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Roblox is minting teen millionaires

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Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#251

Post by bstsb »

nananana9 wrote: post #223
bstsb wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I should've worded this better. By "non-verified accounts" I mean basically mean "accounts that haven't been verified by an ID check". This is the only means that I consider an actual verification, face/photo scan is a PR stunt and malicious compliance. I assume I don't have to try too hard to convince someone on this forum how easy photo/video verification is to bypass. Look at Australia, it's happening en masse rig…

yeah, i agree with your points on age verification. ironically, the main backlash from the Roblox community was that they were even rolling out verification in the first place - not that it didn't go far enough! i'm sure you'll agree it's a tricky problem to solve - if communication is fully banned, then many children will simply move to lesser-moderated platforms.

i'm not a Ruben Sim fan. while his list of "ERPing" accounts is a good idea, and it's amazing to see real games implement blocks on these players, i find his opinions on the furry community strange and a bit obsessive

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#252

Post by consp »

bstsb wrote: post #250
giarc wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

visit this page and click the bright blue, prominent button labeled "Convert to Robux": https://www.roblox.com/my/account#!/billing you will receive the exact amount you would get from the equivalent conversion rate of the closest "package"

Assuming this works like any other tiered package system, wouldn't this make you still lose more money due to the lower tiers being less efficient?

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#253

Post by Heliodex »

jameson wrote: post #105
bhawks wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roblox games are all multiplayer - you get a game server running in their POPs and a generous amount of persistent storage and memory. How is that not a developer operational cost? Creators don't have to pay any hosting - Roblox will serve their content even if a game doesnt monetize their users for free. The way this economical is thru the redistribution of games that do monetize their users

Wording Roblox trying to sell is deceiving. Compare with other platforms. Payout model is as simple as platform takes % or fixed fee, rest is dev to keep. There's no verbiage that says dev share is 67% but you they actually get paid less. What exactly goes behind the platform is platform's business, not the user. If developers are getting paid out $0.25 per dollar spent, that's the developers profit and rest is spent…

The main reason this argument exists is because of Roblox being difficult to compare with other platforms. For the most widely used platforms/engines/storefronts in the industry, the main payout model is that the percentage (for storefronts ~30%, smaller for smaller platforms, for commercial game engines ~5%) or fixed/variable fee (per month or per seat in the client organisation) is taken as payment for using the distribution platform or a royalty for using the game engine. The remaining quantity (60-80%) is given to the developer of the game.

To make it clear, this is not profit! Any money earned after paying the storefront and the engine still needs to be spent on server hosting & maintenance, as well as moderation & legal compliance if a game is popular enough to need it. There also is a risk that the expenses taken away in this area could outweigh the revenue and the developers end up with a loss. Unless all expenses are negligible, the resulting revenue isn't just for the developer to keep.

Roblox pays for an experience's server hosting, maintenance, moderation, legal compliance, discoverability, engine development, app store fees, etc. As results, there is no risk of such loss, though Roblox's operating costs are much higher than a typical game storefront. I would consider these costs as developer operational costs. As far as I can tell, the key difference is the fact that one party is having their costs paid by another rather than one party giving another the money to pay for it themselves. This, to me, is an arbitrary distinction.

Other platforms don't have clauses that need to differentiate between money given to developers as profit and money given to developers as infrastructure/upkeep costs because these other platforms don't deal in the kind of broad integration that Roblox has from the storefront to the datacentres. In almost all cases, the final payout a developer gets from Roblox is pure profit.

The services Roblox is selling might not be using a standard industry pricing model, though it's still very clear and not at all deceptive what the product is the developers are paying for and what the profit share is after operating expenses have been paid for on their behalf.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#254

Post by kyriakos »

Brybry wrote: post #161
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.

I think a fair number of us here got into computers because of playing computer games as kids. The issue is setting limits. Now obviously banning is easier and lower friction but limiting to an X time per day routine can also help with self-discipline. Depends on the person. Kids can have the same issue with TV. I had an issue as a kid with books . My parents had to limit my reading time because I would stay up all n…

The computer games I used to play are nothing like the stuff my son is playing. Its not just a matter of how much time is spent. They are the same as social media, engineered for maximum engagement, contain ads or try to sell you something .

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#255

Post by Heliodex »

freejazz wrote: post #224
Heliodex wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2 videos linked here are nearing 5 years old now and have been refuted many times, including by some of the developers mentioned in the article. To condense it as much as possible: The 1st video hinges on a point where they find that developers earn a revenue cut of 24.5%, a number that isn't correct because 1. it's found by multiplying 3 arbitrarily chosen numbers together (the DevEx rate, the default sales fee,…

> Broadly, this is Discord's problem, not Roblox's. I strongly disagree with that.

I'd like to hear your reasons for this. From what I see, most discussions on child exploitation on Roblox eventually make clear that the exploitation happened outside of Roblox, most commonly on Discord. Moreover, it's a lot more difficult to censor a few messages talking about alternative platforms than it is to stop a long-running logged chat conversation where child exploitation usually takes place.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#256

Post by Goronmon »

sayamqazi wrote: post #125
giobox wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically a litmus test for whether you have kids or not at this point. The age at which kids become aware of Roblox from their peers is getting younger and younger in my experiences anyway. Before I had kids, I had very little idea either, and I consider myself fairly well acquainted with PC gaming.

The solution is to give them a taste of better built (specifically competetive) games and they will never like roblox.

The solution is to give them a taste of better built (specifically competetive) games and they will never like roblox.

In my experience, this doesn't work. The primary reason being that most of their friends are playing Roblox and if they are consuming any content on the internet, much of it at their age is related to Roblox.

Our kids have never been allowed to play, and it still comes up somewhat regularly despite all the various games and consoles they have available.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#257

Post by tchock23 »

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.

Fortnite does that as well. Annoying dark pattern.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#258

Post by jameson »

Heliodex wrote: post #253
jameson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wording Roblox trying to sell is deceiving. Compare with other platforms. Payout model is as simple as platform takes % or fixed fee, rest is dev to keep. There's no verbiage that says dev share is 67% but you they actually get paid less. What exactly goes behind the platform is platform's business, not the user. If developers are getting paid out $0.25 per dollar spent, that's the developers profit and rest is spent…

The main reason this argument exists is because of Roblox being difficult to compare with other platforms. For the most widely used platforms/engines/storefronts in the industry, the main payout model is that the percentage (for storefronts ~30%, smaller for smaller platforms, for commercial game engines ~5%) or fixed/variable fee (per month or per seat in the client organisation) is taken as payment for using the di…

Your response explains why Roblox might charge such a steep fee but that isn't my issue as I said earlier.

> 67% given to developers per in-experience dollar spent

Profit given to dev is $0.25 per dollar spent, not $0.67. It's as simple as that. I understand Roblox needs to maintain infra, support regional regulation, etc, but that's Roblox's business operational cost and shouldn't claim the delta of $0.42 is "given to developers" because developers never received it

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#259

Post by nomel »

nananana9 wrote: post #223
bstsb wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I should've worded this better. By "non-verified accounts" I mean basically mean "accounts that haven't been verified by an ID check". This is the only means that I consider an actual verification, face/photo scan is a PR stunt and malicious compliance. I assume I don't have to try too hard to convince someone on this forum how easy photo/video verification is to bypass. Look at Australia, it's happening en masse rig…

Parent accounts require an ID [1].

Kids don't have ID. How would that work?

I think one approach would be that all communication features could be opt in, by parents. but, that doesn't actually "solve" anything, since predators just make child accounts for themselves, and opt in.

sounds like your solution would have to be "no children communicate on the internet".

[1] https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407282410644-I...

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#260

Post by tracker1 »

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…

I'm not sure what it would take and/or how the reaction would be to 3rd party "bank" player(s) inside the game offering real exchange rates sitting in between and suing if Robox killed their account and took their "Robux" with it. Assuming players can exchange Robux inside the game without issue.. I'm guessing they take a cut on all transactions, which is kinda sus/garbage itself.
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