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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

#431

Post by ciropantera »

wmeredith wrote: post #406
GNOMES wrote: post #312

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers…

I'm a gamer and I always play the games my kids are playing to see what's up. Roblox was banned in my house after I messed around with it on my own for 30 minutes. Most of the games on the platform are pay to win skinner boxes and they have a pedophile problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-pro...

As a new father that will eventually get into that situation: how do you ban Roblox in your house? I imagine it’s popular among your kids’ real world acquaintances (school etc). Doesn’t banning it exclude your kids from these groups? Do they feel left out?

Given the current state of gaming and where it’s heading I would love to ban gaming altogether but I feel social pressure from other kids makes it very hard.

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

#432

Post by gopher_space »

draebek wrote: post #414
mrmetanoia wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things. The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic…

I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?" There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that t…

From my experience any pvp game that doesn’t have in-game admins attracts these people.

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

#433

Post by dnissley »

rvba wrote: post #327
iosjunkie wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading that as $700,000 or more total compensation.

What's total compensation? Doea this mean 700k base salary (real cash) + bonus (stock options)? On a side note, do senior engineers get company cars?

Total Compensation is the sum of all the different ways you are paid monetarily. This includes, but is not limited to: Base salary, Bonus, Equity (stock) compensation, Benefits

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

#434

Post by hipadev23 »

password4321 wrote: post #420
hipadev23 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try doing the math of accepting payment (Apple and Google take 30% off the top), then building, operating, and moderating a globally distributed auto-scaling gaming platform with 350M+ MAUs. 75% may be too high, but comparing it to say Steam’s 30% cut for distribution only is a grossly imbalanced comparison.

Is 75% the minimum taken, only if you don't cash out Robux? Extra yikes. > the company taking 75% of profits and having a pretty massive minimum bar (100,000 Robux / $1,000 USD) which must be passed before the person gets to withdraw anything at all, which is then effectively double taxed because the company will then only give $350 for 100,000 Robux when cashing out to actual money

It’s a $105 minimum payout, not $1,000.

And that 75% math is how much you earn, not a minimum or whatever you’re talking about. If players spend ~$1,000 of Robux in your game, you get paid ~$250.

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

#435

Post by hyperbolablabla »

amerkhalid wrote: post #400
GNOMES wrote: post #312

My kiddo has easily spent 500+ on Roblox across birthday/Xmas gift cards/chores. I can't stand that almost all of the games seem to have a pay to win aspect, or are heavily advertising every chance they get. As a gamer dad, I try to show my kid better games to play, but because they aren't free, his friends can't play. Just drives him to keep playing and wanting more Robux. It's compounded when his favorite Youtubers…

I am a gamer dad too. This is something I worry about. I have been playing Minecraft with my son but he is learning about these other games. I have been using some of similar messaging to smoking and saying things like that playing too many video games will destroy the health. Of course, I am not a good role model when it comes to living healthy lifestyle. And kids probably don't even understand what health really me…

> I am not a good role model

Maybe fix that?

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

#436

Post by unshavedyak »

dasil003 wrote: post #426
draebek wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?" There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that t…

I suspect it's because angry and disenfranchised people are over-represented in terms of hours spent playing online games. There's also a negative feedback loop where more casual and/or sensitive gamers opt out since they don't want to deal with the bullshit.

> There's also a negative feedback loop where more casual and/or sensitive gamers opt out since they don't want to deal with the bullshit.

I think there's also a loop where extremes are pushed. Ie it's common to celebrate victories in games. This then tilts players. Players lean into that tilt, and teabag. Teabag eventually is mundane, so you spread verbal toxicity. Toxicity then isn't enough, and etcetc.

It seems a loop without external pressures like in-person-reputation to inhibit how far it goes. A cycle of abuse that's all anonymous, fueled by the general competitive arousal of PvP/etc games.

Note that i'm mostly speaking to PvP games where that competitive environment also contributes to it. However i imagine "cycle of abuse" has it's place in most of these anonymous environments.

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

#437

Post by jachee »

draebek wrote: post #414
mrmetanoia wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've mentioned this in other comments, but I sat in with my nephews on a Roblox session, then stayed after to check things out on my own. There's an astounding number of adults on that platform saying some of the most horrible things. The games are like you say, and there's some that are indeed the model of what I expected: games that kids and amateurs made with their tools. Car jump games. Simple platforming. Basic…

I struggle to understand why people are so toxic with chat in video games. I don't go to the supermarket, or even the bar and hear people just casually chatting about "who hates [racial slur]?" There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which says that if you give normal people anonymity and an audience then they become (let's call them) assholes. I feel that, in order to buy this, you must accept that t…

I think you’ve run across one of the major, unfortunate reasons US elections are so close, from the …less-progressive… side of things.

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

#438

Post by [deleted] »

pm90 wrote: post #250
endtime wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

[deleted]

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

#439

Post by micromacrofoot »

Aerroon wrote: post #423
micromacrofoot wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

social media generally bans kids under 13 in the US — there's a good amount of evidence regarding the harms it can have at this point kids haven't been able to buy mature games from brick-and-mortar stores like Gamestop since I was a child decades ago kids used to be able to smoke cigarettes too

> there's a good amount of evidence regarding the harms it can have at this point Considering this evidence was produced during a time when the public opinion was looking for any excuse to blame social media companies and that the field of research producing those studies has an accuracy of a coin flip I'm unconvinced. I'd need to see a lot more than out of contact quotes from Facebook research or these questionable…

Some of this evidence has been produced by companies with an incentive to not produce it (internal Facebook research has shown negative mental health implications for teenage girls on instagram for example — this is known as part of some whistleblowing efforts)

> They pirated them instead because kids don't have money.

I mean sure, a kid can break a window and rob a gun store too... we're not talking about creating rules that are impossible to circumvent, the answer to imperfect regulation isn't no regulation.

> That being said, I would rather kids be banned from the internet outright rather than the internet becoming yet another watered down place.

Content filters have come a long way, this isn't what anyone is suggesting.

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

#440

Post by abirch »

judge2020 wrote: post #325
Quarrel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the same argument could be made for Twitter/X. The app stores by Google and Apple specifically disallow pornographic material, yet the app is full of it. Reddit is allowed too. imgur, snap, etc. I assumed you're fine as long as your raison d'être wasn't porn and the content was user generated / supplied.

To add, Tumblr was lambasted for them not properly policing their porn[0], accidentally allowing CSAM, and Apple being the one to inform them of this error. it's what led to them banning all 18+ content, arguably sealing the platform's fate of irrelevancy. 0: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-...

I thought Yahoo's acquisition was what stopped their 18+ content

But perhaps the most catastrophic misfire of all was the notorious ‘porn ban’ that came into place on December 17, 2018 – a policy partly driven by a US law [1] that made websites liable for sex trafficking that might take place on their platform. The ban covers ‘female presenting nipples’, genitals, and any depicted sex acts. Until then, the platform had remained a refuge for a devoted community of users, but this decision affected swift and dire consequences.

https://www.wired.com/story/tumblr-sold-to-wordpress/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSTA-SESTA

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