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Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

matthewball.co

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Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#241

Post by Hugsun »

ElCapitanMarkla wrote: post #88

My kids have started playing Roblox recently and they have started asking for some Robux so they can buy crap... I really don't get how so many people are into spending dollars on this stuff. Everything they wanted was ~$10-20 NZD and it was just throw away stuff, like a costume, etc. And then it's only useful in that one game you have brought it for. It blows my mind that it ever got this popular.

It is illegal to advertise to children in Iceland because of this. They have no means to evaluate purchases like this. Modern technology has completely circumvented these laws.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#242

Post by matwood »

drw85 wrote: post #193
jack_pp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because kids aren't utilitarian. They want shiny things impulsively now in whatever niche game they are playing at the moment. Or want to keep up with their friends who got cool stuff to keep status. Doesn't matter to them that they'll switch games in a week and lose everything.

It's not only kids that buy these. I know a lot of 40+ year old men that buy skins and useless junk in video games all the time. They spend a ton of money on cosmetic junk in short lived video games. It's puzzling to me, but i see it all the time.

> It's puzzling to me, but i see it all the time.

Everyone has their thing. I'm sure you spend money in ways that are just as puzzling to others.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#243

Post by teamonkey »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #229
teamonkey wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is any Lua run on iOS devices at all? The majority of the Lua code is sent to the server, which then tells the client what to do. There are Lua scripts intended to run on the "client" (such as camera scripts) but I was under the impression (I could be wrong) that even they were converted by a server into instructions sent to the client, not run as a Lua scripts in a local Lua interpreter on your iPad.

Surely the user interface runs locally ? Or has Roblox been careful to ban interface development in LUA ?

My assumption is that the server either directly tells the client what to display or it converts the “client” code to some kind of bytecode that doesn’t require a lua interpreter.

Or perhaps the lua code is sanitised by the server such that the lua code run on the client is not the same as submitted by the user. Many App Store games do have an embedded scripting system of some kind, just not one that can run code directly inputted by an end user.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#244

Post by surgical_fire »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #238
surgical_fire wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As shown in Roblox case, it obviously is not. Especially as Apple also wants to take a cut from in-app sales.

Well it is for most developers on Steam. Small/medium developers of course benefit much more from the increased reach/discoverability and PC games have a very different business model than mobile ones of course. But even for iAP, yes 30% is very step but as a consumer I’m significantly more likely to spend money on an app published by a non-major company if I can use Apple as an intermediary (refunds, subscription ma…

> But even for iAP, yes 30% is very step but as a consumer I’m significantly more likely to spend money on an app published by a non-major company if I can use Apple as an intermediary

Such an odd take.

I begrudgingly use a Macbook for work - that is the laptop my employer issued for me. I pay for IntelliJ, because I think it is an excellent IDE.

Following your logic, Apple should somehow bite 30% of that yearly subscription, when in truth, I am a customer of JetBrains, not of Apple.

Your logic would be fine if, and only if, there was the option to buy the game outside of the AppStore, and you still chose to buy it through the AppStore. That proves you prefer going through Apple's channel and are their customer after all.

In the Steam case, especially for small/medium developers, there are multiple options to buy their games - I generally prefer GoG.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#245

Post by Jensson »

eru wrote: post #222
ckdarby wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a good sign for Roblox. Yes, many smart people, but they weren't industry changing (Google almost never loses) and they didn't get or turned down Google's renewal program to retain talent. Looks like a lot who wanted the high pay, but coast along and leverage their past experience to not be dared questioned.

Wouldn't that be a fully generalised argument against ever hiring anyone who ever worked at Google? (Btw, some people also leave Google for other reasons.)

If you want people who know how to build stable large scale infrastructure it is hard to go wrong by hiring people from Google. Google rewrites all their products all the time, they shut down and launch new internal systems just as often as they do external, and it is still stable, so the people from there has probably been through a few rewrites of some infrastructure part and knows what are required for that to work.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#246

Post by ryoshu »

ElCapitanMarkla wrote: post #88

My kids have started playing Roblox recently and they have started asking for some Robux so they can buy crap... I really don't get how so many people are into spending dollars on this stuff. Everything they wanted was ~$10-20 NZD and it was just throw away stuff, like a costume, etc. And then it's only useful in that one game you have brought it for. It blows my mind that it ever got this popular.

Whales are spending $15k a pop for some in-game assets. It's crazy.

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#248

Post by justinclift »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #230
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Steam did release the Steam Deck, so yes it provides everything you described. I'm not sure why we are focusing on the 30%, the problem is that facebook, a very rich company, get charged 0.

Steam Deck is mostly standard Linux (although most stuff Valve does is gets merged into the kernel/free packages etc. so it’s hard to disentangle the these, but not exactly comparable to building a platform almost from scratch) > the problem is that facebook, a very rich company, get charged 0. Just like every other company using the same business model (i.e. ads instead of IAP)?

> building a platform almost from scratch)

Are you meaning iOS there?

Of so, please remember they pulled significant amounts of code from Open Source Software in order to lighten their development load. :)

Re: Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

#250

Post by pm90 »

endtime wrote: post #74
staticautomatic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK about the stock but I’ve interviewed there and their cash comp is legit FU money. Am I misunderstanding you?

I'm a pretty senior IC at Roblox, and my new hire offer was 40% cash / 60% RSUs. It's now closer to 33/67 with refresher grants. Roblox pays very competitively (see levels.fyi). The apparent strategy is to try to hire lots of long-tenured L6+ Googlers (seriously, it's crazy how many former Googlers I work with).

Having lots of ex Googlers could honestly go either way. I wouldn’t automatically assume thats a good thing.

A former mid size company that I worked at had the same scenario and it was definitely not good. They over engineered not just the systems but literally everything else, including the promotion process which involved the whole horse and pony show and was a constant distraction to shipping features while the companys finances struggled.

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