Upon further reflection, I think I've figured out why my kids and I don't see this as exploitative - they're not trying to get rich or famous. I'm not trying to be mean to anyone, but if you look at all of the complaints through the filter of someone who wants to a) learn to make a video game, b) learn some programming, and c) make a cool game to share with his friends, then Roblox is a really fun, free, and easy way…
i mean, roblox still makes money off of the kid's effort and labor and work, and engineered the system such that they take large amount of cuts for that work.
I highly doubt the amount they take as a cut is necessary.
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…
Roblox takes their 75% cut out of each sale then if you ever manage to accumulate the 100,000 Robux needed to cash out ($1000 worth for what Roblox sells it for) you only get $350. They're double dipping their cut. You should really watch the video it lays out the case very well. If it's meant to be educational it shouldn't be marketing itself as a way to make money or charging kids to promote their app. It would hav…
The comparison to being paid in scrip you could only use in the company store is spot on.
> That $1,000 worth of Robux becomes $350 when you go to extract it. Knowing nothing at all about Robux I’m not sure I follow. When you say “$1,000 worth of Robux” here you mean $1,000 USD, right? And not 1,000 units of Robux? So if I’m a developer on the platform and I’ve earned however many Robux equal $1,000 USD and I initiate a transfer then my actual cash receipts will be ~$350 USD? Am I understanding that corre…
Yes, you understand correctly. The minimum amount to withdraw is an amount that would cost 1000 USD to buy. When withdrawing that amount, you would get 350 USD
Ah, thank you. One follow-up question: if I don’t cash out my $1,000 USD worth of Robux can I spend them in game at their full $1,000 USD value?
See Carmack's rebuttal: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1428483898896535562 > I have been impressed by the number of real world economic and business issues that Roblox is exposing my younger son to, both in the experiences and the larger ecosystem. There is a lot of thinking in terms of effort, reward, and risk. "You seem to be ignoring the thesis of the video. For the vast majority of their creators, their…
> If the most legendary game developer of all time thinks Roblox is fine, are you sure he's mistaken?
If he was the most legendary game _designer_ sure, but in that area he hasn't been very relevant in a while, as a programmer I don't see what special insight he has.
He seems like a nice guy and he is obviously one of the best developer ever, but I don't get the near cult he has
What then? Just don't let them make money on the platform?
Sure. I also don't think 11 year olds should be working in coal mines or farm fields either.
Although I can't prove it, I suspect there wouldn't be a lot of kids that would stop making games on roblox for an enjoyable day in the coal mine with their friends.
Roblox takes their 75% cut out of each sale then if you ever manage to accumulate the 100,000 Robux needed to cash out ($1000 worth for what Roblox sells it for) you only get $350. They're double dipping their cut. You should really watch the video it lays out the case very well. If it's meant to be educational it shouldn't be marketing itself as a way to make money or charging kids to promote their app. It would hav…
I’ll have to watch the video. It looks like there is some missing context in the article alone. Still not sure how I feel. On the fence but leaning more good than bad. The thing I cant get past is “what else would a kid do with their time?” Even if its not a great way to make money, it seems like a better use of time than what I did. It just seems like it still provides a strong learning opportunity. I think there ma…
It can be a "good" for the child, while still being exploitative. Take care of the exploitation, and don't destroy the "good" parts. I don't think it's an entirely binary situation.
>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 t…
Roblox is not comparable to YouTube. When you make a video and upload it to YouTube, that creation is entirely the result of your own hard work and ingenuity. YouTube doesn't need to exist for your video to exist. When you make a game in Roblox, you are combining some amount of hard work and ingenuity of your own with a larger amount of hard work and ingenuity by Roblox Creation. If you want to keep all the money, th…
You’re definitely undervaluing the raw video encoding, transmission and delivery framework YouTube brings to bear there. Sure, you made a video. But that’s not the same as having a player that works in multiple browsers, support for multiple streaming bitrates and codecs, optimized global distribution and caching.. and that’s all before we get to the discoverability, hosting and channel management features.
>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 t…
> YouTube will pay you as soon as you make something like $20 iirc. Isn't it $100? https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1709871?hl=en
It is. And you're right to be skeptical of such arguments. But such arguments also happen all the time. For example, if you join a company as a junior developer, most people would trust an existing senior developer. I was about to write "I think it's fine to mislead kids into thinking they can make money." Then I reconsidered. After reconsidering, I think it's fine to mislead kids into thinking they can make money. L…
Lawnmowing for a neighbor takes about an hour and earns maybe $10. Making a Roblox game takes perhaps 100 hours and is almost certainly going to result in earning $0 for everyone except the Roblox Corporation.
Ditto for learning the violin. (In this case, you learn Lua.)