22 ms·

So you want to compete with Roblox

195 points by simonebrunozzi 5y ago

dahart 5y ago
This whole thing rings very true for just about any startup business idea. The bit on education was especially fun to revisit, and by fun I mean painful, because I’ve made that mistake of trying to sell software to education. It’s unending amounts of work for no commitments, especially if you are targeting kids or classrooms. I’m now suspecting the only way to sell to education markets reliably is to convince a state legislator or a board member somewhere. Schools just don’t approve or buy their own things no matter how much they like them. Other mistakes I’ve actually made myself that this article is right about - technically superior, better graphics, quirky features, lower prices. Don’t compete with X, where X is any large entrenched business. It’s more or less guaranteed that you don’t know why that business is successful. If it looks like they have bad graphics or are technically inferior or lacking features, the assumption should be that these things are a competitive advantage. But that never stops most of us from making the wrong assumption, does it?
- Jensson 5y ago
  Roblox is a social network, a technical tool those persons have already familiarised themselves with and a game. Meaning, you have to overcome the network effects of social, the lock-in effects of a popular programming environments in addition to all the usual problems with trying to make a successful game. All of those challenges are hard to overcome on their own, overcoming all three at once isn't something anyone should bet on. And worst of all, there is no need for multiple products in this space. You only need one game maker game, making more doesn't add more value. This is why the other things matters, it would be easer to replace World of Warcraft or Fortnite or Unity etc, since there are fewer entrenching effects.
astlouis44 5y ago
Love the author’s point that web-based is an untapped blue ocean opportunity. My team is building a sort of “Roblox in WASM/WebGPU” that’s built in UE4 and compiled to the browser, that will allow anyone to easily create virtual words and experiences for HTML5 without needing to know how to code. We’re even working toward live building using editor client side on the web, with hot reloading and a simple “publish” button so you can see in real time as you push changes. Furthermore, the metaverse will be born from the web, because it “just works”, not to mention accessibility is increased when anyone can join with a simple link. And for developers? No 30% tax from monopolistic walled gardens, plus only one codebase to worry about. If anyone is interested in early access to our platform, you can join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8 https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8
- maverwa 5y ago
  Are you targeting mobile with that? If yes, how does iOS Safari do with WASM and WebGL (since webGPU isnt really supported anywhere in factory settings afaik).
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Didn't they just add support for webgl 2.0? That is the important one.
    - soylentgraham 5y ago
      It was there behind a OS setting, but most features were available by extension anyway. Still no float rendertargets, which is more of a pain than anything else
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    From our experience (we're running on WebGL) iOS Safari is very performant and on modern iPhones very, very performant. No support for fullscreen and a bunch of other things makes me sad though.
    - cma 5y ago
      The fullscreen thing is gross, it is them batantly saying pay us 30% of gross revenue to enable.
- herbst 5y ago
  Any other way to track this than discord? Sounds interesting. Why do you mention 'no code'? To little coding opportunity is one things that made many metaverses after second Life boring.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  So far I haven't seen a use for WebGL other than shadertoy like experiences and product visualisation on online commerce. Mostly because it is like doing PS2/Amiga games, and dealing with browser blacklisting is even worse than just driver issues on native code. At least with driver issues one can work around them, with browser blacklisting there is no idea what is happening, while the user gets a single digit FPS. Additionally WebGPU is now getting some kind of MSL/HLSL/Rust inspired shader language, yet another one to master, with plenty features only after 1.0 MVP.
herbst 5y ago
Reading the article I actually think the slow and planned release and build of the sandbox game really does exactly what the article wants to see. https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://www.sandbox.game/en/
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  But then I go there and it says I should join Snoop Dogg's metaverse party with exclusive NFTs.
  - herbst 5y ago
    I don't like their aggressive crypto advertisment model either. I do have some sand tho :) If you take a deeper look on how it works, the companies and game designers that are involved in it. The crazy amount of money they paid and pay to early designers to build up content...
  - Kinrany 5y ago
    The article calls Roblox a "company town" version of the metaverse. NFTs are an attempt to extract value from content production when everything else is open and free by design.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ballenf 5y ago
  The requirement to have a crypto wallet feels like requiring a hunting license in order to watch Netflix.
- gverrilla 5y ago
  In my opinion the timing is wrong for such games. NFT/crypto is still too damn raw considering accessibility. They won't be able to capture a decisive market share from common/non-crypto games. They also won't have first mover advantage because what's fundamental for a game is the game itself.
meheleventyone 5y ago
Since other people are popping their projects up here that meet these criteria have ours as well. It's a full game making/playing platform called dot big bang where everything is done in the browser. https://dotbigbang.com/ https://dotbigbang.com/ We're about to release a new social hub today and our user facing release of our TypeScript based scripting very soon. One really nice thing about the web is that it works anywhere you can find a browser. So we run on smart fridges and thanks to MS including Edge on the XBox accidentally launched on console last week. Was a pleasant surprise to find full controller support and all our editors working! Web games also let you do other neat things. We built a game with Day[9] one of the OG streamers and due the wonders of deep linking could open up the game to his entire chat. A short highlight video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 We're also hiring a bunch of roles here: https://controlzee.com/#jobs https://controlzee.com/#jobs
- Kinrany 5y ago
  How do authors program their objects and worlds? Edit: oh, so scripting is not even there yet.
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    So a basic voxel editor and world editor are live on the site. You can access them here but you need to be signed in (for now): World Editor: https://dotbigbang.com/game https://dotbigbang.com/game Voxel Editor: https://dotbigbang.com/voxelobjecteditor https://dotbigbang.com/voxelobjecteditor Currently game functionality is made in a Unity style component system using components written in TypeScript. All the games on the site right now were built in our editors. So with the release of scripting to the public we'll be enabling people with existing game dev or programming experience to make their own games. For an example one of our Incubator program members, who is high school aged with some basic prior programming experience modded our FPS game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Cklg-3EBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Cklg-3EBM We're also working on lowering that bar to entry. Both with elements users can drag and drop into their games to create functionality and simplified scripting environments. > Edit: oh, so scripting is not even there yet. Yup, releasing soon but we've been making games internally with it for quite some time.
thunderbong 5y ago
This is really a fantastic article. And IMHO, it should be must read by every startup founder out there. The nuggets of knowledge shared here are truly incredible. He writes about startup hubris, about the meaning of an open web, about empowering your users. Amazing article. Thanks for posting it.
foota 5y ago
Looking at changes fortnite has introduced to their game browser, I think they're trying to eat roblox.
- leodriesch 5y ago
  They would certainly have an easier time than startups because the userbase is already there.
- Kinrany 5y ago
  Tim Sweeney said as much [0]: > Do you view Fortnite as a game, or as a platform? > Fortnite is a game. But please ask that question again in 12 months. [0] https://www.twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/1210291961904730114 https://www.twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/12102919619047...
kbrtalan 5y ago
> Roblox first launched in 2006, a full fifteen years ago – that's five years before Minecraft So if Notch pitched the author Minecraft the answer would have been to abandon the project? This puts a huge dent in the credibility of the article
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  Well at that point Roblox wasn't big and Minecraft wasn't a competing project so probably not.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  Minecraft and Roblox are two fundamentally different propositions. So no, it doesn't.
bullen 5y ago
A 3D action MMO is the only interesting project anyone can undertake today, everything else consumes too much energy. Minimalistic open-source is the only way forward. The complexity of Unreal and Unity is way to far gone to be able to build anything original. Browsers are way too complex to make 3D scale, even with WASM your turnaround will be too long for the kind of iteration speed needed. The author probably bought the stock. I wrote something on the subject a while back (very biased): http://move.rupy.se/file/park_engine.html http://move.rupy.se/file/park_engine.html
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  > Browsers are way too complex to make 3D scale, even with WASM your turnaround will be too long for the kind of iteration speed needed. I want to challenge this because it's wrong. And the best way to do it is to show you how fast iteration times can be: https://youtu.be/jvDz72FAOd0 https://youtu.be/jvDz72FAOd0
  - bullen 5y ago
    That does not teach me how this works, what compiles what, how, where etc. I use dynamic .so/.dll hot-deploy, which can reload native code in microseconds without disturbing state. My game can render 600 non-instanced skin meshed characters on a 10W Jetson Nano.
    - meheleventyone 5y ago
      Sorry my point in the demo isn't to tell you how it works (we're compiling TS to JS, not really mind blowing) but to show you what is possible in terms of iteration time with a browser native game engine. I'm also not trying to say you can't have fast iteration time in other ways. Just that the statement about the browser was incorrect.
      - bullen 5y ago
        Javascript is not usable, you wont be able to make anything useful if that is your underlying VM. You need fast turnaround AND performance at the same time. You are sinking your cost into a dead-end proving the articles point.
roca 5y ago
I would love to see a Web-based RPG environment with similar play and creation capabilities (and community) to NWN.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  One project I've spotted along these lines is: https://www.playmultiverse.com/ https://www.playmultiverse.com/ Some of the stuff they've been posting on Twitter looks rad.
roca 5y ago
One key point that this article makes indirectly: this is why the open Web still matters a very great deal.
Jensson 5y ago
People here seems to miss the main point of the article: Don't compete with Roblox! Why do so many try to make something that is so hard to do? Basically every other game genre is easier to make money with, and non-game startup ideas are easier than making a game. This is about as hard as it can get if you want your project to succeed.
- IggleSniggle 5y ago
  People do this because it is the most fun thing to do.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Makes sense as a hobby. Hope people aren't investing anything on these projects.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    People do this because they think Roblox looks like shit and they can do better.
    - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
      Roblox looks like shit for a reason though. Because of that, the game has insanely low system requirements, since most of the players are kids and only have access to potato-level hardware without good GPUs.
      - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
        It's not even, Minecraft has low system requirements and although it has a low-tech aesthetic it's a beautiful game. League of Legends runs on a potato and looks fine. Think the roughness and how everything is a hodgepodge appeals to kids in some way. It's more like the Flash era where you visit Kongregate, NewGrounds etc and although some of the games looked bad they were still fun and the rougher graphic style sometimes added to the charm.
hyeomans 5y ago
I used to work at Roblox and I confirm the layers upon layers of knowledge in code.
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  Seriously, they built a custom-built physics engine from scratch that seems to perform much better than the current ones out there (PhysX, Bullet, etc.). This alone is an achievement of years and years of R&D… (For examples of the inner details see https://youtu.be/P-WP1yMOkc4 https://youtu.be/P-WP1yMOkc4 or some of their technical blog posts) And the stuff doesn’t end there. Nowadays they also have their own Lua-derivative language forked from Lua 5.1 (https://luau-lang.org/ https://luau-lang.org/) with many improvements like static typing, performance, and sandboxing. And their renderer seems to work smoothly on low-end computers too, they've probably done lots of optimizations over the years.
throwawaywindev 5y ago
“ Second, running in a browser makes the top of your user acquisition funnel wider, because all it costs to try your platform is a click.” While often cited, I don’t think that’s as much of an advantage anymore in the age of app stores, Steam, game streaming, and downloadable games on consoles, where all it costs is a tap or two.
- 63 5y ago
  Sure, when your target audience knows how to install Steam it's not, but when you're Roblox, your target audience is about 10 years old
  - dahart 5y ago
    How do you get yourself in front of a 10 year old? Both my kids played way more Steam games when they were 10 than they did rando web games.
    - foobarian 5y ago
      You make your 10 year old's friends make your 10 year old feel bad / FOMO that they are not playing your game, until they beg their parents to help them install it on their device, or they just do it themselves if they have access.
thenipper 5y ago
I’ve got two step kids who play roblox/Minecraft obsessively. The network effect in playing what their friends play is super strong. That combined with as busy parent there is a reluctance to switch to anything else. They don’t want to do it because their friends don’t play it. I don’t want them to do it because I know roblox/Minecraft are reasonably safe. The idea of having to understand another platform seems exhausting. Plus them playing Minecraft gives me an excuse to play. :)
DeathArrow 5y ago
You don't compete with Roblox by creating another Roblox. You will fail. You compete with Roblox by creating another game the users will want to spend time on. Apple won the competition with PC and Microsoft when they discovered a new paradigm. Macs lose the battle but iPhone won. Create new markets, create new needs.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  > You compete with Roblox by creating another game the users will want to spend time on. And if the past 5-10 years of video games gone viral is anything to go by, none of them did it on purpose. Minecraft (at least in my opinion) kickstarted the indie game market, and years later slowly grew in popularity with a new generation of gamers. Fortnite was a(nother) failed project from Epic, after they tried to do another Unreal Tournament. For a laugh they added a Battle Royale mode on top of what they already made for what they first thought would be popular, and the rest is history. They added a battle royale mode after the unexpected success of the shit looking PUBG, built in a shit engine with shitty looking assets by a half-assed developer. Which in turn was based on dayz, standalone version of a survival mod for the pretty obscure military game ARMA.
jcun4128 5y ago
Listened to a podcast about it recently on Hansel Minutes pretty crazy the tech involved with Roblox and the meta verse thing. I don't see myself playing it but when I was younger Runescape was my thing, lost in that world. Philosophically (ha) question of what matters in life ultimately guess it's having fun since time is one directional (what you own/sentience) and fun is subjective. This is my neg comment on how (playing) video games could be considered a waste of time for not being "real" but it's about the experience. West World vs. reality too. I do play video games, like a few hours a week of some multiplayer game like BFV or watch TV when I'm burnt/can't think anymore. Also a tangent, space travel (probably impossible in our life time eg. stars) vs. going inwards eg. virtual reality/brain jar.
rewq4321 5y ago
> Second, running in a browser makes the top of your user acquisition funnel wider, because all it costs to try your platform is a click. No downloading an executable, no installing anything, and no App store. Just please, for the love of all that's holy, don't throw your advantage away by making guest users register and sign into an account before they can play. There are way too many web games/apps that don't get this.
- 10000truths 5y ago
  agar.io (as well as Matheus’s subsequent io games) understood the need for this lack of friction very well. Literally type a name and press enter to start playing. Once you have a large playerbase where network effects come into play, then you can start thinking about things like registration.
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    Yep. Friendly shoutout to generals.io and slither.io too for quick browser games.
    - simplify 5y ago
      Also quite a few here https://quickparty.games https://quickparty.games
Grimm1 5y ago
I had my start programming via https://www.byond.com/games/ https://www.byond.com/games/ and it makes me really excited to see so many platforms where it's easy to hop in and start programming games with modern technologies. I don't work in games as an adult but I wouldn't be where I am without sites like that. Here's to the next wave of kids that pick up programming from platforms like these.
gfodor 5y ago
The experiences that come to be understood as "the metaverse" will (probably) be web based, in the end, imo. I wrote about this thinking that inspired Mozilla Hubs for anyone interested: https://gfodor.medium.com/the-secret-mozilla-hubs-master-plan-2c1364033bec https://gfodor.medium.com/the-secret-mozilla-hubs-master-pla...
josefresco 5y ago
OT (slightly): The Roblox captcha system is INSANE. I witnessed one of my kids' friends attempting to solve one and it was hilariously difficult. It's a 2x3 grid of floating 3D objects and you need to click the square where two of the constantly moving object collide. The login/account creation process must be attacked frequently and intensely to warrant making this captcha tool so difficult. I'll never bitch about "finding all the bicycles" again.
- sriram_sun 5y ago
  Does that mean all the other captcha systems are "broken"?
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    They may have just decided to NIH, there are other large-scale games like Genshin Impact that use much simpler captcha systems despite the amount of money at stake. Perhaps the off-the-shelf captchas people are using are too expensive for Roblox's tastes.
  - idealmedtech 5y ago
    More likely that Roblox didn't want the Google dependency, they seem to love building things in house.
    - MBCook 5y ago
      Not only that but I imagine at Roblox’s scale they’d have to pay Google an absolute fortune for the service.
  - josefresco 5y ago
    From my experience, as a web guy who implements CAPTCHA at least once a week for a client being spammed - yes it's broken. reCAPTCHA rarely slows down bots, it only stops the lowest tech/efforts. v1/v2/v3 doesn't matter, I implement them all and clients still get spammed.
  - novok 5y ago
Pxtl 5y ago
My kid begged me to play Roblox with her friends when she was 7, and I looked into it and immediately recoiled... Why is so much children's content crowdsourced and MMO these days? AI-based moderation and whack-a-mole approach to letting strangers play with my kid and what content my kid sees is not a good plan. I honestly don't understand how this is the business model of so many companies - so much that submitter has to create a post dissuading more from cramming into a crowded space.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  In fairness to Roblox, it does at the very least encourage creativity and not just button mashing.
  - Pxtl 5y ago
    I like the creativity, it's just the "everything is public" approach that's crazy for primary school kids.
Micrococonut 5y ago
Garry Newman, creator of Garry's Mod, is taking a shot at it https://sbox.facepunch.com/ https://sbox.facepunch.com/. If anybody is going to succeed in dethroning Roblox, it's Facepunch.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  Absolutely. Plus Garrys mod pre dates the official Roblox release (the free versions of gmod at least), so Roblox kind of copied him.
novok 5y ago
My guess is if you want to compete with roblox, you make a good independent multiplayer game that has a world aspect, get popular and then start adding user editing, vs starting with user editing first. Basically minecraft with a first class modding engine as a second expansion that kids can use eventually. The first and most important part is a game that people want to play.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  It's kind of like with "edutainment" - authors try to make education more palatable to kids by sprinkling some game aspects in, as if it made more sense than sprinkling a bit of sugar on top of broccoli to get a kid coerced to eat it to like it. You need to start with a game that's fun, in a context that's fun (i.e. not coerced by outside authority), and only then you can sneak in some extra value.
  - saulpw 5y ago
    That may be how you make kids enjoy learning, but edutainment doesn't sell based on fun. It sells based on curriculum. You need to target a specific known study path and be maximally efficient in presenting those concepts and offering a way to grade performance that translates to standardized tests. Anything else is DOA because neither parents nor teachers nor kids will buy it.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      I.e. the educational equivalent of developing to a checklist of features the customer wants, with the customer being a corporate manager that doesn't use the software themselves. We all know how this works: this is how you get garbage software everyone hates but still has to use. > You need to target a specific known study path and be maximally efficient in presenting those concepts and offering a way to grade performance that translates to standardized tests. Yeah, this is exactly what I meant. You do that, it's no longer a game, and kids will hate it. Those concepts are also all related to fitting your product in the education pipeline, which is distinct and mostly opposite to actually teaching things. > Anything else is DOA because neither parents nor teachers nor kids will buy it. Well, of course. Parents and teachers won't buy it because it won't fit the education pipeline, and kids won't want it because it's still labeled as intended for education pipeline. To get to kids, you want something that's an actual videogame first, learning second. As a random example, try Kerbal Space Program - it's absolutely a game first, but it's easier and more fun to play the more you understand the math and engineering of space travel, which is how you end up with 12 years olds learning basics of orbital physics on their own, equations included. Because there suddenly is a point to it. (And I want to reinforce the point about coercion. The simplest way to kill any such product is to get a school to make its use obligatory in a classroom setting. It's the same way as school reading lists kill people's desire to read books in general, and to read specific quality literature in particular.)
isk517 5y ago
>"Our platform is like Roblox, but for when kids age out and want something mature!" I feel like a point that the author missed when discussing this is that there is a lot of evidence that being more mature may not be a strong selling point. The best example would be Fortnite, the most profitable game in the world at one point that had a sales pitch that could be boiled down to 'Like PUBG but more childish'. TF2 is another one that seemed to have plenty of competitors that tried to dethrone them by making a more mature and serious game, but that only one to succeed was Overwatch that went for a even more kid friendly esthetic.
- larsiusprime 5y ago
  It's a point I didn't happen to mention, but one I certainly agree with.
cwillu 5y ago
"It lets you do a complete end run around the app stores, and lowers friction for users and content creators alike. However, it's technically demanding to get full browser compatibility across mobile and desktop, and not every "browser-based" solution is created equal." The problem is that you are _completely_ beholden to the same companies that are making money off their app stores, to continue to develop and maintain their browsers' ability to act as competitors to their own app store.
PhillyG 5y ago
My ambitious, long term goal I'm building towards is: creating an online community where hobbyists, newbies, part timers and full time pros alike collaborate on apps, websites and indy games. I realised fairly quickly, that a great early step to achieving that goal, is via browser games that invite players to build their own levels or maps to share with their friends. People can play a game as a quick and occasional diversion with no commitment, then if they've had fun and tools I provide aren't overwhelming, they can have fun creating. At that point they are contributing to the game, learning basics of creating and gradually building confidence. Maybe later they'll go further and get involved with my public GitHub or my subreddit. It's going to take months more to fully finish the opening game and map builder, but I've got the starts to a fairly simple 2d adventure/escape game in JavaScript that will run in any browser & play on any device. http://solarrageasylumbeta.protostart.net http://solarrageasylumbeta.protostart.net I've been releasing it incrementally via a public GitHub project, with a beta version that makes it easy to jump in and play whatever feels polished at the time & a messy alpha version hidden behind a "deliberately not-secure" cheat code updated along with most of my GitHub commits. Before starting on the game I also set up some basic overall community stuff: subreddit for (r/ProtoStart), website that sets out what the community is about protostart.net/

This whole thing rings very true for just about any startup business idea. The bit on education was especially fun to revisit, and by fun I mean painful, because I’ve made that mistake of trying to sell software to education. It’s unending amounts of work for no commitments, especially if you are targeting kids or classrooms. I’m now suspecting the only way to sell to education markets reliably is to convince a state legislator or a board member somewhere. Schools just don’t approve or buy their own things no matter how much they like them. Other mistakes I’ve actually made myself that this article is right about - technically superior, better graphics, quirky features, lower prices. Don’t compete with X, where X is any large entrenched business. It’s more or less guaranteed that you don’t know why that business is successful. If it looks like they have bad graphics or are technically inferior or lacking features, the assumption should be that these things are a competitive advantage. But that never stops most of us from making the wrong assumption, does it?

Jensson 5y ago
Roblox is a social network, a technical tool those persons have already familiarised themselves with and a game. Meaning, you have to overcome the network effects of social, the lock-in effects of a popular programming environments in addition to all the usual problems with trying to make a successful game. All of those challenges are hard to overcome on their own, overcoming all three at once isn't something anyone should bet on. And worst of all, there is no need for multiple products in this space. You only need one game maker game, making more doesn't add more value. This is why the other things matters, it would be easer to replace World of Warcraft or Fortnite or Unity etc, since there are fewer entrenching effects.

astlouis44 5y ago

Love the author’s point that web-based is an untapped blue ocean opportunity. My team is building a sort of “Roblox in WASM/WebGPU” that’s built in UE4 and compiled to the browser, that will allow anyone to easily create virtual words and experiences for HTML5 without needing to know how to code. We’re even working toward live building using editor client side on the web, with hot reloading and a simple “publish” button so you can see in real time as you push changes. Furthermore, the metaverse will be born from the web, because it “just works”, not to mention accessibility is increased when anyone can join with a simple link. And for developers? No 30% tax from monopolistic walled gardens, plus only one codebase to worry about. If anyone is interested in early access to our platform, you can join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8 https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8

maverwa 5y ago
Are you targeting mobile with that? If yes, how does iOS Safari do with WASM and WebGL (since webGPU isnt really supported anywhere in factory settings afaik).
- Jensson 5y ago
  Didn't they just add support for webgl 2.0? That is the important one.
  - soylentgraham 5y ago
    It was there behind a OS setting, but most features were available by extension anyway. Still no float rendertargets, which is more of a pain than anything else
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  From our experience (we're running on WebGL) iOS Safari is very performant and on modern iPhones very, very performant. No support for fullscreen and a bunch of other things makes me sad though.
  - cma 5y ago
    The fullscreen thing is gross, it is them batantly saying pay us 30% of gross revenue to enable.
herbst 5y ago
Any other way to track this than discord? Sounds interesting. Why do you mention 'no code'? To little coding opportunity is one things that made many metaverses after second Life boring.
pjmlp 5y ago
So far I haven't seen a use for WebGL other than shadertoy like experiences and product visualisation on online commerce. Mostly because it is like doing PS2/Amiga games, and dealing with browser blacklisting is even worse than just driver issues on native code. At least with driver issues one can work around them, with browser blacklisting there is no idea what is happening, while the user gets a single digit FPS. Additionally WebGPU is now getting some kind of MSL/HLSL/Rust inspired shader language, yet another one to master, with plenty features only after 1.0 MVP.

herbst 5y ago

Reading the article I actually think the slow and planned release and build of the sandbox game really does exactly what the article wants to see. https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://www.sandbox.game/en/

robertlagrant 5y ago
But then I go there and it says I should join Snoop Dogg's metaverse party with exclusive NFTs.
- herbst 5y ago
  I don't like their aggressive crypto advertisment model either. I do have some sand tho :) If you take a deeper look on how it works, the companies and game designers that are involved in it. The crazy amount of money they paid and pay to early designers to build up content...
- Kinrany 5y ago
  The article calls Roblox a "company town" version of the metaverse. NFTs are an attempt to extract value from content production when everything else is open and free by design.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ballenf 5y ago
The requirement to have a crypto wallet feels like requiring a hunting license in order to watch Netflix.
gverrilla 5y ago
In my opinion the timing is wrong for such games. NFT/crypto is still too damn raw considering accessibility. They won't be able to capture a decisive market share from common/non-crypto games. They also won't have first mover advantage because what's fundamental for a game is the game itself.

meheleventyone 5y ago

Since other people are popping their projects up here that meet these criteria have ours as well. It's a full game making/playing platform called dot big bang where everything is done in the browser. https://dotbigbang.com/ https://dotbigbang.com/ We're about to release a new social hub today and our user facing release of our TypeScript based scripting very soon. One really nice thing about the web is that it works anywhere you can find a browser. So we run on smart fridges and thanks to MS including Edge on the XBox accidentally launched on console last week. Was a pleasant surprise to find full controller support and all our editors working! Web games also let you do other neat things. We built a game with Day[9] one of the OG streamers and due the wonders of deep linking could open up the game to his entire chat. A short highlight video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1p22oI_V4 We're also hiring a bunch of roles here: https://controlzee.com/#jobs https://controlzee.com/#jobs

Kinrany 5y ago
How do authors program their objects and worlds? Edit: oh, so scripting is not even there yet.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  So a basic voxel editor and world editor are live on the site. You can access them here but you need to be signed in (for now): World Editor: https://dotbigbang.com/game https://dotbigbang.com/game Voxel Editor: https://dotbigbang.com/voxelobjecteditor https://dotbigbang.com/voxelobjecteditor Currently game functionality is made in a Unity style component system using components written in TypeScript. All the games on the site right now were built in our editors. So with the release of scripting to the public we'll be enabling people with existing game dev or programming experience to make their own games. For an example one of our Incubator program members, who is high school aged with some basic prior programming experience modded our FPS game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Cklg-3EBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Cklg-3EBM We're also working on lowering that bar to entry. Both with elements users can drag and drop into their games to create functionality and simplified scripting environments. > Edit: oh, so scripting is not even there yet. Yup, releasing soon but we've been making games internally with it for quite some time.

thunderbong 5y ago

This is really a fantastic article. And IMHO, it should be must read by every startup founder out there. The nuggets of knowledge shared here are truly incredible. He writes about startup hubris, about the meaning of an open web, about empowering your users. Amazing article. Thanks for posting it.

foota 5y ago

Looking at changes fortnite has introduced to their game browser, I think they're trying to eat roblox.

leodriesch 5y ago
They would certainly have an easier time than startups because the userbase is already there.
Kinrany 5y ago
Tim Sweeney said as much [0]: > Do you view Fortnite as a game, or as a platform? > Fortnite is a game. But please ask that question again in 12 months. [0] https://www.twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/1210291961904730114 https://www.twitter.com/timsweeneyepic/status/12102919619047...

kbrtalan 5y ago

> Roblox first launched in 2006, a full fifteen years ago – that's five years before Minecraft So if Notch pitched the author Minecraft the answer would have been to abandon the project? This puts a huge dent in the credibility of the article

meheleventyone 5y ago
Well at that point Roblox wasn't big and Minecraft wasn't a competing project so probably not.
breakfastduck 5y ago
Minecraft and Roblox are two fundamentally different propositions. So no, it doesn't.

bullen 5y ago

A 3D action MMO is the only interesting project anyone can undertake today, everything else consumes too much energy. Minimalistic open-source is the only way forward. The complexity of Unreal and Unity is way to far gone to be able to build anything original. Browsers are way too complex to make 3D scale, even with WASM your turnaround will be too long for the kind of iteration speed needed. The author probably bought the stock. I wrote something on the subject a while back (very biased): http://move.rupy.se/file/park_engine.html http://move.rupy.se/file/park_engine.html

meheleventyone 5y ago
> Browsers are way too complex to make 3D scale, even with WASM your turnaround will be too long for the kind of iteration speed needed. I want to challenge this because it's wrong. And the best way to do it is to show you how fast iteration times can be: https://youtu.be/jvDz72FAOd0 https://youtu.be/jvDz72FAOd0
- bullen 5y ago
  That does not teach me how this works, what compiles what, how, where etc. I use dynamic .so/.dll hot-deploy, which can reload native code in microseconds without disturbing state. My game can render 600 non-instanced skin meshed characters on a 10W Jetson Nano.
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    Sorry my point in the demo isn't to tell you how it works (we're compiling TS to JS, not really mind blowing) but to show you what is possible in terms of iteration time with a browser native game engine. I'm also not trying to say you can't have fast iteration time in other ways. Just that the statement about the browser was incorrect.
    - bullen 5y ago
      Javascript is not usable, you wont be able to make anything useful if that is your underlying VM. You need fast turnaround AND performance at the same time. You are sinking your cost into a dead-end proving the articles point.

roca 5y ago

I would love to see a Web-based RPG environment with similar play and creation capabilities (and community) to NWN.

meheleventyone 5y ago
One project I've spotted along these lines is: https://www.playmultiverse.com/ https://www.playmultiverse.com/ Some of the stuff they've been posting on Twitter looks rad.

roca 5y ago

One key point that this article makes indirectly: this is why the open Web still matters a very great deal.

Jensson 5y ago

People here seems to miss the main point of the article: Don't compete with Roblox! Why do so many try to make something that is so hard to do? Basically every other game genre is easier to make money with, and non-game startup ideas are easier than making a game. This is about as hard as it can get if you want your project to succeed.

IggleSniggle 5y ago
People do this because it is the most fun thing to do.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Makes sense as a hobby. Hope people aren't investing anything on these projects.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  People do this because they think Roblox looks like shit and they can do better.
  - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
    Roblox looks like shit for a reason though. Because of that, the game has insanely low system requirements, since most of the players are kids and only have access to potato-level hardware without good GPUs.
    - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
      It's not even, Minecraft has low system requirements and although it has a low-tech aesthetic it's a beautiful game. League of Legends runs on a potato and looks fine. Think the roughness and how everything is a hodgepodge appeals to kids in some way. It's more like the Flash era where you visit Kongregate, NewGrounds etc and although some of the games looked bad they were still fun and the rougher graphic style sometimes added to the charm.

hyeomans 5y ago

I used to work at Roblox and I confirm the layers upon layers of knowledge in code.

cyber_kinetist 5y ago
Seriously, they built a custom-built physics engine from scratch that seems to perform much better than the current ones out there (PhysX, Bullet, etc.). This alone is an achievement of years and years of R&D… (For examples of the inner details see https://youtu.be/P-WP1yMOkc4 https://youtu.be/P-WP1yMOkc4 or some of their technical blog posts) And the stuff doesn’t end there. Nowadays they also have their own Lua-derivative language forked from Lua 5.1 (https://luau-lang.org/ https://luau-lang.org/) with many improvements like static typing, performance, and sandboxing. And their renderer seems to work smoothly on low-end computers too, they've probably done lots of optimizations over the years.

throwawaywindev 5y ago

“ Second, running in a browser makes the top of your user acquisition funnel wider, because all it costs to try your platform is a click.” While often cited, I don’t think that’s as much of an advantage anymore in the age of app stores, Steam, game streaming, and downloadable games on consoles, where all it costs is a tap or two.

63 5y ago
Sure, when your target audience knows how to install Steam it's not, but when you're Roblox, your target audience is about 10 years old
- dahart 5y ago
  How do you get yourself in front of a 10 year old? Both my kids played way more Steam games when they were 10 than they did rando web games.
  - foobarian 5y ago
    You make your 10 year old's friends make your 10 year old feel bad / FOMO that they are not playing your game, until they beg their parents to help them install it on their device, or they just do it themselves if they have access.

thenipper 5y ago

I’ve got two step kids who play roblox/Minecraft obsessively. The network effect in playing what their friends play is super strong. That combined with as busy parent there is a reluctance to switch to anything else. They don’t want to do it because their friends don’t play it. I don’t want them to do it because I know roblox/Minecraft are reasonably safe. The idea of having to understand another platform seems exhausting. Plus them playing Minecraft gives me an excuse to play. :)

DeathArrow 5y ago

You don't compete with Roblox by creating another Roblox. You will fail. You compete with Roblox by creating another game the users will want to spend time on. Apple won the competition with PC and Microsoft when they discovered a new paradigm. Macs lose the battle but iPhone won. Create new markets, create new needs.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> You compete with Roblox by creating another game the users will want to spend time on. And if the past 5-10 years of video games gone viral is anything to go by, none of them did it on purpose. Minecraft (at least in my opinion) kickstarted the indie game market, and years later slowly grew in popularity with a new generation of gamers. Fortnite was a(nother) failed project from Epic, after they tried to do another Unreal Tournament. For a laugh they added a Battle Royale mode on top of what they already made for what they first thought would be popular, and the rest is history. They added a battle royale mode after the unexpected success of the shit looking PUBG, built in a shit engine with shitty looking assets by a half-assed developer. Which in turn was based on dayz, standalone version of a survival mod for the pretty obscure military game ARMA.

jcun4128 5y ago

Listened to a podcast about it recently on Hansel Minutes pretty crazy the tech involved with Roblox and the meta verse thing. I don't see myself playing it but when I was younger Runescape was my thing, lost in that world. Philosophically (ha) question of what matters in life ultimately guess it's having fun since time is one directional (what you own/sentience) and fun is subjective. This is my neg comment on how (playing) video games could be considered a waste of time for not being "real" but it's about the experience. West World vs. reality too. I do play video games, like a few hours a week of some multiplayer game like BFV or watch TV when I'm burnt/can't think anymore. Also a tangent, space travel (probably impossible in our life time eg. stars) vs. going inwards eg. virtual reality/brain jar.

rewq4321 5y ago

> Second, running in a browser makes the top of your user acquisition funnel wider, because all it costs to try your platform is a click. No downloading an executable, no installing anything, and no App store. Just please, for the love of all that's holy, don't throw your advantage away by making guest users register and sign into an account before they can play. There are way too many web games/apps that don't get this.

10000truths 5y ago
agar.io (as well as Matheus’s subsequent io games) understood the need for this lack of friction very well. Literally type a name and press enter to start playing. Once you have a large playerbase where network effects come into play, then you can start thinking about things like registration.
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  Yep. Friendly shoutout to generals.io and slither.io too for quick browser games.
  - simplify 5y ago
    Also quite a few here https://quickparty.games https://quickparty.games

Grimm1 5y ago

I had my start programming via https://www.byond.com/games/ https://www.byond.com/games/ and it makes me really excited to see so many platforms where it's easy to hop in and start programming games with modern technologies. I don't work in games as an adult but I wouldn't be where I am without sites like that. Here's to the next wave of kids that pick up programming from platforms like these.

gfodor 5y ago

The experiences that come to be understood as "the metaverse" will (probably) be web based, in the end, imo. I wrote about this thinking that inspired Mozilla Hubs for anyone interested: https://gfodor.medium.com/the-secret-mozilla-hubs-master-plan-2c1364033bec https://gfodor.medium.com/the-secret-mozilla-hubs-master-pla...

josefresco 5y ago

OT (slightly): The Roblox captcha system is INSANE. I witnessed one of my kids' friends attempting to solve one and it was hilariously difficult. It's a 2x3 grid of floating 3D objects and you need to click the square where two of the constantly moving object collide. The login/account creation process must be attacked frequently and intensely to warrant making this captcha tool so difficult. I'll never bitch about "finding all the bicycles" again.

sriram_sun 5y ago
Does that mean all the other captcha systems are "broken"?
- kevingadd 5y ago
  They may have just decided to NIH, there are other large-scale games like Genshin Impact that use much simpler captcha systems despite the amount of money at stake. Perhaps the off-the-shelf captchas people are using are too expensive for Roblox's tastes.
- idealmedtech 5y ago
  More likely that Roblox didn't want the Google dependency, they seem to love building things in house.
  - MBCook 5y ago
    Not only that but I imagine at Roblox’s scale they’d have to pay Google an absolute fortune for the service.
- josefresco 5y ago
  From my experience, as a web guy who implements CAPTCHA at least once a week for a client being spammed - yes it's broken. reCAPTCHA rarely slows down bots, it only stops the lowest tech/efforts. v1/v2/v3 doesn't matter, I implement them all and clients still get spammed.
- novok 5y ago

Pxtl 5y ago

My kid begged me to play Roblox with her friends when she was 7, and I looked into it and immediately recoiled... Why is so much children's content crowdsourced and MMO these days? AI-based moderation and whack-a-mole approach to letting strangers play with my kid and what content my kid sees is not a good plan. I honestly don't understand how this is the business model of so many companies - so much that submitter has to create a post dissuading more from cramming into a crowded space.

breakfastduck 5y ago
In fairness to Roblox, it does at the very least encourage creativity and not just button mashing.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  I like the creativity, it's just the "everything is public" approach that's crazy for primary school kids.

Micrococonut 5y ago

Garry Newman, creator of Garry's Mod, is taking a shot at it https://sbox.facepunch.com/ https://sbox.facepunch.com/. If anybody is going to succeed in dethroning Roblox, it's Facepunch.

breakfastduck 5y ago
Absolutely. Plus Garrys mod pre dates the official Roblox release (the free versions of gmod at least), so Roblox kind of copied him.

novok 5y ago

My guess is if you want to compete with roblox, you make a good independent multiplayer game that has a world aspect, get popular and then start adding user editing, vs starting with user editing first. Basically minecraft with a first class modding engine as a second expansion that kids can use eventually. The first and most important part is a game that people want to play.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
It's kind of like with "edutainment" - authors try to make education more palatable to kids by sprinkling some game aspects in, as if it made more sense than sprinkling a bit of sugar on top of broccoli to get a kid coerced to eat it to like it. You need to start with a game that's fun, in a context that's fun (i.e. not coerced by outside authority), and only then you can sneak in some extra value.
- saulpw 5y ago
  That may be how you make kids enjoy learning, but edutainment doesn't sell based on fun. It sells based on curriculum. You need to target a specific known study path and be maximally efficient in presenting those concepts and offering a way to grade performance that translates to standardized tests. Anything else is DOA because neither parents nor teachers nor kids will buy it.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I.e. the educational equivalent of developing to a checklist of features the customer wants, with the customer being a corporate manager that doesn't use the software themselves. We all know how this works: this is how you get garbage software everyone hates but still has to use. > You need to target a specific known study path and be maximally efficient in presenting those concepts and offering a way to grade performance that translates to standardized tests. Yeah, this is exactly what I meant. You do that, it's no longer a game, and kids will hate it. Those concepts are also all related to fitting your product in the education pipeline, which is distinct and mostly opposite to actually teaching things. > Anything else is DOA because neither parents nor teachers nor kids will buy it. Well, of course. Parents and teachers won't buy it because it won't fit the education pipeline, and kids won't want it because it's still labeled as intended for education pipeline. To get to kids, you want something that's an actual videogame first, learning second. As a random example, try Kerbal Space Program - it's absolutely a game first, but it's easier and more fun to play the more you understand the math and engineering of space travel, which is how you end up with 12 years olds learning basics of orbital physics on their own, equations included. Because there suddenly is a point to it. (And I want to reinforce the point about coercion. The simplest way to kill any such product is to get a school to make its use obligatory in a classroom setting. It's the same way as school reading lists kill people's desire to read books in general, and to read specific quality literature in particular.)

isk517 5y ago

>"Our platform is like Roblox, but for when kids age out and want something mature!" I feel like a point that the author missed when discussing this is that there is a lot of evidence that being more mature may not be a strong selling point. The best example would be Fortnite, the most profitable game in the world at one point that had a sales pitch that could be boiled down to 'Like PUBG but more childish'. TF2 is another one that seemed to have plenty of competitors that tried to dethrone them by making a more mature and serious game, but that only one to succeed was Overwatch that went for a even more kid friendly esthetic.

larsiusprime 5y ago
It's a point I didn't happen to mention, but one I certainly agree with.

cwillu 5y ago

"It lets you do a complete end run around the app stores, and lowers friction for users and content creators alike. However, it's technically demanding to get full browser compatibility across mobile and desktop, and not every "browser-based" solution is created equal." The problem is that you are _completely_ beholden to the same companies that are making money off their app stores, to continue to develop and maintain their browsers' ability to act as competitors to their own app store.

PhillyG 5y ago

My ambitious, long term goal I'm building towards is: creating an online community where hobbyists, newbies, part timers and full time pros alike collaborate on apps, websites and indy games. I realised fairly quickly, that a great early step to achieving that goal, is via browser games that invite players to build their own levels or maps to share with their friends. People can play a game as a quick and occasional diversion with no commitment, then if they've had fun and tools I provide aren't overwhelming, they can have fun creating. At that point they are contributing to the game, learning basics of creating and gradually building confidence. Maybe later they'll go further and get involved with my public GitHub or my subreddit. It's going to take months more to fully finish the opening game and map builder, but I've got the starts to a fairly simple 2d adventure/escape game in JavaScript that will run in any browser & play on any device. http://solarrageasylumbeta.protostart.net http://solarrageasylumbeta.protostart.net I've been releasing it incrementally via a public GitHub project, with a beta version that makes it easy to jump in and play whatever feels polished at the time & a messy alpha version hidden behind a "deliberately not-secure" cheat code updated along with most of my GitHub commits. Before starting on the game I also set up some basic overall community stuff: subreddit for (r/ProtoStart), website that sets out what the community is about protostart.net/