Companies often have to try to project themselves as something that they’re not necessarily, or at least, they’re not all the time.” We all know about companies who claim that their “workforce are like family,” and yet companies like Amazon prove that to be a lie quite often, and then their CEOs randomly send people “into space” as a PR stunt to generate buzz. In regards to Roblox, the company has often made claims that it’s a “safe place to have fun” and that you can “let your imagination run wild” with the creator tools and “make money off your creations.” The question, though, is, “Is that really true?”
In a special piece posted on Medium, Sam Liberty broke this down into a multi-part piece about how Roblox isn’t as “creator-friendly” with its profits as you might think. We won’t go into everything he said, but the highlights are important.
For example, he noted that the fees that the dev team charges are massive. If you were to make a game or game world where other players can buy things from you, like items or clothing, and you make, say, $100 from those combined purchases, you don’t make $100. Fees by the dev team are natural, as they are hosting the game on their servers. However, as the author pointed out, they take over 80% of those earnings at times from all the fees they lay out.
But wait, there’s more! The team also charges you to put things into the world. Not just the games themselves, but clothing and other items that you want to put out there for people to get. You have to pay a one-time fee each time, and if the dev team rejects it, you won’t get that money back!
Still not enough for you? If you wish to “cash out” your earnings, you have to meet a series of requirements, including being over 13 years old. That’s an issue at times because many in the player base are UNDER that age. So they could work hard on a game, world, or just clothing, hoping to “make bank,” and yet, when they are ready to cash out…they can’t. Not to mention, they have to “reach a certain amount” before they can even try to cash out.
Arguably, the most damaging stat is that by the end of 2023, only ten developers in the entire game’s creator base made millions of dollars. Just ten! In contrast, around five million other creators…made nothing.
While nothing was “ever a guarantee,” you can make the argument that making money in this game is less likely than hitting the jackpot in Las Vegas.
