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Comment by tyleo | Hacker News Reader

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 Roblox?

To my knowledge kids aren’t dropping out of high school with hopes of being a Roblox millionaire. They may dream about it but I don’t think they act on it. I dreamed about being a pro eSports gamer in high school and I’d argue my time was much worse spent doing that.

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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 have better ways to surface new applications instead of only showing the top N that already have to have over a thousand users.

To combine the numbers:

Roblox takes 75% of each sale. This means the developer needs to make 400,000 in Robux sales before the developer accumulates 100,000 Robux for cash withdrawal.

If 100,000 Robux is sold for $1,000, and 100,000 Robux only nets the developer $350, then the double dip gives Roblox a net 91.25% of developer sales. This excludes any applicable taxes or app store fees.

The video mentioned you must also have a premium account at $5/month, so conservatively 7 months is another $35 down.

And presumably you have to pay for the premium account before you withdraw, so you are investing real cash for a chance of a payout?

They don't combine like that, because the 75% already takes into account the double dip.

User spends $100 USD to buy 10000 robux. User buys item for 10000 robux in a game. Developer of game gets 7000 robux (dip #1). Developer of game withdraws to USD. 100000 robux = $350 (dip #2) so developer gets $24.5 USD.

Overall 24.5/100 = 24.5%.

In reality the numbers don't always come exactly to this, because robux can cost different amounts to buy depending on the amount, and there are PayPal/wire transfer fees when withdrawing.

Thats only for one transacrion between users though.For every additional transaction the money goes through, the roblox takes even more of a cut.

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 may be a different argument about whether it exploits developers generally and not just kids.

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.

Play Minecraft?

Learn a programming language and write small games in Unity/Godot/whatever? Make levels in LittleBigPlanet/Dreams?

To be fair, those options can get exploitative too, but Roblox feels on another level. The only time I played Roblox, I distinctly remember thinking "the only people who would put money into this are kids who don't know any better".

The argument you’re making could just as easily be applied to having kids “compete cleaning tables at a restaurant” where the winner for the day gets $10.

Once money is in the equation, all of the incentives change and it’s not about “learning opportunities” or fun.

The comparison to being paid in scrip you could only use in the company store is spot on.

Microsoft MakeCode (here's MakeCode Arcade[0], just one aspect) is a terrific gaming platform which teaches standard Typescript (using a Scratch-type interface). It doesn't offer monetization of any kind so they can honestly advertise for the pure creative, maker, and educational markets. And they do!

[0] https://arcade.makecode.com/

Yeah there’s definitely a cool niche there for an easy to use tool to build games in a way that deals with the mess of networking and servers that isn’t just siphoning all the money away from the users at every turn.

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

That's 1 company, the biggest, saying they want to do that. Roblox makes a fortune off of everyone *failing" to reach that goal.

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