Roblox October Outage Postmortem

Re:Roblox October Outage Postmortem by DerArzt on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:03PM (#30015783)

To add, there is a nice documentary here[1] which also has a followup[2] that show even more of the issue at hand. Kids making games and only getting 24.5% of the profit is one thing, but everything else that Roblox does is much worse.

[1] https://youtu.be/_gXlauRB1EQ

[2] https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Roblox October Outage Postmortem by Qualadore on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:28PM (#30016157)

The 24.5% cut is fine, you have to consider the 30% app store fees for a majority mobile playerbase, all hosting is free, moderation is a major expense, and engine and platform development.

Successful games subsidize everyone else, which is not comparable to Steam or anything else.

Collectible items are fine and can't be exchanged for USD, Roblox can't arbitrate developer disputes, "black markets" are an extremely tiny niche. A lot of misinformation.

It's annoying to see these videos brought up every single time Roblox is mentioned anywhere for these reasons. Part of the blame lies with Roblox for one of the worst PR responses I have seen in tech, I suppose.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Roblox October Outage Postmortem by brimble on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:30PM (#30016186)

> The 24.5% cut is fine, you have to consider the 30% app store fees for a majority mobile playerbase, all hosting is free, moderation is a major expense, and engine and platform development.

You have successfully made the case for a 45% fee and being considered approximately normal, or a 60% fee and being considered pretty high still. 75+% is crazy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Roblox October Outage Postmortem by Qualadore on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:56PM (#30016538)

I can't think of any other platform with comparable expenses. Traditional game engines have the R&D component, but not moderation, developer services, or subsidizing games that don't succeed.

It helps that seriously marketing a Roblox game costs < $1k USD always, usually < $200 USD. It's not easy to generate a loss, even when including production costs. That's the tradeoff.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Roblox October Outage Postmortem by RussianCow on Thursday January 20, 2022 @07:30PM (#30017547)

Crazy compared to what? Nobody else is offering what Roblox offers, and building it yourself is a non-starter for almost everyone.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Roblox October Outage Postmortem by bcrosby95 on Thursday January 20, 2022 @06:09PM (#30016712)

I have less a problem with the cut, and more a problem with how they achieve it. It harkens back to company towns paying workers in company credit that is expensive to convert to USD.

[ Parent | on HN ]