If you don’t mind me asking…where are you finding Appendix A?
Edit: Oops I found it sorry 
Have some game started moving over to China?
https://www.roblox.com/games/2632480606/unnamed#!/about
I found what appears to be a Chinese version of Epic Minigames
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While I appreciate your optimistic outlook and can only hope that it will become true, I have strong reasons to believe that participating in this program will not be “Westernizing” China, but rather aiding and strengthening their control of their own citizenship.
The first point you should understand is that this is a direct partnership with Tencent; in the Chinese economic system, while you may be under the impression that Chinese companies operate independently, the reality is that ALL of them must answer to the CCP, and if they do not, they would be barred from operating in the country altogether. It sounds dramatic, but I strongly believe when you say X partners with Tencent, it is as good as saying X partners with the CCP.
The second point you should realize is that the many, sometimes ridiculous, restrictions placed on China UGC, such as the no mention of the existence of religion part, is direct orders from the CCP to maintain control over their citizens. We aren’t helping break the CCP control over their population, we are only strengthening it by abiding by their demands and self-censoring our works.
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I doubt the situation will change. They said the same about the Soviet Union, but at the end of the day, even the new generation will take their lucrative posts as undemocratic and authoritarian leaders of China - regardless of their previous opinions.
The Soviet Union existed for more than 70 years, China is the same - but they have some really scary technology to control their population and public opinions (The Soviet’s had control even without the technology).
What you described is a dream, that hopefully becomes true - but it undoubtetly won’t.
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When Deng Xiaoping started market reforms, the rest of the world hoped that through market liberalization would cause the Chinese people to start demanding freedoms. However, as we see today China did not become “free” as we had hoped from those market reforms. How free a country’s market is not tied to how free it’s people are.
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The international audience for Roblox is seeing significant growth, which is great. And yeah, it would be super duper epic if we had more Japanese players. Minecraft is HUGE in Japan, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to dream of a future where Roblox is HUGE in Japan.
Also would be pretty funny to see Japanese players and American players interacting – if you didn’t know, Japan has what is essentially their version of weeaboos, people who are in love with Western culture, cowboys, pizza, et cetera. What a funny conversation to be had between a westaboo and a weeaboo!
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Unfortunately, yeah. But in all honesty, I wouldn’t kid myself. Roblox is a corporation out to make money. Chances are it never had morals to begin with. As someone who’s been on here for about 7 years now, I can safely say I’ve never seen “moral” decisions made outside of the donations to the hurricane survivors a few years back. Everything else, to me, seems biased or dishonest, or has some sort of alt motive.
We just have to remember Roblox will do whatever it can to profit, because that’s the point of the platform. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
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I hope this time my post doesn’t get deleted.
I think you could compare Roblox’s teaming up with Tencent, who are controlled by the CCP, like working with the Italian mafia to open a toy store. To uninformed people, it sounds like a good idea - what could be wrong with giving kids a place to play and have fun?
I also find that educated Chinese people (especially from Hong Kong Taiwan) most oppose western companies doing business with the CCP to “open up to a larger market” because they have personal negative experiences with the CCP.
It’s like Roblox is teaming up with your abusive uncle who starved you, took away your freedom, and killed all your aunts and cousins.
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The concern is not necessarily “greed” for me, its just tencent is known for stealing IP. Looking at their past, if roblox doesn’t change we’ll be forced to comply with outrageous Chinese censorship, and our IP will also be owned by tencent. Its not about roblox being “The bad guy”
I do agree, the Chinese market seems great, and it’s wonderful to give others the opportunity to play a game you made. But is it really worth it if you’re constantly being censored, following strict and unusual guidelines? Not to mention the atrocious acts the Chinese government does, and knowing they can blackmail you even if it’s outside of Chinese related business. They’ve done it before and there’s no reason why they’d do it now.
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Of course expanding is technically greedy, in this case. Roblox is a corporation out to make money, they literally make their income off of us, the playerbase.
Expanding into countries is going to bring in more players, more developers, and more income. Even if it’s a good thing to have a bigger playerbase, Roblox is actively making money off of it all. It’s not done out of the “goodness of their hearts”. That simply isn’t the way the world works.
I do criticize the push as a whole, but I’m more lenient because most countries aren’t ruled by tyranny. I believe that the best way to stop China’s government is to stop them from being a part of the outer world and remove the power and influence they have, so giving into them like this isn’t really a smart idea when you consider how much they’re already trying to control.
Sure, you can argue that that’s just my viewpoint, and it is, but it doesn’t change the fact that Roblox is simply allowing a government such as China’s the ability to heavily influence the program.
China can easily influence Roblox as a whole, and not in the far future either. China’s population is so vast that by the time Roblox hits it big there (which, let’s face it, it can and will), the Chinese government can simply attempt to oppress Roblox into complying with more terms and changes at threat of losing their massive market share, which, could end up impacting more than just the Chinese market on Roblox.
Plus, if you need any more reason to think it’s out of greed, look at China as a whole. As a country, they’re filthy rich and their population is astronomically high. I doubt Roblox is pushing so hard to get into China simply because they want Chinese people to “be able to enjoy the platform”.
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I did write a whole message of my opinion on this but I’ve opted to not post it in the fear of it being deemed off-topic or any other reason.
But what I would say is it is deeply concerning. This expansion and partnership with Tencent who is under the control of the CCP is essentially allowing the CCP to access ROBLOX and possibly corrupt it. China has the worst human rights record and a very bad reputation for stealing IP, and this is something as a Dev I’m not comfortable with. Personally, I will not be censoring my content to conform to CCP laws or regulations.
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It’s not greed, roblox hasn’t even made a profit before read roblox’s sec registration statement they are doing this to survive and expand as a company
That is a total misrepresentation of Roblox’s situation. A company that is growing as fast as Roblox should not be concerned about making a profit, instead they should be focusing all of that money into expanding their staff, their platform’s capabilities and reach, etc. If David Baszucki woke up one day and wanted to start making a profit on Roblox, he could, easily. Making a profit on a company like this just means you are stifling your own growth and future profit and value.
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You said it, not me… If they weren’t turning some form of profit, the platform would be closed.
It’s nice to see that alot of developers are raising their voice against this, even if this system is not mandatory there comes alot of issues with partnering and China will become an influencial player in where Robloxes path will go because now they will be generating an increased revenue from them. Even if this did not come with the controversial ToS and the fact that you will have to censor your game to make it compatible in China you will be one of the reasons as to why Roblox might become much more censored and us developers might have alot less freedom to develop games we are passionate about.
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One of the things I’m disappointed with is Roblox opening itself up to a country that steals peoples intellectual property. Roblox is and seems to have always been about creators and creating. But more recent moves seem to be more about money and ways to expand. Expansion is good no doubt, and it’s certainly not the fault of the citizens in China that they cannot enjoy the same experiences as us.
While I can’t speak for top game makers like Adopt Me or others, I suspect that they’ll probably make a move to get their games in China anyway. It only takes a few top game makers to decide to make the switch, and Roblox can provide a decent experience. I feel like these games would probably not side with the majority of us however, as the profits that could be gleaned can keep their studio alive. The only way we as developers actually get a say is if top games that get MILLIONS of players also speak out against this decision.
Unfortunately, as I said, I don’t think they will, so really whatever we say means nothing to Roblox.
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There is this saying that the first person to bring up Hitler and Nazi Germany in any argument is automatically the loser. But I cannot help myself and I feel like we would be making a very fair comparison, given that China literally runs “re-education camps” for Uyghur citizens living in East Turkestan (which is part of their political border).
Would you be willing to comply with Hitler’s demands and enable his ambitions in order to bring your video games to the German people?
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To put your argument to rest so that the rest of us can have a good discussion…
“As mentioned in the “one country, two systems” principle, China’s special administrative regions (SARs) such as Hong Kong and Macau are not affected by the firewall, as SARs have their own governmental and legal systems and therefore enjoy a higher degree of autonomy. Nevertheless, the U.S. State Department has reported that the central government authorities have closely monitored Internet use in these regions,[14] and Hong Kong’s National Security Law has been used to block websites documenting anti-government protests.[15]”
According to Wikapedia, Hong Kong and Macau are not under the firewall. It doesn’t say if Taiwan is or isn’t. Might be realistic to infer that they are though, as even though Hong Kong and Macau aren’t in it, there appears to be evidence that they are censored.
That being said, I think most peoples thoughts on this is that while it’s a good opportunity and not the peoples fault that they live in these countries, the fact that devs and Roblox continue to enable a government that participates in massive human rights violations and other things is not good.
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This! This is the exact problem. I don’t mind if Roblox expands to a country as long as the country isn’t oppressing it’s people. It’s just really sad to see them enabling such a country without considering the implications and atrocities committed there.
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Exactly!
Diving into the Chinese market would mean facing multiple trials, the most prominent being the language barrier and the strict legalities.
Why not test the waters with easier goals?
I feel like it’d be easier to port Roblox to Japan and Germany. You wouldn’t have to create an entirely new website. People could speak freely on the DevForums, just as they do now.
I’m not completely opposed to Chinese Roblox. Luobu might use the same technology, but it’s essentially a separate company from Roblox in its own right. So long as developers aren’t pressured into complying with overly strict regulations, this could be an opportunity to give a good impression of western culture to the people of China.
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