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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

#461

Post by johnnyanmac »

wavemode wrote: post #340
whoknew1122 wrote: post #335

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. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers play... If there's a paid game your kid really likes, perhaps you can talk to his friend's parents and buy the friend a copy of the game. ...I say talking to the friend's parents first, because just giftin…

> just gifting a game to the friends would be creepy lol well this certainly depends on how it's done. Walking up to them in a trench coat and handing them a disc? Probably creepy. But you could also just, like, send them a gift key on Steam...

Yes much better. Send an unsolicited game on steam to a minor. Maybe one whose parents have more limits on content than you.

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

#462

Post by Muromec »

amerkhalid wrote: post #400
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 me…

Saying we don’t play the casino scam works pretty good here.

Like strict zero money after buying the game. Not on custom skins not on early access characters. We just don’t .

Just don’t give the money and don’t argue about details.

Alternatively, that one custom skill gets unlocked after getting a good grade at the end of the year or for birthday/Christmas/whatever.

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

#463

Post by johnnyanmac »

strich wrote: post #422
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy him DRM free games on GOG. I Do this for young relatives. Ive been shown WhatsApp threads of the young teens who play the DRM-free games i upload - my google drive ID is effectively referenced as some kind of deity lol Side benefit: No online play or interaction with the outside world, only with your own group (usually)

As a game developer it's kind of sad to see such practices in stealing my or others hard work. But I have to keep telling myself those kids or parents wouldn't have paid for them anyway. Maybe consider buying a few copies at least in the future?

That's always the risk in a game with no protections. It just takes one person uploading it to the internet and it's shark bait.

At least this example is limited to a neighborhood.

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

#464

Post by acchow »

rvba wrote: post #327
iosjunkie wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading that as $700,000 or more total compensation.

What's total compensation? Doea this mean 700k base salary (real cash) + bonus (stock options)? On a side note, do senior engineers get company cars?

Roblox will not be issuing stock options now and likely stopped doing so for 4+ years already. The equity component of compensation now will be actual stock (shares) and not options.

Another commenter mentioned that cash/equity now has a 33/67 split meaning $700k tc would likely be $230k cash and $470k stocks

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

#465

Post by johnnyanmac »

jajko wrote: post #445
ciropantera wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a new father that will eventually get into that situation: how do you ban Roblox in your house? I imagine it’s popular among your kids’ real world acquaintances (school etc). Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out? Given the current state of gaming and where it’s heading I would love to ban gaming altogether but I feel social pressure from other kids makes it very hard.

I go against the stream it seems, but even though I grew up gaming, I see it now as mostly wasted time. Any benefit that came with it is easily overshadowed with literally wasting the most precious thing we have - our time in this universe which could be spent having serious adventures (or anything else like finding/working on love and real friends(TM)). I've gotten into various sports mostly done in mountains and so…

Everyone will have different experiences. I turned that gaming passion into a career and am fortunately much better off than my single mother who struggled raising me.

(and speaking of parents: who the hell is letting a kid use their credit card? I bought an extra $.75 butterfingers one time and it was probably the most mad my mom ever got at me. More than when I dinged the car while learning to drive. I NEVER spent her money again without asking).

Games help motivate me to read (being into RPGs with little/no voice acting will do that), they arguably enhaced my logic puzzle ability and reaction time, they gave me something to bind over with like minded acquaintances.

I think it really comes down to a case by case basis.

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

#466

Post by johnnyanmac »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #314
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…

> Seriously don't understand how Roblox isn't being investigated for predatory practices. Because if you held game companies responsible for deliberately fostering addiction in their customers to earn a profit, we'd have scores of industries behind them in line to be brought to heel the same way and the stocks for tech companies, game companies, tobacco companies, casino companies, alcohol companies, etc. etc. would…

You forgot the most important industry: the food industry. But they settled that battle long ago.

And on some level I agree. We shouldn't hold companies accountable for raising our children. Simply mitigate their ways to target them And exploit their data (something Fortnite got dinged hard for).

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

#467

Post by johnnyanmac »

latexr wrote: post #322
GNOMES wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understand your point, but Epic (Fortnite) and games like Fifa have gotten sued or major slap on the wrists for the same practices

> major slap on the wrists That doesn’t make sense as a concept. The point of the slap on the wrist is that it’s ineffective/insufficient punishment to change behaviour. You’re essentially saying they got a big small penalty.

It's a big enough penalty to be noticed and course correct. but not a big enough one to fundamentally hit their bottom line. I think it fits.

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

#468

Post by lolinder »

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.

> this will attract kids that are friends for the money and start weird dynamics in the social bubble of his son

From the amount of money sunk into this one game it sounds like there are already weird money dynamics in his social bubble.

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

#469

Post by lolinder »

ciropantera wrote: post #431
wmeredith wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a gamer and I always play the games my kids are playing to see what's up. Roblox was banned in my house after I messed around with it on my own for 30 minutes. Most of the games on the platform are pay to win skinner boxes and they have a pedophile problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-pro...

As a new father that will eventually get into that situation: how do you ban Roblox in your house? I imagine it’s popular among your kids’ real world acquaintances (school etc). Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out? Given the current state of gaming and where it’s heading I would love to ban gaming altogether but I feel social pressure from other kids makes it very hard.

> Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out?

The way I was raised we understood that most kids do things that come back to bite them later and we could choose to be better than that.

I don't feel guilty for teaching my kids to avoid drugs and alcohol—the friend groups that would actually fully exclude them from aren't worth their time anyway. I feel the same about Roblox. It's a dangerous drug produced by an intentionally exploitative company.

If refusing to participate causes a particular friend group to become inaccessible, that says something about the amount of time that friend group spends on the drug and therefore says something about the utility of the time my kid would have spent with them anyway.

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

#470

Post by johnnyanmac »

ec109685 wrote: post #285
modeless wrote: post #17

The bigger question about Roblox is how and why they got their special treatment from Apple. The whole concept of Roblox is in blatant violation of Apple's App Store policies. I believe they are significantly shielded from competition because who else can get that kind of ongoing and reliable relief from Apple's famously picky and capricious App Store reviewers? Maybe Roblox is happy to pay Apple their 30% in exchang…

Roblox gets away with this due to the framing that it’s a single platform with many different experiences: “To start, Roblox is not a single game. It's a platform that hosts millions of user-generated experiences, such as historical roleplaying games or virtual labs to simulate physics experiments. Because of the diversity of content you'll find on Roblox, we use the term experience to refer to what you play on Roblo…

>Even Apple acknowledged this when a marketing head, Trystan Kosmynka, expressed “surprise” that Roblox was approved for the App Store in 2017 in an email. Kosmynka then defended this decision during the trial by saying Apple did not consider Roblox to be a place where people go to play games.

>“I look at the experiences that are in Roblox similar to the experiences that are in Minecraft,” Kosmynka said. “These are maps. These are worlds. And they have boundaries in terms of what they’re capable of.”

Wow. The damage control was even worse than I thought. So I guess the new UE Fortnite Network would be approved no problem since "it's not a game, it's a UGC platform" (not that Epic cares about app stores anymore). Because Epic isn't making the games anymore. Just offloading the labor to others a LA VR Chat.

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