan »

netsharc wrote: post #153
thorncorona wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the difficulty of competing against visa or mastercard. Visa and mastercard are logistical masterpieces. Think of how much legal work needs to be done in order to be compliant in every country in the world.

Since they're giants, I wonder how much of the compliance is the other way: countries being strong-armed to comply with their terms.

"countries being strong-armed to comply with their terms."

I suppose that is just another way of describing "legal work" in this context.

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

#177

Post by pbhjpbhj »

h0l0cube wrote: post #163
itake wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the "large chunk of our purchase ... feeding the app store" or is it going to shareholder profits? Appstores seem super inefficient if they cost so much to feed (ie run/maintain).

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

#178

Post by wolpoli »

aikinai wrote: post #172
wolpoli wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo subsidize the development and cost of their dedicated gaming system from the 30% cut of the store sales. It's very different on the mobile side: Apple sells iOS devices at full cost. With Android, it gets even more mucky as Samsung, the hardware vendor, gets 0% of the sales on their handset (unless the user, for some reason, uses the Samsung store), and Google gets the full 30% for only their…

So if you sell your hardware at a profit, you forfeit your right to profit off the platform post-sale? Nintendo never sells hardware at a loss either, by the way. And your Samsung comment doesn’t make sense. Samsung gets the operating system for free and then sells hardware for whatever profit they can get for it. Plus all of the post-sale platform services profit they can manage, just like Google and Apple. What is…

I never meant to imply that once a company sell the hardware for profit, they forfeit the rights to profit off the platform. It's really about market power. The two dominant mobile leaders have enough market power to increase their take to 50%, for example, arguing that's how much traditional retailers take, if not for the risk of attracting government interventions.

The intention is to point out that simple arguments of 'Xbox is charging 30%, so it is fine that the mobile platforms do the same thing' failed to take into account of the nuances of the situation. Isn't it weird that these platforms are all charging 30% even through all these platforms have different business models, with different cost structure and provide different values? I hadn't even talked about how Microsoft has been getting no money off sales on Steam when it is their platform, because they hadn't (yet?) lock down the platform.

Finally, Nintendo did sell the Wii U at a loss. [0]

[0]: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-still-selling-wii-u-a...

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

#179

Post by vintermann »

kreyenborgi wrote: post #159
chad1n wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make the same argument about Minecraft since servers download you texture packs, data packs or skins. I don't think that Apple should stop these apps, that's their game model.

also https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Redstone_compute... ;-)

Speaking of hated network effect companies, that's the fandom wiki roach motel.

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

#180

Post by tpm »

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.)

> I would bet Apple has put more into R&D for iPhones, iPads and iOS

And you pay for that when you buy the device. That does not justify paying Apple huge percentage each time when you are paying for an app.

Post reply on HN