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

matthewball.co

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

#221

Post by itomato »

low_tech_love wrote: post #130
jrm4 wrote: post #18

There's something weird and sad about Roblox for me as an old-timer who still has silly dreams about free/open software internet utopias for just fun? There's so much creative (programming etc) energy in that place and, for what? short rant over

I get you perfectly (I play Roblox with my kid almost everyday) but I have another opinion. When I think about what it accomplished, I think Roblox is pretty amazing; actually one of the most amazing software ever made. It accomplished in practice basically what lots of people have been trying to do for decades, since the MUDs from the 70s, and what Zuckerberg wasted billions of dollars with. Sure, most of its conten…

"...is total crap"

Why are people OK with this? Because there's a place to spend "money" inside this virtual space?

The paradigm could be replaced with literally anything, yet the prevailing mode of "play" in these spaces is convert meatspace credits to in-game "virtual property"; costumes, weaponry, etc.

These kids arent' making anything, they're aphids.

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

#222

Post by eru »

ckdarby wrote: post #217
endtime wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a pretty senior IC at Roblox, and my new hire offer was 40% cash / 60% RSUs. It's now closer to 33/67 with refresher grants. Roblox pays very competitively (see levels.fyi). The apparent strategy is to try to hire lots of long-tenured L6+ Googlers (seriously, it's crazy how many former Googlers I work with).

Not a good sign for Roblox. Yes, many smart people, but they weren't industry changing (Google almost never loses) and they didn't get or turned down Google's renewal program to retain talent. Looks like a lot who wanted the high pay, but coast along and leverage their past experience to not be dared questioned.

Wouldn't that be a fully generalised argument against ever hiring anyone who ever worked at Google?

(Btw, some people also leave Google for other reasons.)

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

#224

Post by MaPi_ »

treyd wrote: post #61
jrm4 wrote: post #18

There's something weird and sad about Roblox for me as an old-timer who still has silly dreams about free/open software internet utopias for just fun? There's so much creative (programming etc) energy in that place and, for what? short rant over

I've had this half-idea for recreating something like Garry's Mod in Godot for a while now. It seems like something someone would have created by now but it doesn't exist yet for whatever reason. Like, a framework for building first-person FPS-ish game modes and handling all the asset management, sync, etc, like GMod being built around Source does and just letting developers build the game modes without worrying abou…

That seems to be exactly what Garry (the creator of Garry's Mod) is trying to do with s&box https://sbox.game/

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

#225

Post by a2128 »

modeless wrote: post #95
saint- wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, why is Roblox in violation of Apple's App store policies?

> Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps. Roblox is in clear violation of this clause, downloading and executing entire games written in Lua. Apple does have an exception to this policy for HTML5 games and…

Roblox actually changed their wording in response to Apple's policies at some point. They no longer call them "games", they call them "experiences"

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

#226

Post by dgb23 »

jack_pp wrote: post #100
ElCapitanMarkla wrote: post #88

My kids have started playing Roblox recently and they have started asking for some Robux so they can buy crap... I really don't get how so many people are into spending dollars on this stuff. Everything they wanted was ~$10-20 NZD and it was just throw away stuff, like a costume, etc. And then it's only useful in that one game you have brought it for. It blows my mind that it ever got this popular.

Because kids aren't utilitarian. They want shiny things impulsively now in whatever niche game they are playing at the moment. Or want to keep up with their friends who got cool stuff to keep status. Doesn't matter to them that they'll switch games in a week and lose everything.

It's not kids or Roblox specifically, it's gamers and platforms/games with "micro-transactions" etc.

When I was younger and still played online games regularly, I was initially stoked about cosmetic micro-transactions in (competitive) online games. Not because I wanted to buy them, but because these would fund the continuous development of my favorite games without affecting their integrity (no "pay to win" mechanisms).

Later I found this was a Faustian bargain. It turned these games and communities around them into something that I don't want to participate in.

These days I don't mind as much. Because among the sea of predatory, tacky or otherwise low quality crap there are way too many high quality, original and interesting games (typically made by small teams) that I will ever be able to play.

I don't know anything about Roblox specifically. On one hand the comment above is tragic, but on the other hand my understanding is that motivates kids to play around with Lua. If that's the case, then I'm all for it, because for me and many others that kind of thing is how we found our way into our profession as developers.

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

#227

Post by BlueTemplar »

drexlspivey wrote: post #200
thomas34298 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the same argument could be made for Twitter/X. The app stores by Google and Apple specifically disallow pornographic material, yet the app is full of it. Once you're big and important enough, the rules mostly don't apply for you anymore. Of course, if they tried to circumvent the app store tax directly within the app, there would be consequences, but as long as Google/Apple can make a profit, it's okay it see…

Can an aggregator/distributor be liable for user created content? You can find porn in Reddit or Google Search and these apps are still in the app store so I don’t think they are getting any special treatment.

There are some protections for hosting illegal data (real illegal, not EULA-disapproved), but they tend to go away if the host does any kind of editorializing (like showing the data through an algorithmic feed).

Google Search is different yet, since they aren't the primary host.

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

#228

Post by ffgjgf1 »

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…

> 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?

Sure. But this has absolutely nothing to do with fairness.

They charge 30% because they can and because developers have no other options.

Anyway consumers paying for HW/OS are the ones that are funding the development of those tools/apis etc. Apple, MS, etc. provided all of that stuff for free (or a nominal fee) for decades because they always needed software developers more than the other way around. Any platform without third party apps would be mostly worthless.

Apple is in an interesting spot because when they released the app store initially 30% was a very good deal compared to how much it cost to publish apps on other phones.

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

#229

Post by BlueTemplar »

teamonkey wrote: post #201
modeless wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps. Roblox is in clear violation of this clause, downloading and executing entire games written in Lua. Apple does have an exception to this policy for HTML5 games and…

Is any Lua run on iOS devices at all? The majority of the Lua code is sent to the server, which then tells the client what to do. There are Lua scripts intended to run on the "client" (such as camera scripts) but I was under the impression (I could be wrong) that even they were converted by a server into instructions sent to the client, not run as a Lua scripts in a local Lua interpreter on your iPad.

Surely the user interface runs locally ? Or has Roblox been careful to ban interface development in LUA ?

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

#230

Post by ffgjgf1 »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #161
dagmx wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Steam Deck is mostly standard Linux (although most stuff Valve does is gets merged into the kernel/free packages etc. so it’s hard to disentangle the these, but not exactly comparable to building a platform almost from scratch)

> the problem is that facebook, a very rich company, get charged 0.

Just like every other company using the same business model (i.e. ads instead of IAP)?

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