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

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

#521

Post by johnnyanmac »

watwut wrote: post #511
crim1 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Like $105 for every ~43,000 robux (~$350-$490, depending on the tier of robux purchased) players spend in your game. Not including the money you get for free just by retaining players with a Roblox subscription in your game. Top Roblox devs are making millions of dollars. [0] [0] https://okmagazine.com/p/teen-ceo-brandon-millionaire-throug...

Top Roblox devs are adults.

Yup. I imagine those millions are the ones I see on LinkedIn offering 50-60k for a "Roblox game developer". Even in a UGC platform, the biggest money makers are the ones doing it as a legitimate job.

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

#522

Post by johnnyanmac »

treyd wrote: post #293
billyjobob wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like The Mirror? https://www.themirror.space/

This is interesting, but > allowing you to own everything - unlike Roblox, Unreal/Fortnite, and Unity. makes me worried it's not in the same spirit that GMod is in. Specifically the use of the word "own" there.

I took "own" here as "you have control over the entire stack". Seems like the idealized version of Garry's mod. Garry doesn't even own all the assets in Garry's Mod.

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

#523

Post by isk517 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #514
isk517 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't understand how some kids can just get unfettered access to a credit card and spend hundreds on such stuff. Easy. Step 1: Find where your parents leaves their wallet lying around because they don't expect their child to attempt credit fraud. Step 2: Punch in the numbers on the card into the appropriate boxes in the app because tech companies really don't have a interest in putting up any real barriers to prev…

It's easy when you put it that way. But I suppose that implies a breakdown of a lot of barriers that were setup early for me. 1. My parent was careful with money. every transaction would be tracked, so anything unusual like Robux would show up quick. 2. 99% of the time a CC would be in a purse or bedroom. Both strictly off limits unless permission was granted (or emergency) 3. I was on general pretty much only allowe…

I think it has less to do with social barriers and more to do with carelessness. Parents will give their kids video game console and tablets without thinking to turn on any sort of parental controls. Additionally there are any number of YouTube videos that easily findable without any actual effort that will show you the entire Robux purchasing process which means children who you would think might be to young to figure out the process end up figuring out the process. Finally, a lot of people don't go over there CC bill unless things look really out of sorts.

I don't think this is a major break down of society type of thing, more of something modern parents need to be aware of since making a lot of ill advised app purchases seems to be becoming one of those things all children end up doing at least once before being taught not to (or finding out the consequences of disobeying).

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

#524

Post by itake »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #185
itake wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is it wild? Microsoft keeps 30% of xbox store sales. Apple, Google, MS, etc. play a massive part in attracting users to the platform.

Ok why doesn’t Microsoft get 30% of revenue of Steam purchases or Adobe CC subs? Why doesn’t Apple get 30% of revenue from purchases through the Safari browser in MacOS? After all they play a massive part in making those purchases possible.

In your example, MS and Apple do not curate, provide support, managing licensing, or provide payment support.

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

#525

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #519
draebek wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 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 don't agree. HN is one of the best examples. We're as anonymous as we can be here and still this is one of the most friendly online environments I know. Clearly community culture plays a big role too. And it keeps offering refreshing content, I le…

I would guess that you don't have showdead turned on and/or haven't been to any of the rather, uh, energetic culture wars threads that the moderation team used to allow over the past few years. It's not that there aren't commenters inclined to behave badly on HN, it's that either they've learned to restrain themselves as the cost of continuing to participate in HN or have been rendered invisible by user flagging or moderators.

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

#526

Post by techjamie »

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?

It really depends on what games are being pirated. If it's a solo dev or small team, then yeah, definitely pay for the official release if you can. But since these are kids, they'll definitely be pirating games here and there since they don't have money. At least the person above is helping them by giving them, presumably, safe copies.

Now, if we're talking AAA titles from companies who will post record profits at the same time as record layoffs, while also giving the C suite a bonus bigger than the GDP of a small nation... Then yeah, sail the high seas. Those same companies thoroughly don't believe buying is owning, so I'm fine to call piracy polite borrowing.

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

#527

Post by wkat4242 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #525
wkat4242 wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 don't agree. HN is one of the best examples. We're as anonymous as we can be here and still this is one of the most friendly online environments I know. Clearly community culture plays a big role too. And it keeps offering refreshing content, I le…

I would guess that you don't have showdead turned on and/or haven't been to any of the rather, uh, energetic culture wars threads that the moderation team used to allow over the past few years. It's not that there aren't commenters inclined to behave badly on HN, it's that either they've learned to restrain themselves as the cost of continuing to participate in HN or have been rendered invisible by user flagging or m…

Yeah but there's always assholes. Anonymity or not.

What defines a community is how it deals with them and as such as steers the sentiment of the entire community. The "they learned to restrain themselves" is exactly what should happen.

And I doubt getting banned is much of a deterrent. After all one can sign up without even as much as an email address. I know many people throw away accounts daily. Imagine doing that on Facebook or X. It would really go off the rails.

Yet the community here is still very pleasant.

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

#528

Post by Aeolun »

gradyfps wrote: post #304
Aeolun wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think there’s anything inherent in Roblox that means the characters have to look and be animated like janky robots.

It takes a huge amount of effort to overwrite & re-animate the default ROBLOX characters and their animations.

Yeah, I meant from the perspective of the roblox devs. They can add a more organic default animation if they want. They choose not to.

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

#529

Post by sgerenser »

mst wrote: post #374
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #26

I can't recall the exact company name (Edit: it was TCI), but this was a smart accounting move that made one of the big US telcos frogleap the competition in the race for connectivity. Basically, the company invested sufficient into long term assets, big infra investments like cabling, towers, etc. Because of accounting rules, they could choose to amortize all of that investment in a straight line over 30 years, OR a…

HN hivemind has already delivered but I've found that for "I can describe it but can't remember the name" an LLM will have a decent chance of surfacing the name given the description (and is usually a very simple case to verify unlike much LLM output).

Checked this with ChatGPT and it thought I was talking about WorldCom.

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

#530

Post by throw10920 »

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…

> There's no danger of that of course because we long ago decided as a society that we're fine with vulnerable populations being put through an economic woodchipper to fuel our retirement funds

"We" did? Who's "we"? I certainly never agreed to this. Citation needed.

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