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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

#391

Post by rangerelf »

nazka wrote: post #360
latexr wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Considering how much you said your kid has spent, that money could’ve been spent on buying copies for all their friends and you’d still have plenty left over.

I upvoted you but after thinking about it actually, you will find that this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son. But your idea is right! Maybe he could have done gaming sessions at his house or who knows what to better spend this money on other games.

LAN parties were/are a thing.

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

#392

Post by thomastjeffery »

GNOMES wrote: post #312

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers…

Moderation is dead, and copyright is the knife.

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

#393

Post by jandrese »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #6

This feels like reading finance fan fiction (which it kind of is, given the author's profession?) and uses a lot of text to reach the part that lays out the actual problem: the average operating costs based on daily active users are $18 per user per quarter, and the average amount made is only $13. so either operating costs need to come down, charges need to go up, or they need (more, stable) external revenue (e.g. a…

$18/player is a staggering operating cost. I feel like there must be some easy optimizations to be had that would greatly reduce the overhead. Roblox games are user made! They aren't building the most sophisticated game engine. Sure there are server costs, but that should be pennies. Where is all of that money going?

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

#394

Post by hipadev23 »

kin wrote: post #388

Everything I've seen from Roblox just seems so rough across the board. Poor UI, poor graphics, poor gameplay. There's a sense of freedom that is quite refreshing kind of like Gary's mod. I'm just so surprised that with such high adoption, none of the money is going into make anything remotely polished.

> I'm just so surprised that with such high adoption, none of the money is going into make anything remotely polished.

There are numerous polished games on the platform, but the most of the players are younger kids on hand-me-down mobile devices, so the most popular games tend to be easy to run casual games. Here are a few examples of what you're looking for:

* Frontlines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA71d3O1ID0

* Primal Hunt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_lenB5MTTU

* Riotfall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E0kEFxBTEM

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

#395

Post by [deleted] »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #344
_coveredInBees wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I dunno. My son plays a bunch of Roblox and has spent a net $10 for a few custom avatar mods. While there is certainly a pay to win aspect for some games within, there is also a ton of "free" games to sift through, and since all of them are competing for players, they still have to make the experience compelling enough at the free tier. We've had conversations about the pay-to-win aspect, and even though he has s…

both should be regulated, this type of predatory gambling-like behavior shouldn't be allowed for kids under a certain age

[deleted]

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

#396

Post by Sylamore »

dagmx wrote: post #331
justinclift wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or are you that childish :( > Microsoft also charge for commercial access to their SDKs ... Is that a new thing, or just for specific products? Asking because I've previously used some of their Azure SDK stuff before and that didn't seem to have a charge for SDK access.

Microsoft have charged for non-individual use for longer than they’ve had the free version. I should have perhaps used commercial non-individual use rather than just commercial. https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/d/visual-studio-enterprise-s... Meanwhile Xcode is free and has been since the Project Builder days on Next. I’m not personally saying one is better value or not. Just that the companies have put different valu…

Xcode is free if you don't consider the platform cost of needing to have only apple hardware to use it, however (generally) the hardware is cheaper than what MS charges for MSDN/VSE.

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

#397

Post by ChadNauseam »

danans wrote: post #389
xhkkffbf wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's mixed. The states now get such a huge chunk of tobacco money that they're incentivized to keep people smoking. The more they smoke, the more the state gets.

> The more they smoke, the more the state gets. The state "gets" tobacco tax revenue to help pay for the burden of medical treatment for those with smoking related illnesses. Lung cancer isn't free to treat.

I've read that smoking related illnesses cost less money overall to treat than average. As an extreme example, if someone went around disintegrating people with an orbital laser, this would clearly reduce overall heathcare spending. So in this analogy, smoking is the equivalent of an orbital laser that (plausibly) causes people to die before they develop an even more expensive-to-treat healthcare situation.

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

#398

Post by thomastjeffery »

kin wrote: post #388

Everything I've seen from Roblox just seems so rough across the board. Poor UI, poor graphics, poor gameplay. There's a sense of freedom that is quite refreshing kind of like Gary's mod. I'm just so surprised that with such high adoption, none of the money is going into make anything remotely polished.

Polish is a double edged sword. Its other side is decisiveness, which is diametrically opposed to engineering freedom.

It's a hard problem, though I agree there is some low hanging fruit that Roblox seems ignorant to. I think the biggest reason for its success is an extreme lack of competition. Nearly every time someone makes a good enough (use friendly) sandbox engine, they wrap it in copyright and market it wholesale; and that makes decisiveness (polish) a high priority.

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

#399

Post by jayd16 »

latexr wrote: post #318
GNOMES wrote: post #312

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers…

> As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Considering how much you said your kid has spent, that money could’ve been spent on buying copies for all their friends and you’d still have plenty left over.

That's like one console and a couple games so its not necessarily the most efficient usage.

Couch co-op is the way to go.... but as the dad be prepared to lose control of your living room.

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

#400

Post by amerkhalid »

GNOMES wrote: post #312

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers…

I am a gamer dad too. This is something I worry about. I have been playing Minecraft with my son but he is learning about these other games.

I have been using some of similar messaging to smoking and saying things like that playing too many video games will destroy the health. Of course, I am not a good role model when it comes to living healthy lifestyle. And kids probably don't even understand what health really means.

How does one protect their kids against these predatory practices?

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