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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

#411

Post by consteval »

sumtechguy wrote: post #284
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.

My niece was about $1500 into that game before anyone realized what she was doing. She had been asking for gift cards and what not to get the credits. My sister realized what was going on when she added it all up. She thought it was a harmless game her kid was playing. It has a lot of dark patterns designed to scrape cash. There is nothing more expensive than a 'free to play' game.

> It has a lot of dark patterns designed to scrape cash

Addiction triggers and reward center abuse. This, to me, is no different than bright slot machines.

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

#412

Post by hipadev23 »

password4321 wrote: post #27

20240404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39935526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39934101 (Roblox executive says children making money on the platform is 'a gift' ) > Arguing that it's a "gift" when they're taking a 75% cut is just offensive. 20220707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754 (Problems at Roblox) > Roblox is horrendous. It is as dangerous as any dark corner of the Internet, except that…

Try doing the math of accepting payment (Apple and Google take 30% off the top), then building, operating, and moderating a globally distributed auto-scaling gaming platform with 350M+ MAUs.

75% may be too high, but comparing it to say Steam’s 30% cut for distribution only is a grossly imbalanced comparison.

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

#413

Post by xyst »

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…

Wild. You know there’s a problem but you continue to feed into your child’s addiction. This is known as “enabling”.

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

#414

Post by draebek »

mrmetanoia wrote: post #321
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've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things. The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic…

I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?"

There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that there are a surprisingly large number of assholes, much larger than I want to believe.

Are the number of racist idiots just much greater amongst Gamers™? (To be clear, I play a lot of video games myself. I prefer to believe I am not a racist.)

I'd love to say that there are a lot more young people playing video games, and they're just trying to be edgy, but I had a chat with some guy who was talking about getting his appliances repaired by "lazy [racial slur]" people. That's probably not a fourteen year old, right? I've seen that a lot.

I understand that it probably just takes one or two people per game to make the chat unbearable, but if I'm on a team with six or eight people, and I consistently get at least one of these fucking idiots per match, isn't that still an uncomfortably high percentage of the population?

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

#415

Post by gruez »

bradjohnson wrote: post #405
gruez wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's what the other guy was referencing, then it's a misleading characterization of the situation. The original comment was: >Meanwhile, Chinese and Korean kids widely DEMAND pay to win, and see people who complain about Pay2Win as "Losers in life", because, to them, it's just two valid paths, and if someone pays to win at a game, then it's just a mark of status. Btw, did you also know that parents in central ch…

Ok, I was just providing a link for you. If you wanted to discuss whether cheating is good in this specific scenario, you should have put that as your comment to the parent.

>Ok, I was just providing a link for you.

And if you read my last comment more carefully, I wasn't faulting you, only the original characterization.

>If you wanted to discuss whether cheating is good in this specific scenario, you should have put that as your comment to the parent.

I think it's fair game to call the claim misleading, even if the parents are technically protesting for the right to cheat, for the reasons outlined in my previous comment. Again, going back to the example of democrats being against voter ID law, it would be misleading to characterize that as "democrats protesting for the right to commit vote fraud", even though they're technically supporting making election fraud easier.

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

#416

Post by hipadev23 »

Aeolun wrote: post #62

So the real reason they’re not profitable is because they’re doing some accounting magic that counts their income spread over the next 27 month, instead of all up front. They are cash flow positive, it’s just that their income numbers are lagging some 2 years behind.

Roblox absolutely doesn’t want to do this “accounting magic”. They originally filed their S-1 with more typical revenue recognition and the SEC forced to change to this frustrating model. [1]

[1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-sec-told-roblox-to-chan...

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

#417

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#419

Post by dagmx »

Sylamore wrote: post #396
dagmx wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the politest way, that is exactly my point.

Different companies fund things differently and put up different barriers.

Again, for the umpteenth time, I am not making a VALUE judgement. I am just saying they all do things differently and without knowledge of their books, nobody here can say what funds what internally

That’s it.

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

#420

Post by password4321 »

hipadev23 wrote: post #412
password4321 wrote: post #27

20240404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39935526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39934101 (Roblox executive says children making money on the platform is 'a gift' ) > Arguing that it's a "gift" when they're taking a 75% cut is just offensive. 20220707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754 (Problems at Roblox) > Roblox is horrendous. It is as dangerous as any dark corner of the Internet, except that…

Try doing the math of accepting payment (Apple and Google take 30% off the top), then building, operating, and moderating a globally distributed auto-scaling gaming platform with 350M+ MAUs. 75% may be too high, but comparing it to say Steam’s 30% cut for distribution only is a grossly imbalanced comparison.

Is 75% the minimum taken, only if you don't cash out Robux? Extra yikes.

> the company taking 75% of profits and having a pretty massive minimum bar (100,000 Robux / $1,000 USD) which must be passed before the person gets to withdraw anything at all, which is then effectively double taxed because the company will then only give $350 for 100,000 Robux when cashing out to actual money

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