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Well, both allowing kids to monetize and taking almost all the revenue are a problem. The wild thing is Second Life's 600K MAU players monetize better than Rob

Well, both allowing kids to monetize and taking almost all the revenue are a problem. The wild thing is Second Life's 600K MAU players monetize better than Roblox's 350M MAU players -- both for the company (it's still not profitable despite huge revenue) and for the creator community: https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2022/01/roblox-metaverse-revenue-second-life-philip-rosedale.html https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2022/01/roblox-metaverse-revenue-s...

CharlesW 3y ago
I get the revenue split issue, but why is providing a platform for kid creators to make money a problem?
- crtasm 3y ago
  Because the majority of people on the platform are kid spenders?
0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
I expect the vast majority of Roblox players to be under 10 with low spending power. In contrast, someone still playing Second Life has more discretionary income.
- techcode 3y ago
  With one kid just becoming a teen and other kid being half the age - I'm somewhat biased. I know a dozens of early teens (friends/classmates of my kid, kids of friends/colleagues ...etc) that are (still) playing Roblox. I even know one of those older teens (friends kid) that is earning enough money from Roblox games - that it doesn't make sense for him to do a typical Dutch teenager job of stocking shelves in stores/markets. From ages 6/7 and higher it's common for kids to say to each other "Don't need toy type of birthday present as I would prefer Roblox (or once they are a bit older Fortnite or other similar) gift card". More than once our kid got so many that we had to "throttle" their "use" over weeks/months. Anyway - yeah developers getting only 30% and Roblox keeping 70%, especially with all the fuss about the likes of Apple/Google/Unity getting into trouble for 70/30 split the other way - doesn't make sense. Sure - there are bigger operational costs for Roblox actually running game servers (instead of just the store) - though not that much bigger, right?
crooked-v 3y ago
I feel like that's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison, given that Second Life's going to have a, by comparison, massive lean towards well-off older adults with long-term investment in the SL social ecosystem. If anything I would look at VRChat for comparisons instead (a young demographic, especially on standalone headsets, and an ecosystem that's still very Wild West in many ways), though measuring numbers there would be much, much harder since most of the creator ecosystem happens outside of the app itself on Gumroad, Booth, etc (content subscriptions through VRChat itself are still only in beta).

CharlesW 3y ago

I get the revenue split issue, but why is providing a platform for kid creators to make money a problem?

crtasm 3y ago
Because the majority of people on the platform are kid spenders?

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

I expect the vast majority of Roblox players to be under 10 with low spending power. In contrast, someone still playing Second Life has more discretionary income.

techcode 3y ago
With one kid just becoming a teen and other kid being half the age - I'm somewhat biased. I know a dozens of early teens (friends/classmates of my kid, kids of friends/colleagues ...etc) that are (still) playing Roblox. I even know one of those older teens (friends kid) that is earning enough money from Roblox games - that it doesn't make sense for him to do a typical Dutch teenager job of stocking shelves in stores/markets. From ages 6/7 and higher it's common for kids to say to each other "Don't need toy type of birthday present as I would prefer Roblox (or once they are a bit older Fortnite or other similar) gift card". More than once our kid got so many that we had to "throttle" their "use" over weeks/months. Anyway - yeah developers getting only 30% and Roblox keeping 70%, especially with all the fuss about the likes of Apple/Google/Unity getting into trouble for 70/30 split the other way - doesn't make sense. Sure - there are bigger operational costs for Roblox actually running game servers (instead of just the store) - though not that much bigger, right?

crooked-v 3y ago

I feel like that's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison, given that Second Life's going to have a, by comparison, massive lean towards well-off older adults with long-term investment in the SL social ecosystem. If anything I would look at VRChat for comparisons instead (a young demographic, especially on standalone headsets, and an ecosystem that's still very Wild West in many ways), though measuring numbers there would be much, much harder since most of the creator ecosystem happens outside of the app itself on Gumroad, Booth, etc (content subscriptions through VRChat itself are still only in beta).