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Roblox is minting teen millionaires

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Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'll admit I read deeper into your argument than what you actually wrote.

Comparing with a platform like a digital distribution storefront, the infra & support & other OpEx still has to be paid. Could be argued that the developer has more choice on what to spend it on in the case they are given revenue directly, and in that case it would be their OpEx. That's why I think it's equally reasonable to consider it either as developer operations cost or a business one.

Other platforms routinely state that this money is given to the developers directly, which I suppose is true (given they also often host offline singleplayer games with generally much lower ongoing costs than multiplayer, which Roblox doesn't). Their communities also routinely refer to the money interchangeably as a "profit"/"revenue" cut, which I think is less forgivable and probably an indication of larger terminological clarity problems in the game industry regarding these cuts than just Roblox.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be an easy problem if the government put in place sensible reforms for age verification. Implying there's a simple solution that isn't being implemented because they weren't forced to by law. So what is that simple solution? Children typically don't have any form of government issued ID. You can verify someone is a legal adult (you probably shouldn't, but the point is that you can) whereas you can't easily…

I didn't say there was a "simple solution". I said it would be an easy problem for the software services if they had a proper age verification service that was government sanctioned.

If it's an easy problem then there's a simple solution.

You seem to have glossed over my second paragraph. How is this service supposed to work for children?

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#273
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.

Agree 100% with the sibling responses here. This almost never works in my experience. Kids want to play what their friends are playing - I remember feeling this way a long time ago too.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roblox connects them in the first place, what does it matter that it progresses outside of Roblox? That would necessarily be the case if they were to ever meet IRL anyway. Oh it's difficult for Roblox? A $42billion company? Whose entire business model is based around kids? It's difficult for them?? Boo fucking hoo.

The problem is that the external platforms that the children progress to generally have much laxer protection systems than Roblox does, and thus end up more vulnerable. I just chose Discord as an example as they're the most commonly cited chat platform that exploitation beginning on Roblox ends up on, and they also have problems with their trust & safety team that allows this to occur. Meeting IRL is a problem as wel…

>The problem is that the external platforms that the children progress to generally have much laxer protection systems than Roblox does, and thus end up more vulnerable.

So? Discord is a problem too. But they aren't finding the kids on discord because Discord is not a social network that links pedophiles with children. Roblox is that.

>Meeting IRL is a problem as well, it just makes up fewer of the cases.

Again... and? By your logic IRL is the problem too because for some reason you think we should not expect Roblox to do anything about the fact that it connects children with pedophiles. But IRL isn't a platform. And if Roblox was IRL, it would've already been sued into oblivion because it facilitates pedophiles predating on children.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#275
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.

Fortnite does that as well. Annoying dark pattern.

I mean, League of Legends does that as well. For example you can buy X RP, but a champion or skin or whatever costs either less or more, never the exact amount. I have seen this in hell of a lot of places as well.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#276
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post-appstore cut it's 42%, which is high but doesn't seem crazy. The unsuccessful attempts and idle piddling all need to be subsidized to allow the successes to exist in the first place, and I suspect we all know better than to undercount cloud, hosting, SRE, and staffing costs. They're all ongoing and pretty painful, and getting a shot at creating something with effectively zero downside risk (vs making a game in G…

> Post-appstore cut it's 42% That’s ~60% of the post AppStore cut or 42% of the total. If they took 42% of what remained developers would be getting more money than them. Further there’s no App Store cut when people buy this stuff on PC. The platform is ridiculously exploitive.

> Further there’s no App Store cut when people buy this stuff on PC.

Plenty of PC Roblox users use a version of Roblox downloaded through the Microsoft Store, whom charge a 12% cut on all money spent on gaming apps https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/publish/publi...>. The only place where no app store cut applies is when purchasing Roblox products through the non-Microsoft Store PC app or through the website. Surprise, doing this gets the user ~20% more Robux than buying through an app store https://www.roblox.com/upgrades/robux>.

If a user buys Robux through a platform where the app store fee isn't charged, then it isn't charged to developers either because the user will receive, and thus spend, more Robux. Creator rewards work differently to ensure that developers owning experiences played primarily by app store users aren't unfairly punished by this https://create.roblox.com/docs/creator-rewards>.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#277
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Yeah, the games my SWE friends and I have played were completely free.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say there was a "simple solution". I said it would be an easy problem for the software services if they had a proper age verification service that was government sanctioned.

If it's an easy problem then there's a simple solution. You seem to have glossed over my second paragraph. How is this service supposed to work for children?

Sorry, didn't respond to that.

All humans must be assigned digital identity by the government. You won't be able to use a connected digital device without assigning it identity.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the external platforms that the children progress to generally have much laxer protection systems than Roblox does, and thus end up more vulnerable. I just chose Discord as an example as they're the most commonly cited chat platform that exploitation beginning on Roblox ends up on, and they also have problems with their trust & safety team that allows this to occur. Meeting IRL is a problem as wel…

>The problem is that the external platforms that the children progress to generally have much laxer protection systems than Roblox does, and thus end up more vulnerable. So? Discord is a problem too. But they aren't finding the kids on discord because Discord is not a social network that links pedophiles with children. Roblox is that. >Meeting IRL is a problem as well, it just makes up fewer of the cases. Again... an…

> But they aren't finding the kids on discord because Discord is not a social network that links pedophiles with children. Roblox is that.

If being more open and public correlates strongly enough with "links pedophiles with children", then yeah, true. I expect Roblox to do plenty to improve its platform safety with their track record. The recent introduction of their ID verification system to prevent communication between users outside of specified age buckets, solely in the context of improving child safety, is working and significantly reducing cases of child exploitation both on and off of the platform.

> it facilitates pedophiles predating on children.

I don't agree that it facilitates this kind of behaviour, nor does there exist enough evidence to make such a claim. Try red-teaming it: take the place of a bad actor that aims to cause harm to a child on the Roblox platform.

First, the actor will need an account. Next, they'll need to join a game (one with a low content maturity rating) and find a vulnerable child. Of course, they can't actually communicate with each other, so the actor needs to verify their age. For this, they will need either the face of a child, a verifiable ID document of a child, or the ability to defraud the system (likely by forging an ID document).

Assume they can get past that, and are now considered in the same age bracket as the child, and can thus communicate with them. They now need to direct the child off-platform to avoid them being caught very easily by Roblox's safety teams and systems. They won't be able to use a social media link, as the actor isn't permitted to send them and the child isn't permitted to receive them due to them both being classified as minors by Roblox. So the actor will need to use chat or private messages to give them specific instructions, which will of course be heavily censored due to both parties being minors.

Okay, perhaps an easier way would be to have the actor create an experience with some unfiltered messaging system and let the child join them in it (if they don't have parental experience restrictions available, in that case the actor will be out of luck). They'll of course need to get the experience approved with a sufficient content maturity level. However, any unfiltered messaging system is going to be caught quickly by automated checking; all experience communications must go through TextService:FilterStringAsync(). Roblox's text-filtering is industry-leading, and much more protective than almost any other platform that allows free-form text communication.

Regardless, we'll assume that the actor is able to direct the user off-platform successfully somehow. In the case that a member of the safety team does follow up on any chat/message history and finds a Terms of Service violation, they'll request that the alternative platform take action, which will of course have no impact as the communications aren't against their Terms of Service.

> And if Roblox was IRL, it would've already been sued into oblivion

I hope I've effectively demonstrated that it's much more difficult to abuse or exploit users on the platform after recent updates. If Roblox was IRL, they wouldn't be able to implement any of these safety checks or features, and they probably would be sued into oblivion.

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