Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

gamasutra.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 227 posts

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#11

Post by Ashanmaril »

tyleo wrote: post #5

I read the article but have not watched the video so I may be missing some context. It really depends on how you define “exploiting”. It doesn’t seem like you _need_ to buy the ads. A kid could make a game on any platform and would encounter similar barriers. Would it be better if the kid played Call of Duty rather than creating something? Even if the chance to profit is low does the kid get something else out of Rob…

It sounds like Roblox does want there to be dedicated Roblox developers. I saw a clip from one of their conventions with someone, possibly the CEO, saying they envision companies of 100 people doing Roblox development

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#12

Post by wccrawford »

dreyfan wrote: post #7

This is no more exploitative than someone trying to make it big on Youtube, Twitch, or Spotify and gaining zero traction. If the content someone creates on these platforms doesn't capture an audience, the hosting platform doesn't generate any revenue and neither does the creator. It's completely free to produce the content (minus your time) and the platform hosts it for free, even though 99% of it never receives any…

For adults, I agree. But this is squarely aimed at kids and they haven't got the life experience to see these problems coming or deal with them appropriately.

If it were aimed at adults, but kids wanted to try, too, like Youtube... I don't have as much problem with that. But the target audience of Roblox ads is kids and always has been.

It doesn't seem at all fair to trap kids into this ecosystem, sell them the things they need to get rich and famous, and then also give them a worse cut on their games than Steam, Apple, Google, etc.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#13

Post by duxup »

My son makes some games on Roblox and plays a lot.

He has a great time, he's not chasing $, he just wants to have fun. It works great for that.

As soon as you try to stand out and chase money, yeah it gets HARD. Just like streaming on YouTube... or just getting noticed online for your blog.

But what's the alternative here? That's a question of scale. Just not let kids even have a chance to make money?

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#14

Post by only_as_i_fall »

>Second, there’s the matter of how extensively Robux (Roblox’s in-app currency) are used to navigate the creator economy. Roblox creators are paid first by receiving a cut of Robux that comes from the sale, which they can use to purchase other Roblox experiences, in-game assets, cosmetics, etc. That means once a developer enters the Robux economy, their money is all spent inside the Roblox system until they’re able to withdraw it. ... But to withdraw it, they need to have raked in roughly $1,000 worth of Robux.

This part seems pretty indefensible. Like yeah to a certain extent all online content platforms have a gate like this, but I've never heard of one that high. YouTube e will pay you as soon as you make something like $20 iirc. And the fact that they pay you in their gated currency which they then allow you to spend but only within their system seems like am obvious self-serving money grab.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#15

Post by duxup »

wccrawford wrote: post #12
dreyfan wrote: post #7

This is no more exploitative than someone trying to make it big on Youtube, Twitch, or Spotify and gaining zero traction. If the content someone creates on these platforms doesn't capture an audience, the hosting platform doesn't generate any revenue and neither does the creator. It's completely free to produce the content (minus your time) and the platform hosts it for free, even though 99% of it never receives any…

For adults, I agree. But this is squarely aimed at kids and they haven't got the life experience to see these problems coming or deal with them appropriately. If it were aimed at adults, but kids wanted to try, too, like Youtube... I don't have as much problem with that. But the target audience of Roblox ads is kids and always has been. It doesn't seem at all fair to trap kids into this ecosystem, sell them the thing…

What then? Just don't let them make money on the platform?

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#16

Post by duxup »

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #3

Not sure what Roblox is in first place. An integrated game engine and hosting site?

Think Steam.

But you can jump from game to game quickly.

Many of the games are similar-ish to popular games but the barrier to entry is low, share assets, games are easy to jump in and out of together with your friends.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#18

Post by happyopossum »

My kids (and I) certainly don't see it as exploitation - they love learning to create games, and would be happy to do it even without any chance of payout.

I don't think the $1k minimum payout is crazy either, as the overhead of paying 10s of thousands of kids $11.32 would kill margins (leading to Robux having to take a higher %age). I'd have to think most kids are in the same boat as mine - if their games ever earn them any Robux, they'll turn around and spend those Robux in another game, because that's what they want to do with it anyway.

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#19

Post by dexwiz »

Ashanmaril wrote: post #11
tyleo wrote: post #5

I read the article but have not watched the video so I may be missing some context. It really depends on how you define “exploiting”. It doesn’t seem like you _need_ to buy the ads. A kid could make a game on any platform and would encounter similar barriers. Would it be better if the kid played Call of Duty rather than creating something? Even if the chance to profit is low does the kid get something else out of Rob…

It sounds like Roblox does want there to be dedicated Roblox developers. I saw a clip from one of their conventions with someone, possibly the CEO, saying they envision companies of 100 people doing Roblox development

There are already studios like this, such as Uplift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplift_Games

Re: Roblox faces criticism for 'exploiting' young game developers

#20

Post by jnwatson »

duxup wrote: post #13

My son makes some games on Roblox and plays a lot. He has a great time, he's not chasing $, he just wants to have fun. It works great for that. As soon as you try to stand out and chase money, yeah it gets HARD. Just like streaming on YouTube... or just getting noticed online for your blog. But what's the alternative here? That's a question of scale. Just not let kids even have a chance to make money?

The main complaint is they encourage kids to create games by emphasizing the revenue sharing aspect, without making clear how hard it is to derive any revenue at all from it.
Post reply on HN