Is Roblox the future of PC gaming?
(It's a Betteridge's headline; you know the answer)

But that's the question a recent Bellular video asked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlW4dG6hjs (and yes, they came to the
same conclusion you did). But he did bring up an important reminder:
Roblox is big. Like really big. Not just in the number of games
available, or its income, but also with its audience count and reach.
It boasts daily usership numbers that aren't just bigger than
Playstations, or Steam... but both of them combined (with room to
spare). And while Steam's audience is mostly centered in US and
Europe, Roblox's audience distribution is pretty evenly distributed
worldwide.

But Roblox is just that platform for little kids, right? The place
where all the eight-to-twelve year-olds hang out and play awful
blocky-games. Certainly that's what it started out as, but over the
years that market has matured. The audience is aging up, and the games
are becoming more sophisticated. And those gamers are seeing little
incentive to move over to other markets... especially when most of the
games on Roblox are free. (At least initially. MTX in many Roblox
games is as bad or worse than on mobile). And many of those games are incredibly popular, rivaling triple-A games with their player counts.

[Roblox game "Grow a Garden" boasts an audience that
is higher than all of Blizzard's games /combined/]

And while the quality of Steam or Playstation games may be higher, the
cost of entry --both for players and developers-- is much lower. The
story that prompted the video linked above was the numerous Roblox
clones of "MecchaCameleon". The original was made very cheaply and
quickly... but thanks to the robust development tools (and embedded AI generation) on Roblox the clones can come out even faster.

But it just goes to show that the audience for video-games is
changing, and changing dramatically. The games we all play here --the
Dooms, the truck simulators, the Dark Souls, the Star Wars Old
Republic-- aren't something this newer generation have learned to
appreciate. Smaller, low-quality ("disposable", the video calls them)
games are the expected product now, because it's less about the game
and more about the social experience. The games themselves are just
the framework, the reason to get together but not as important for the experience they offer.

It's not as if Steam and Playstation and Xbox and the rest are just
going to disappear in the face of this competition. But unless they
can attract the youth, the influence on the industry is going to wane considerably. After all, old people have a tendency to, you know,
die...

Will these kids move on to (what we old farts consider) bigger and
better games as they age up? That's the big question. But those kids
used to be a big part of the gaming market, and now they've basically
excluded themselves from the usual industry fare. They're getting what
they want from Roblox, and it doesn't seem like Steam, etc. are
offering them any reason to move over. What, for games similar to what
they already have, except they have to pay for it? And it's not like
the triple-A publishers (or even the serious Indie developers) can
just move over to Roblox and sell their wares there.

Not if they expect to make any money, anyway. Not when a couple of
clever tweens can (poorly) clone your biggest product in days and then
give it away for free. Your only hope is to either accept that you've
a much smaller market on Steam/Playstation, or change your product to
be as cheaply made and as filled with MTX as the clones. Either way,
Roblox's success is definitely going to impact the sort of games we
greyhairs get to play.

Although I suppose if all we fogeys moved over to Roblox ourselves,
and got ourselves involved in their games, we could make it as un-cool
to the kids as Facebook is to the younger generation. "Hello teens,
let's play "99 Nights in the Forest"... but before we start, let me
just explain to you how painful sciatica is!" or "You kids remind me
of my grandchildren, would you like to see some pictures?"

Who's with me? ;-)




--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)