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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

#271

Post by Drakim »

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...

Maybe to us technical folks, but for everybody else on the planet it's night and day different.

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

#272

Post by nottorp »

ccozan wrote: post #198
nottorp wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure if you actually been to RO No, I was born and live there. My groceries kiosk has just the single terminal. Where I shop, only Dedeman, Altex and the eMag showroom still ask me what bank is the card from, and they're nowhere near small... Edit: Hmm. Cozy? Small world...

ha, Torp! Nice! But yes, is a mix/jungle of options. But I find fascinating that paying with cards has a far more adoption than some places in western world.

They made it compulsory by law to accept cards for B2C if you sold more than like 15k eur/month. But I think you were already in DE.

I think that law also cames with caps on card charges. Or at least there was so much competition between banks for the new market that purchase charges dropped on their own.

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

#273

Post by simpaticoder »

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…

My kids have recently become interested in Roblox. I installed it on the PS5 but honestly I don't get the appeal. The games we tried are of very low quality. It doesn't have the complexity or interest of Minecraft. It doesn't have the polish of Astro's Playroom (or Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, which they are too young to play). It reminds me a little of Fortnite's non-battle-royal games, but much worse. Can you give some advice on how to approach it as a parent? I suspect there are some good games in there that we missed.

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

#274

Post by xrd »

skerit wrote: post #255
Gigachad wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the Minecraft online experience like these days? I only ever hear about people playing self hosted servers with friends. Are there still big servers with unique game modes kicking? Seems like it would be hard to keep sustainable

I've been running my own (not-for-profit, for people over the age of 21) server for the past 5 years. We're basically just a Vanilla+ server, we have no problems finding new people to join (thanks to /r/MinecraftBuddies)

My kids love Minecraft. They often run a curseforge mod (create?) and then open a port so they can play together inside the home LAN.

But, I don't really understand how this works, and I would love to host it in a way that their cousins in another state could join. Do you know how I research this?

I get a bit confused between the curseforge mods, the java edition. Should I start by downloading a JAR of the server and host it on a cloud server somewhere, and then firewall it off to only permit my NAT IP and the cousin's NAT IPs? At some point maybe I can run it all within a wireguard/tailscale network.

How do I get started in my reading? I'm worried I'll get overwhelmed by reading /r/MinecraftBuddies, but perhaps that is a better place to ask?

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

#275

Post by jack_pp »

dloranc wrote: post #269
jack_pp wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, for them money is like ice cream, comes from parents rarely and gives them temporary pleasure. That's why I think it is good to pay your kids for chores or good grades so that they start learning financial responsibility early. Sure they'll blow their money on useless stuff at first but then they'll have none for some other thing they wish they had money for and will learn to choose more wisely in the…

> That's why I think it is good to pay your kids for chores or good grades so that they start learning financial responsibility early. Have you ever read "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn? He states that rewarding for the things you mentioned inhibits the desired behavior in the long run.

Haven't read it but I remember reading about a study where they would watch some kids play with toys, record which were their favorite ones and then in another play session give them sweets for playing with their favorite toys after which those toys would no longer be their favorite.

However even though most people don't enjoy their work we must learn to get past that in order to achieve our goals, might as well learn this early imo.

Personally I hated most of school, pretty much every subject that wasn't math or programming. Rewards did motivate me to learn those things I didn't like.

So maybe only reward them for doing stuff they already don't like doing but would be good for them. If you see your kid doing well in math but poorly in history only reward them for history.

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

#276

Post by paulpauper »

staticautomatic wrote: post #68
Guzba wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roblox is dilution-maxxing, stock based comp is up 10x since EOY 2020 whereas revenue is only up 3x. SBC is also ~ 1/3 of revenue. It's pretty cool to get shareholders to pay your employees so you can be called "operating cash flow positive" as if their comp isn't an expense.

IDK about the stock but I’ve interviewed there and their cash comp is legit FU money. Am I misunderstanding you?

Roblox's salary ranges from $140861 in total compensation ... Levels.fyi collects anonymous and verified salaries from current and former employees of Roblox.

does not seem like fu to me

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

#277

Post by outside415 »

paulpauper wrote: post #276
staticautomatic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK about the stock but I’ve interviewed there and their cash comp is legit FU money. Am I misunderstanding you?

Roblox's salary ranges from $140861 in total compensation ... Levels.fyi collects anonymous and verified salaries from current and former employees of Roblox. does not seem like fu to me

They pay very well for senior roles . Like $700k+ tc

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

#278

Post by jack_pp »

drw85 wrote: post #193
jack_pp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 only kids that buy these. I know a lot of 40+ year old men that buy skins and useless junk in video games all the time. They spend a ton of money on cosmetic junk in short lived video games. It's puzzling to me, but i see it all the time.

Maybe if you earn 10k+ monthly and play a free game you don't mind buying shiny things for 50-100$ monthly

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

#279

Post by paulryanrogers »

Jensson wrote: post #245
eru wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

If you want people who know how to build stable large scale infrastructure it is hard to go wrong by hiring people from Google. Google rewrites all their products all the time, they shut down and launch new internal systems just as often as they do external, and it is still stable, so the people from there has probably been through a few rewrites of some infrastructure part and knows what are required for that to wor…

For some definitions of 'stable'. As a user having to swap apps and lose functionality randomly makes it all feel very tenuous.

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

#280

Post by foobarian »

dgb23 wrote: post #226
jack_pp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" mechanism…

This is why I don't stress too much about validating game state in server scripts. It lets the kids cheat clientside if they can figure out how to rewrite and load the Lua scripts.
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