You don’t need a masters degree to get far on roblox. A 14 year old can do just as good as someone in their late 20s on this platform.
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Never said you couldn’t, I just implied there wouldn’t be much leverage.
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This will inevitably happen anyway. As roblox grows in revenue and popularity, professionals will come across roblox and try to make a living out of it. It’s going to happen. I feel there will still be a huge zone where a kid can make a solid game and earn some solid money. Not 7 figures, but a healthy 5 figures and work their way up to potentially making more. All the money doesn’t go to the top, and I say that as a developer with no fulltime team that is in that middle zone.
Also what a kid might have over an adult with a masters degree is that they are a kid. They have time and don’t have bills. That adult likely can’t afford to spend 6 long months on a game that could flop, and I assure you their master’s degree will not at all guarantee their success. The issue does not change at all if you group multiple professionals together, that’s still the same high investment per person. Kids and young adults may have more flexibility in this. I know I had years to hone my skill as a kid, and now that I’m old enough to have responsibilities, I have way more skill in my area than a professional thats brand new to roblox.
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You’re not wrong, but you can’t deny that Roblox will become oversaturated, it’s bound to happen, but with an increase in DevEx it’ll happen quicker, because that’s how a freelancer’s mindset is.
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This is exactly what Roblox has said they wanted - professional teams making bigger and better games on Roblox. That’s one of the reasons DevEx has seen so much attention recently, because the rates right now are not high enough to allow that.
As previously stated, all the money won’t and doesn’t go to the top. While someone with traditional education and experience in the field will have an advantage over smaller developers when it comes to the chances that their game is higher quality, it does not guarantee success. There will still be money to be had if this happens for everyone, and a lot of it. Especially if the rates are increased.
I’d argue that that scenario will ultimately be beneficial to everyone. Better and bigger games made by professionals will draw more money into the platform, giving a bigger pool of money for everyone.
I don’t think that professional teams coming to Roblox will “oversaturate it”. There will be a market for smaller games made by younger and less experienced developers and professional games on the platform doesn’t really change that.
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Am I the only one that is really not feeling this vision of huge teams dominating this platform’s market?
Hear me out:
My first experience with game development was with Unity, where I spent at least a year learning how to make decent 2D games and started moving into 3D…
But the reality is, most indie games fail. I’m probably not exaggerating too much by saying that 99.9% of indie games on Steam, Epic Games store, among others, fail so horribly and devastatingly and you’ll never hear of them. Why? Because the big dogs dominate those markets. As a teenager or even an adult with a dream of creating an experience by yourself or with a small group of people that’ll hopefully be profitable, it’s very discouraging to go up against industry level professional teams that have all the knowledge, experience, marketing tools, and everything more to produce a successful game. That’s how it was for me, and that’s why I decided to come to Roblox. I really felt this platform is more inspired by individual creativity, as a few years back all of the top games were solo jobs or created by a team of two at best.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the platform as it is. There’s duos behind games like Jailbreak, and larger teams such as that behind Vesteria, but at the same time there’s still a possibility that a solo developer, with enough motivation and drive, can make it up there, and there’s evidence to show it. But if the front page is bound to be dominated by huge, professional teams, who once again have all the tools that a soloist teenager could only dream of having, then what happens to all those dreamy kids who wanted a level environment where they could have a fair chance of making it as well?
I’m just saying, there’s already a big enough market for those huge teams; what makes Roblox unique is the individual potential that each developer receives. Like their motto says: You make the game. I fear that’ll turn into something more like You make the game, but only if you have the resources and manpower to compete against all the professional games. I might be overreacting to this, but that notion just doesn’t reside well with me.
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This is exactly what happened to YouTube and everyone freaked out as nobody expected it.
You should expect a shift like this so you don’t get knocked off your toes or go into apocalypse-mode.
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It won’t. Every developer on Roblox does have a chance. There are large studios on Roblox and they still compete with games by smaller teams.
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If I was to have some input it would have to be about the required Outrageous builders club, people should be able to cash out with regular and turbo builders club.
Definitely agree. Increasing the quality of games, or help in introducing new genres, by an influx of these professionals would definitely help bring in more players. The more players join the economy, the bigger the little slices of the pie become for the smaller content creators.
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I can’t really say I agree.
If anything, the opposite is the main problem.
A developer who’s been developing only Roblox games since essentially the dawn of Roblox can outscript, outbuild, outdesign, and outsmart more than ten developers who have been working in game development all their life, but only developed on Roblox for a year.
I believe good examples of one-dev armies is SnakeWorl, creator of Dragon Ball Final Stand and Arch_Mage, creator of Tales from The Valley. Both of these creators have been featured at RDC.
Both of these two seem to mostly go solo, maybe with a builder or two. But have essentially a “policy” in working alone.
Humongous studios filled with many hard working developers who make lots of money, try to compete with them.
Allow me to give an example,
Let’s make a comparison. Two front page games.
Swordburst 2 VS Dragon Ball Z Final Stand
Swordburst 2:
- Playing: 982
- Favorites: 848,309
- Visits: 80.6M
- Created: 2/17/2017
- Developers: 5 (according to the group)
Dragon Ball Z Final Stand
- Playing: 2,243
- Favorites: 1,007,790
- Visits: 219.8M
- Created: 11/1/2016
- Developers: 1 Scripter, 1 Builder, 1 Spanish translator.
So less developers have been more successful than more developers.
The time gap between Created is only three months. Yet the game with fewer developers has more than double the visits.
Thinking about this logically with nothing but numbers, on paper, you would think that more developers/budget = better game.
But in practice, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Sadly, the true concern is what all industries suffer from,
Experience Triumphs, Absolute.
So in reality, high budget corporations are not what increase the entry difficulty of the industry. The true culprit, is not money, it’s experience. New developers are at a clear disadvantage. I’m a person who believes nothing is true without evidence or the listing of facts, so let’s make some more comparisons, this time, the general advantages and disadvantages of a new developer, perhaps from another platform, like say, Unity or Unreal, and the benefits of a veteran Roblox developer.
New Developer:
Advantages:
- Fandom/Following/Community from their previous platform. If Ubisoft makes a medieval game on Roblox, people might be more likely to try it because they could remember For Honor.
- Funding from previous games.
- Whole divisions of trained programmers from their old platform.
Disadvantages:
- Players from last platform may be reluctant to download the Roblox launcher, having never heard of it or been involved with it. Probably will beg for a For Honor 2 on Steam.
- Won’t be able to make any real revenue until they gather at least 100,000 robux AND have a main account that fufills all requirements.
- All employees will have to take the time to get used to the new language and engine, Roblox Studio and Lua.
Experienced Developer:
Advantages:
- Fandom/Following/Community who actively play their games on the Roblox platform, new and old.
- Likely already in the DevEx program and knows how to use it.
- Most likely mastered the Lua language and is very familiar with the Roblox Studio engine.
Disadvantages:
- Playerbase extends only to people who have a Roblox account and installed the launcher.
- May not have as much of a budget as bigger corporations.
- Most likely not have as many developers.
As you can see, you were right about one thing, the game is rigged.
The industry is not 100% fair, you are correct. In some ways, in a fight between Ubisoft and a developer like SnakeWorl, Ubisoft is at a clear disadvantage and fighting an uphill battle. While Ubisoft is busy training each and every employee working on the project to be experienced in the basics of Lua or Roblox Studio, SnakeWorl is getting more and more experienced, learning new and better things to put into his games. Is it possible for Ubisoft to win? Yes, but the odds are definitely stacked against them.
At the end of the day, while experienced small developers have the upper hand, really anyone who throws their game into the ring has a fighting chance of being successful and attracting more players and earn profit.
I might repost this in another thread of it’s own, but I think it would be helpful to the competition if major game development companies moved to this platform.
Better competition means better games, which should always be welcome to the platform!
Thank you all for reading this very lengthy post!
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Without reading your whole comment, I have to disagree with your point at the start. You used 2 completely different games to compare, both of which have near nothing in common (different genres/styles/etc)
While yes, low developers can make big and amazing games, I do feel in the future, the opporunity for studios with 100’s of members could create games 100x better than anything seen on Roblox today. AAA style games. Look at studios like Red Manta and Vesteria creating these massive MMO games. These types of games could never be achieved by a singular person, or even 2-3. You need a lot of people all contributing to actually get something like those out. Especially in a timely matter
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I agree, let’s look at the award winning title Vesteria, this is a perfect example!
This is a perfect example that can be used to represent how Roblox’s mission and it’s very core simply has not changed. Individual developers and massive studios both have a good chance of success in this community. This will support the case that Roblox still strives to help the creativity and innovation of all it’s developers to make better quality games, regardless of financial backing.
Let’s give a brief overview comparison of Vesteria to start. It’s newer, it has several times more members on it’s development team, and is a combat-based online fighting game, just as Dragon Ball Final Stand. And this is just one of the many examples of largely successful games with small development teams with little to no funding (Tales from the Valley, Naruto Online 2, Rogue Lineage, so on) but I feel like Dragon Ball Final Stand is most likely to be known by other people.
Let’s once again take a look at the numbers.
Dragon Ball Z Final Stand:
- Playing: 3,579
- Favorites: 1,008,656 (Nearly grew 1k in a single day, proof this is still in active demand)
- Visits: 220.1M
- Created: 11/1/2016
- Like/Dislike Ratio: 321311/355945 = 0.9026984506 OR, 90%
- Developers: 1 Scripter, 1 Builder, 1 Spanish translator.
Vesteria Beta:
- Playing: 117
- Favorites: 139,333
- Visits: 3.1M
- Created: 9/18/2018
- Like/Dislike Ratio: 35660/36988 = 0.96409646371 OR, 96%
- Developers: 8 Contributors, 5 Artist, 3 Builders, 2 Animators, 2 SFX/Music developers, 3 Lead Developers, and 1 Team Leader
So let’s do some math, 8+5+3+2+2+3+1 = 24
Let’s count the Spanish translator as a dev, so 24/3 = 8
So Vesteria has eight times more staff working on the game than Dragon Ball Final Stand.
And still, after almost a year following the creation, is not as popular, and still has a smaller community. It’s as if no matter how much funding or staff you put into a project, it can still be largely overshadowed by very experienced and well known individual developers who have had much more time to refine their skills and gather their community.
Both of these games, Vesteria Beta and Dragon Ball Z Final Stand have levels, stat-based combat with skills and techniques (which are amazing and look fantastic, great job to both the developers! I can’t wait to see what the future holds for both titles!), you slay monsters, NPCs, have boss battles (with amazing AI and interesting abilities), and do quests based around standard RPG mechanics. I’d say it’s fair to say these games are trying to attract a similar audience and fit into the fantasy/roleplaying game genre.
The information provided above can be used to support my argument, experience can triumph even over funding. Lots of funding will not guarantee a successful game, lack of funding will not guarantee a not so successful game.
It’s good that new publishers and studios are moving towards us, that’s wonderful and I hope they make great games for us to enjoy. I know The Vesteria Team has certainly done an amazing job!
But based on these numbers, I just can’t see how Roblox will change into a platform run only by organizations, instead of individuals as well as organizations.
I am in no way nor manner saying that either of these games are inferior to each other, I love the exploration of the cartoony and vastly open world of Vesteria, as well as the action-packed fast paced flight and combat of Dragon Ball Final Stand. I am simply saying that in the years moving forward, if anyone is worried that massive studios will conquer the front page and smaller developers won’t be able to compete, don’t worry,
Rest assured, Roblox is still, and I can nearly guarantee that it will always be, the platform we’ve come to know and love for helping both large studios and individual developers find the funds, tools, and community to transfer our dream games from our minds, into reality, to share with people from all over the world of different ages, cultures, and much more.
In conclusion,
Creativity and innovation was, is, and likely will forever be, the very core soul of Roblox.
Really quick, I’d like to thank the Roblox staff for making the info on the game page so accessible and easy to use and understand. These comparisons wouldn’t be possible without you guys.
I’d also like to show my gratitude to both SnakeWorl and The Vesteria Team, the content you guys are producing is an inspiration to developers all over the world, thank you so much for allowing me and people from across the globe to play your amazing games that you worked hard on.
Developers like these help motivate me to work on my own secret dream project.
My final words in this post to both the Roblox staff and the developers,
You guys are awesome!!!
And to anyone who read all this, thank you also for taking the time to understand both sides of the argument. I hope to see some of the amazing work done by you guys!
Until next time!
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The biggest discrepancy in your example games is two of those are original IPs where as one is using the IP of something popular the world over. Nothing against DBZ Final Stand, but if they were using their own IP for the game I feel their success may not have been as great as it has.
Remember Vesteria and Swordburst both have to develop the world as well and this can be quite time consuming and require extra people to do.
If you want to do big studio vs small you’d be better off comparing something like Bee Swarm Simulator rather than something built from someone else’s IP.
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Great counterargument! And thank you so much for the fast reply! But I’m afraid that the games are not in the spotlight, as incredible as they are. I think it’s time to take a step away from SnakeWorl, and talk about another wonderful developer and their small team. Obviously my argument wouldn’t be very valid, and could seem biased if I focused on only one individual developer. This is a wonderful opportunity to introduce another developer to support my case, vCaffy, the creator of the very popular MMORPG, Dungeon Quest!
So, it’s time to use some numbers again. We’ll use the same numbers for Vesteria.
Dungeon Quest!:
- Playing: 8,269
- Favorites: 855,076
- Visits: 566.7M
- Created: 9/25/2018
- Like/Dislike Ratio: 365833/396103 = 0.92358048285 OR, 92%
- Developers: 2 Modelers, 1 Owner
Vesteria Beta:
- Playing: 117
- Favorites: 139,333
- Visits: 3.1M
- Created: 9/18/2018
- Like/Dislike Ratio: 35660/36988 = 0.96409646371 OR, 96%
- Developers: 8 Contributors, 5 Artist, 3 Builders, 2 Animators, 2 SFX/Music developers, 3 Lead Developers, and 1 Team Leader
Dungeon Quest! was created only a week after Vesteria Beta. And yet, they have the same team size as Dragon Ball Final Stand. Now, let’s do some more math,
566/3.1 = 182.580645161
Yep, you heard it hear folks.
A game with a team 8 times smaller than another game created in the same month, has over 182 times more visits.
Your argument seems to be that Dragon Ball Final Stand is able to overshadow other games because of the popularity of Dragon Ball, not SnakeWorl and his games. Yet it in of itself, in the RPG genre, is overwhelmingly overshadowed by a competitor who uses his own IP, Dragon Quest!
The numbers seem to think differently. I have now changed the variables, yet I still yield the same results. Smaller teams can largely overwhelm larger teams.
If I am correct, these numbers support that universe the game takes place in, doesn’t make the game what it is, it’s still the developer, at the end of the day.
Thank you again for addressing this matter to me though, now that I have experimented and recorded results, this should be sufficient evidence to disprove the idea of that particular discrepancy.
Please do provide feedback if you discover anymore though!
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I don’t think it’s fair to compare the visits of Vesteria to another game, considering it is paid access. If it weren’t paid access I feel it would have a lot more visits.
Also, you said that Vesteria’s team had “little to no funding”. This could probably not be further from the truth. Vesteria has had hundreds of thousands of dollars dedicated to its team for development.
Despite this, I still do agree with you that smaller teams with little funding and bigger teams have a relatively equal chance of their games getting popular. Making a Roblox game is a time investment more than a money investment, and as long as you invest that time in making a quality game, the current DevEx rates allow smaller teams to make a very decent amount of money. The DevEx issues arise when bigger teams want to make games on this platform.
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You’re missing so much vital information.
One, Vesteria is paid access, thus it gets less player base.
And the BIGGEST thing you missed (which I thought was clear as day) is Vesteria is it’s own game, DBZ isn’t their own creation. The fact it has so many players would more than likely co incide with it being called ‘Dragon Ball Z’
Your argument still seems to be ‘less developers is equivalent to big teams’
Vesteria is a near AAA level of game, in terms of detail/etc. DBZ is no where near as good in comparison to overall looks and gameplay. Just cause somethings popular, doesn’t mean it’s good. Lot’s of games make the front page with near no effort being put into them.
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It’s a very lengthy post I know, but I think I might be able to answer all of those using only quotes.
Statetment:
Answer AND statement:
Answer:
Statement:
Answer:
Statement:
Answer:
I wish I could summarize what information and data is has been brought up to make it easier to skim, but sadly it is indeed a lot and I don’t think people want me repeating myself too much.
But to try to keep it short, I spoke about Vesteria because you said that was a good example, I followed your lead, as you suggested, and compared it to solo-developed games.
Again, I cannot clarify this enough, this is not a “this game is trash!” “this game is great!” discussion. All developers are great in their own ways and people work hard to make these games. We are not questioning quality, we are questioning success and popularity of games.
People are concerned after RDC, with talk of Roblox being more friendly to large studios and businesses. That Roblox will be flooded with big companies, so that individual developers won’t have any chance to compete. That the front page will be absolutely dominated by nothing but big studio productions made by huge studios. Much like how other media platforms have given priority to big mainstream media corporations, rather than individual content creators.
My case is that this will never happen, that individual developers, can very well still become wildly sucessfully, even in the case of large businesses moving to Roblox in the coming years, because in reality, both sides have significant advantages and disadvantages.
This is what we’re centered around, this is the topic I was addressing.
All I’ve done is captured some data from random front page games, that have 3 or less developers on their development team.
Again, I cannot express this enough, this is not saying all big studio games are worse than solo games, nor is it saying all solo games are worse than big studio games. I love games, and I try to love all games I cross paths with, developers work hard to make these. I certainly don’t feel comfortable calling a game truly bad (unless it uses morally wrong monetization tactics, different discussion entirely) nor do I imply that it’s perfect.
If I genuinely cannot convince you that big studios won’t dominate the platform, no matter how many numbers I try to throw out or how many examples I give or how many names I say, then I guess we just gotta agree to disagree, and just wait to see what the future holds for us.
Thank you very much for your input, take care now!
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Using Dungeon Quest as an example tho, yes, well made game, looks good. But once again, it’s not in the same level as Vesteria in terms of over all quality. There’s a reason these studios are being made. Yes, guys like Berezaa could be millionaires making games on their own, but instead they’ve decided they want to make bigger and better things, that can’t be done by a single person, or small groups. They want to make these large scale games and are putting their own money into these companies and not even seeing a profit yet. It’s about the future and the bigger picture. Yes, maybe right now single developers are fine, but I feel in 5-10 years, the quality of top games will be so massive that a single person couldn’t compete on their own.
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I feel like you deviated a little bit from the topic which is where the platform is heading and not where it’s at now. In addition, you compare the games purely on popularity. Logically and objectively, a bigger team will always put out a higher quality game than a smaller team given the same amount of resources and time (in theory). When you look only at the popularity statistics, you fail to acknowledge Roblox’s current primary audience, and more importantly, future growth.
Vesteria in my opinion, appeals to an older audience. It has more nuanced game play with more in depth mechanics. Dungeon Quest on the other hand appeals to a younger audience with simpler compact mechanics. The most popular game right now on the platform that also appeals to the younger audience is Adopt Me which also has a relatively large number of contributors and developers. Games like Vesteria are made for what Roblox might be like in the future compared to Dungeon Quest. In addition, you do not acknowledge how much future growth games like Vesteria can have. At the cost of increased development resources and a solid foundation, an eventual fully fledged stand alone MMO game can have meaningful updates for a long time and have a very long life time that isn’t dependent on Roblox. The only reason this hasn’t happened yet is because larger development teams are only starting to emerge and the process takes time. It is clear that Roblox wants to move towards 100+ developer teams and it is also clear that implies moving away from profitable solo teams even if Roblox may not be there yet.
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