There are certain video games in our world right now that have a “fanbase so loyal” that even after many years of life, changes, updates, and so on, people can’t help but play them. For example, there’s a battle royale title from Epic Games that fits that mold, or a certain racing title from Nintendo that dominated the last console cycle for them, and then there’s Roblox. The game is so popular that about 100 million people a day play the title in some form, and the number has been increasing quite a lot recently. The question many who don’t play the game have is, why? Why is this game so popular? Is there something they’re “missing” that prevents them from giving it a try or acknowledging its success? We’ll break it down here.
Reason #1 – Free-To-Play Is Always Enticing
Let’s start out with the most basic of things, shall we? If you really want to know why over 100 million people play Roblox every day, the answer is simple: because it’s free.
Gaming has almost always had a cost to it because that’s how developers and publishers made money. If you did find a free game via the internet, like via dedicated free gaming sites, it was often because the games were simple and could be created without much effort or having to “push the computer” to play them.
Nowadays, though, there are many who use the free-to-play model to bring people in, and then, if they pay for things like microtransactions, that’s on the player. It’s entirely their choice. That alone brought many people to the Roblox table. When we say that there are 100 million estimated players every day, we are telling the truth, as those are official estimates from the dev team, but the twist is that sometimes, the people are only playing for a few minutes every day and then log off. They jump in, do the game or activity they want to do, and then they bail.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and that speaks to one of the true natures of the game itself: it’s meant to be a casual experience in the most basic of ways.
Unlike AAA gaming, there isn’t a “need” to “fully invest yourself” in the game and play it for hours on end. You CAN do that, if you want, but you don’t have to. So, for many kids, teens, and adults, they’ll log on, play the way they want to play, and then, when they’re satisfied, they can leave and come back whenever they’re ready. The added bonus of the game being on phones and mobile devices helps with this.
In many ways, it’s the ultimate “pick up and put down” title, and that says a lot.
Reason #2 – Community, Creation, and Consistent Growth
Something that can’t be ignored here is that Roblox didn’t get popular overnight. It was something that took time, effort, reach, and a little bit of luck.
Easily one of the defining features of the game is the fact that any creator can come in and make just about anything they want. That applies to doing things like making custom avatars, creating clothing, and even making full-on worlds and games for people to play and check out. It may have started out small, but once the servers got filled with incredible works, people wanted to see what was all there.
Then, over the course of time, the game evolved, grew in its capabilities, and that allowed for even more creations to be had. After all, the dev team started to pay creators for their creations, which created a different kind of boom, as many wanted to “cash in” on their works, and could even team up with certain brands and companies to make content for them, so that the company could advertise their product in the virtual space.
One also can’t deny that when a game “catches fire,” it tends to spread across the community really quickly. Grow A Garden is the best example of that. The title had a very basic launch back in March of this year, and then it became the most-played game in the entire Roblox universe by a large margin, and then went on to become the most-played concurrent player title in gaming history!
Why? Because people liked it, they started sharing it around, which got more attention, and then, BOOM, an explosion of people were playing a simple gardening title.
And that’ll motivate the community to try and be the next big breakout hit, which will allow the community to grow even further in multiple areas.
The Catch – Not Everything About Roblox Is Good
While it may seem odd to end this on a “sour note,” that note has to be spoken, or it’ll gloss over a key thing that keeps hindering Roblox, and could eventually lead to its demise down the line.
First, let’s talk finances. You’d think that with SO MANY GAMERS on the title every day, the company would be raking in money hand over fist. Except, they’re not. They’ve been operating at a loss for years, and despite recent surges in player numbers and even microtransaction numbers, it’s not putting them into the black. Even with booming stock prices, things haven’t been going their way, and that’s a problem.
That being said, the biggest problem that the company has is the continued backlash over its practices regarding player safety, and the numerous lawsuits against the game and company that have resulted from that.
We’ve written about these quite a bit, including in the last week alone, citing a new lawsuit, a potential documentary highlighting the dangers of the game, and a Change.Org petition that is attempting to remove the game’s CEO, which has now crossed 100K in signatures and is still growing.
To keep it brief, there are a LOT of predators on the Roblox servers because there are a lot of kids and teenagers that make up the overall playerbase. That gives the predators NUMEROUS options to try and “do their thing,” and the sad part is that we can cite many official stories revealing that predators did meet these kids in real life, and bad things happened.
Typically, you’d expect the dev team to crack down on this to try and get it to stop cold turkey, yet, Roblox and its team have a lousy history with security, even going so far as to stop one official member from trying to get rid of the predators himself, terminating his account due to “endangering others.” Meanwhile, a known violator of the game’s policies was only terminated from their account after serious community backlash to the OFFICIAL DEV TEAM inviting said violator to be a part of the latest community event.
It also didn’t help that the company’s CEO once said that parents should just “not let their kids play Roblox” if they’re worried about something happening, as if it were ever that simple.
When you add all this up, you can see why there’s plenty of negativity around the game, and how those who fill it aren’t always above board.
