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Roblox is minting teen millionaires

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Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#291

Post by fc417fc802 »

intrasight wrote: post #278
fc417fc802 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay. That would indeed make it an easy problem to solve from the perspective of a service operator. However I don't think I'd consider that to be a "sensible reform". Rather a dystopia that must be avoided at all costs.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#292

Post by Retric »

Heliodex wrote: post #276
Retric wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 web…

> whom charge a 12% cut on all money spent on gaming apps

How ridiculous, why that’s almost as high as what Roblox does below.

> ~20% more Robux than buying through an app store

1 / 0.7 = 43% more money.

Which might not be such a big deal except it clearly show the kind of Hollywood accounting going on in their other posts.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#293

Post by Heliodex »

Retric wrote: post #292
Heliodex wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 web…

> whom charge a 12% cut on all money spent on gaming apps How ridiculous, why that’s almost as high as what Roblox does below. > ~20% more Robux than buying through an app store 1 / 0.7 = 43% more money. Which might not be such a big deal except it clearly show the kind of Hollywood accounting going on in their other posts.

> How ridiculous

The default app store cut for most other platforms (Google Play, Apple App Store) that Roblox operates on is 30% (and similar for other distribution platforms, such as Steam), so in the grander scheme 12% isn't even that ridiculous. Including payment processing fees, this averages out to the 22% mentioned at https://create.roblox.com/docs/monetize-experiences> for all of Roblox's sales.

> 1 / 0.7 = 43% more money.

Can you clarify where the 0.7 is from? My assumption is that it's from the 30% fee charged by some app stores, though not every app store charges the same fee so not using an average figure isn't truly representative of how much more money Roblox & its developers would actually earn in the event that there were no such fees.

> except it clearly show the kind of Hollywood accounting going on in their other posts.

Do point out mistakes if you see any, I would be happy to correct them (-: I made another comment on how different methods of purchasing Robux affects the value at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340570> if that helps clear things up.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#294

Post by Retric »

Heliodex wrote: post #293
Retric wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whom charge a 12% cut on all money spent on gaming apps How ridiculous, why that’s almost as high as what Roblox does below. > ~20% more Robux than buying through an app store 1 / 0.7 = 43% more money. Which might not be such a big deal except it clearly show the kind of Hollywood accounting going on in their other posts.

> How ridiculous The default app store cut for most other platforms (Google Play, Apple App Store) that Roblox operates on is 30% (and similar for other distribution platforms, such as Steam), so in the grander scheme 12% isn't even that ridiculous. Including payment processing fees, this averages out to the 22% mentioned at https://create.roblox.com/docs/monetize-experiences > for all of Roblox's sales. > 1 / 0.7 =…

I was being sarcastic with my how ridiculous post.

> mistakes if you see any

https://create.roblox.com/docs/monetize-experiences

First no mention of the float between purchase of Roblox and transactions, but whatever platforms regularly pull that one.

As to Hollywood accounting. There is no single exchange rate between dollars and Roblox on a platform, a 5$ purchase = 5:4 on App Store, but a 100$ purchase is a 1:1. https://www.roblox.com/upgrades/robux

Of course they ignore this only saying app stores and payment platforms get a 22% cut. Ok sure you have some average numbers of Roblox per dollar and then work out an exchange rate sure that’s reasonable.

But wait on that page: users can now receive up to 25% more Robux when purchasing through gift cards, computer, or web. This extra Robux translates into higher revenue shares on Robux purchased on those channels. (As high as 25% or less than 7%) So now they aren’t averaging the exchange rate instead doing yet another calculation even though a 20$ purchase on their store has a worse exchange rate than a 200$ purchase on the App Store…

Meanwhile an account with 6k Roblox at time of purchase may have been filled by some gift cards and some App Store purchases at different ratios over time while the user is spending money on the platform meaning that 6k doesn’t actually correspond cleanly to either App Store or gift cards Roblox…

But like trust US bro even if we aren’t saying what the actual formula is it’s fine. I can’t help but wonder what the actual numbers look like if such a lopsided deal is still presented with such weasel wording.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#295

Post by Ferret7446 »

grvdrm wrote: post #189
jameson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> games allow you to spend money to rapidly get better Audience is the problem here. It's obviously not a big deal if the platform is targeted for adults, but majority of users are underage. The platform can certainly implement guardrails for the vulnerable users if they wish to

Interesting. You don’t think adults have the same problem?

I can't speak for GP, but at least adults are responsible for their own spending problems

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#296

Post by mh- »

MisterTea wrote: post #270
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of it has to do with roblox being free. (I don't have a minecraft account) but Trust me when I say this but within developing countries especially. You can find 3-4 people out of 1 who plays on hypixel but can't because they can't pay for the game usually when we are really young which is also roblox's most major userbase. I can imagine Hypixel being atleast 2x and a rough estimate of 5x more the size if they su…

> Some of it has to do with roblox being free. This reminds me a of recent conversation I had with a friend about the success of Roblox. The big thing my friend said that Roblox has over Fortnight or any other gaming platform is ease of installation. He told me how their young cousin came to visit and wanted to play Roblox. He told his little cousin he didn't have Roblox and that he would have to download and install…

I just checked for fun, went to download Fortnite via Epic. 105gb download, 116gb storage size.

Old person anecdote: I remember upgrading to a 80mb HD when I was a kid, and my dad and I joking about how we'd never be able to fill it up.

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#297

Post by Ferret7446 »

Aeolun wrote: post #115
bluefirebrand wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I have 3 nieces and 2 nephews and only the oldest has avoided Roblox Every Christmas and birthday now is "I want Robux" and they are actively annoyed if they get anything else This thing is bad for children

Pretty sure I was annoyed when I got anything but computer games. Which, I’m pretty certain, adults told me were bad for me.

Of course a kid is gonna be annoyed if they get something other than what they want, but, to use a hamfisted but scarily apt analogy, are the kids yearning for the drug called sugar or the drug called crack/meth/etc. Both are "bad" but on completely different levels

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#298

Post by Ferret7446 »

nomel wrote: post #50
intrasight wrote: post #17

"According to the company, their monthly player base includes half of all American children under the age of 16." - Wikipedia 2 decades in the making, they are really hitting their stride. But they are not doing enough to protect children from predators and that's a huge legal and regulatory risk.

> But they are not doing enough to protect children from predators My understanding is that the recent improvements are face scans, and communication limited to people within a few 4 year windows. They've also increased moderation of chat significantly, especially for the lower age windows. What low hanging fruit do you see? What's the "ideal" system? Seems like a hard problem, if any sort of cooperative communicatio…

The low hanging fruit of banning reported predators, instead of banning people who are reporting predators. Or the low hanging fruit of not saying they want to turn their platform dominated by children into a dating site.

Epstein would blush

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#299

Post by Ferret7446 »

roysting wrote: post #137
nomel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they are not doing enough to protect children from predators My understanding is that the recent improvements are face scans, and communication limited to people within a few 4 year windows. They've also increased moderation of chat significantly, especially for the lower age windows. What low hanging fruit do you see? What's the "ideal" system? Seems like a hard problem, if any sort of cooperative communicatio…

I realize people may find this controversial, but from personal experience with gaming, I see all of these types of games as “predators” in and of themselves when they are “monetized”, because they are deliberately and explicitly exploiting the addicting nature of games in general, by being and manipulating a freebase of dopamine and serotonin just like the gambling industry does/used to. If we survive this era with…

As a thought experiment, would you rather prefer letting natural selection run its course so that future generations will have immunity against addictive gambling

Re: Roblox is minting teen millionaires

#300

Post by Ferret7446 »

eloisant wrote: post #140
PunchyHamster wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting watched by your parents is far different than getting watched by the government. It's no different than parent watching out of the window on kids playing in backyard > And then people wonder why authoritarianism is on the rise... It's on the rise because of utter failure of progressive govt to do what people want them to do. People want country to be more prosperous, not to have bleeding heart activists impor…

Still, at some point you do have to give some privacy to your kids. I know the trend is helicopter parenting but it's not helping the kid to be overprotecting.

I don't think privacy and helicoptering is a dichotomy. Hell, the concept of privacy is actually very recent, and the default state for protohumans is no privacy (can't hide anything when everyone is in the same cave/hut)

I'm not saying kids should have no privacy, but I think privacy is overrated and the real problem is parents being overly controlling

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