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Roblox is minting teen millionaires

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Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#211

Post by Heliodex »

fragmede wrote: post #107
bhawks wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the parts where: 1: Roblox hosts your multiplayer gameservers in its pops for free, with a generous amount of free persistent storage and memory 1.a: Roblox handles scaling and SRE work for you for free - you're not going to be able to support millions of concurrent users yourself at that price point 2: when people buy robux on their phone the app store takes 20-30% of the dollar - but the player still…

72% cut's still pretty steep for all that. Like, these aren't large corporations Roblox is working with, it's kids. It's their platform, and they get to charge whatever they want, and kids can choose not to use it, but 72% still seems exploitative to me. Not a parent tho.

I suppose it could be considered steep for anyone making a multiplayer game while managing the hosting for themselves on a tight budget. Developers with strong knowledge of monetisation strategies can make good revenue streams from games with self-hosted or self-managed servers. Maybe these developers wouldn't be able to get the same amount of revenue if they used Roblox instead.

What Roblox provides is a platform to upload experiences to with minimal risk or skill required, and services that are heavily subsidised by money redirected from their most successful experiences. The barrier to entry is lowered to the floor, and most kids using the platform to learn game development wouldn't have otherwise learned about it if they had to manage servers, study networking, etc.

Cloud services are a thing, but they're usually expensive and Roblox is paying for them for you. Free cloud services are a thing, but they're usually very limited and what Roblox is providing is essentially unlimited.

For me, the killer app for Roblox is none of this. It's Creator Rewards https://create.roblox.com/docs/creator-rewards> (previously Engagement-based Payouts (previously Premium Payouts)), a programme where any player that pays for a Roblox Premium subscription (or is a new/returning user and buys anything on Roblox in the future) results in money earned for the developers of the experiences they play. This happens without requiring any monetisation strategy, microtransactions, or paid in-game products to be created by the developer. Nothing similar is provided by most other popular game engines or platforms.

For myself as a smaller Roblox creator with no interest in creating such monetisation strategies on my own experiences, Creator Rewards makes up a much bigger income proportion than it does for most large developers on the platform. Instead of ~10%, it's more like 90% for me, and I suspect that most kids learning to code games on Roblox without having good marketing skills are in the same bucket, and so the cut won't be nearly as steep for them.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#212

Post by Kave0ne »

benoau wrote: post #206
anileated wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO of Roblox was once asked whether he would ever put prediction markets inside Roblox, he gave a straight face answer: https://youtu.be/XpIXRgMlPo4?t=2122

He's also previously said he wants Roblox to be a dating service lol

[flagged]

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#213

Post by nananana9 »

bstsb wrote: post #201
nananana9 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't make excuses for literal evil p*dophile megacorporations. There is plenty of low hanging fruit, and even if there wasn't, this issue is important enough that if they can't fix it they should go out of business. 1. They can just disable chat for non age verified accounts. Done. Problem fixed. Oh, but they'll lose money, won't they? That takes precedence over child safety. 2. The community is willing to he…

1. they have 2. they do (to the extent they can) 3. obviously they have a safety team. they have a dedicated page about it: https://about.roblox.com/safety

1. Kids under 9 can use chat with parent consent, for kids over 9 don't even need that. After 13, there's no option to even disable it for parents [1].

2. Suing multiple youtubers who come to you with evidence of child abuse on your platform does not square with "they do" in any concievable universe [2] [3]

3. Oh, guess all is good then!

[1] https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/43611824582292-... [2] https://www.altmanllp.com/personal-injury/sexual-assault-vic... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox%E2%80%93Schlep_controve...

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#214

Post by codebje »

giarc wrote: post #207
amiga386 wrote: post #38

Roblox turns a blind eye to child exploitation (whether being creeped on by adults, or being exploited by teens/adults to make games) and makes a fortune out of it. If it weren't online, it'd be illegal and people would be in jail. Also, Roblox's favourite thing - other than sitting back and rolling in the cash that their playerbase generated for them - is puff pieces in the news talking about how people who make gam…

My kids play Roblox and get often get gift cards from friends for birthday presents etc. I've always hated that a gift card for $20 can't be redeemed for the equivalent Robux. Instead you get options to purchase Robux and the most you can redeem is about ~$16, so then you have left over cash and have to get another gift card. Dark pattern.

There's an option buried somewhere in there to convert left-over real dollars into robux. They don't make it too prominent else no-one would be sitting there looking at the expensive robux options that offer (mostly, but NOT always!) a better exchange rate.

Scams and grifts from top to bottom.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#215

Post by butILoveLife »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #142

My grandsons would come and stay, bringing tablet devices with them, and would prefer to stay glued to them the whole time. Since we banned their use, they now play outside with my other grandchildren, on the rope swing, the zip line, or exploring in the woods making dens and forts, using their imaginations. Children should not be playing computer games, or scrolling on any social media, IMO.

Best to be playing with acceleration than to be problem solving on video games... rightttttt

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#216

Post by bstsb »

nananana9 wrote: post #213
bstsb wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. they have 2. they do (to the extent they can) 3. obviously they have a safety team. they have a dedicated page about it: https://about.roblox.com/safety

1. Kids under 9 can use chat with parent consent, for kids over 9 don't even need that. After 13, there's no option to even disable it for parents [1]. 2. Suing multiple youtubers who come to you with evidence of child abuse on your platform does not square with "they do" in any concievable universe [2] [3] 3. Oh, guess all is good then! [1] https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/43611824582292-... [2] https://…

your own source quotes as following:

> To use Communication features like Experience chat, Voice chat, and Party chat, all users must successfully complete an age check.

your words were "They can just disable chat for non age verified accounts". which they have. all "non age verified accounts" cannot use chat.

i have never attempted to assert that Roblox is a completely safe platform, or indeed that their safety team is as effective as it could be - however, your flippant statements were provably untrue with any research.

as for Schlep - while i applaud his stated aims, he was effectively "baiting" predators, offering to move conversations off-Roblox through platforms like Discord to bypass the moderation enforced by Roblox. in general, i fundamentally hate the idea of predator hunters; it seems so strange to monetize justice in this way, especially when it seems they care more about the content than the outcome of their "cases"

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#217

Post by alphawhisky »

grvdrm wrote: post #187
microtonal wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big difference between games now and games then. E.g. an SNES game was made to be fun, but not to be intentionally addictive, you would never buy a new game if it was. Many online games are designed to be as addictive as crack to extract as much revenue as possible. Our kid is in the typical video gaming age, almost every kid of her age is stuck in Roblox and some in Fortnite. Setting limits helps, but mor…

I’m a parent. Girls 7 and 4. I think you’re right about a number of parent habits. Hard to impose a device limit on a kid if that kid watches you use your device constantly. I’m not some hero here - constantly reminding myself to be aware. Now, I think imposing limits in the open world is a specific challenge. To your point, you’ll see kids at restaurants on iPads. Well, now your kid wants iPad. You don’t give it? Th…

Kudos dad/mom, that's a hard job. I feel like getting them exposed to technology and the dopamine generator that is games as a younger kid can help you teach more lessons around managing habits that can become maladaptive. Our world is increasingly engineered for addiction, and having conversations about self control starting young can help develop maturity. I know plenty of friends (2001 baby) that did not have access to internet/games until the 8th grade when the school provided laptops, and they STRUGGLED to handle the intensity of that distraction because they were never exposed and weren't taught healthy habits around technology. Exposure therapy is a great way to manage that.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#218

Post by Heliodex »

hrimfaxi wrote: post #204
bstsb wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

existing on a forum doesn’t mean they work for Roblox. i’m also on DevForum and last i checked i’m not working for them

Astroturfing is a well-known occurrence on this forum and I don't have any shame for being vigilant about it.

Fair enough, and you certainly shouldn't feel any shame for it. I apologise if I came across as if I were a shill or paid promoter (not the first time I've been accused as such), I've just been part of this debate for a long time and have written a lot on this particular topic.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#219

Post by isolli »

jonasdegendt wrote: post #163
isolli wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably lack imagination, but how would gambling work in this game?

The whole game is basically one giant random number generator, so there was a lot to gamble on. E.g., two players put one million gold pieces in their inventory, equip no equipment (so no attack bonuses), every hit on each other is now an RNG roll with identical odds for each player. Battle to the death and voila. That one's quite basic but there were more elaborate games such as flower poker. The game had a flower s…

Quite imaginative, too... thanks for answering :)

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#220

Post by bstsb »

glenngillen wrote: post #174
bstsb wrote: post #15

even tiny roblox games make money. i developed for a small game (~10m plays) a few years back and i still earn a decent residual from player revenue, even as the game slowly loses traction

Did you you have previous game making experience? I've toyed with the idea of trying to make it a small project for me and my kids but I thought it might be a bit beyond them (and then ultimately become just my project)

i had experience, mainly with web development; that being said, Roblox Studio is very intuitive for building and UI design, as is Lua (specifically Luau).

my advice is to just start building something. the Toolbox has thousands of 3D models which make the initial experience easier and more fun, and there are hundreds of YouTube tutorials teaching you the basics of Roblox scripting.

also use the excellent DevForum, which has thousands of explainer posts:

https://devforum.roblox.com/c/resources/community-tutorials/...

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