Roblox: Yet Another Virtual World Much Bigger Than SL

VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi reports on Roblox, yet another virtual world on the outliers of the "Second Life is the most successful virtual world ever made to this day” claim:  

It’s not quite Minecraft, but the Lego-like block world of Roblox is doing just fine at its tenth anniversary. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company has more than 30 million monthly active users for its sandbox video game that lets users create their own spaces and games. Roblox is near 900,000 concurrent users at its peak, and users have put more than 300 million hours into it. The top game creators on the platform are now making more than $50,000 a month in revenue, and Roblox now runs across phones, tablets, PCs, VR, and Xbox.

Quite a bit like Linden Lab's Blocksworld (actually the other way around, Roblox came first), it's a shared open world with user-generated content that can be sold for real world cash, an internal programming language, and as far as I can see, no traditional levels-points-goals RPG elements emphasized. Lots of engagement on YouTube and player creativity too:

Curiously, Roblox started growing like crazy (in terms of Google Trends mentions) roughly when Second Life started decreasing:

Targeted primarily at teens, this brings up a recurring question: Why do teens and young adults interested in virtual worlds not jump into Second Life when they get older?

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Comments

[Anon]

SL is still very awkward to control, and adults don't have the time or patience to figure out non-standard basic movement. Make the controls same as any FPS out there and people won't have that barrier.

" Why do teens and young adults interested in virtual worlds not jump into Second Life when they get older?"

[JohnC]

One must not underestimate the “game” factor. 99.999999999 of people have no concept at all of a virtual world being anything more than a game. Something they do for short periods between real life, like Monopoly. The core of SL, or any real virtual world, is not about playing anything. It is about living another life in a virtual world. Waits for laughter of the masses to die down. The reality of a virtual life is unknown to the vast majority. I was a great fan of Lego when I was kid way back in the early 1960's. To call any product based upon it, a virtual world, is a kind of travesty IMHO

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I really think these continual comparisons do neither the thing compared nor Second Life much good.

Hell, I wasn't really sure during the big media blitz SL was getting the right sort of attention, but these continual comparisons make me think of trying to compare, say, World of Warcraft to EVE Online - or for something even more niche, A Tale In The Desert - and claiming that they're doing something wrong because they don't have the same millions of subscribers, while ignoring many of the people who play EVE or TitD would never, ever want to play World of Warcraft.

[Metal Bee]

Hey guys, this is the Metal Bee here with a new roblox video of ArrowZ.
ArrowZ is a variety of games in Roblox around a Bow and Arrow combat. There are various game modes that will cycle randomly with team based, free for all and survival games where the only weapon is Bow and Arrow. Bring out the Robin Hood in you this new roblox adventures gameplay video.

Check out the video in the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzcURL79mg

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[Metal Bee]

Hey guys, this is the Metal Bee here and today I'll be playing Memes Obby in Roblox , a game where skill matters. Time and judge your movements with precision to finish it with the least amount of respawns in this fun video.

Video in the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntO8JMuQFTI

Don't forget to comment, share, like and subscribe to Metal Bee:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVCMdSPdYI9Y9USA-ViKIKw?sub_confirmation=1

Share this video : https://youtu.be/ntO8JMuQFTI

[Metal Bee]

Hey guys, this is the Metal Bee here and today I'll be playing Infection Inc where I create my own zombies to annihilate the humans. This is a fun zombie tycoon game where you create tougher and faster zombies to take on the nasty human who are stopping you from your World Domination plans.

Video in the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Am1ooI52wk

Don't forget to comment, share, like and subscribe to Metal Bee:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVCMdSPdYI9Y9USA-ViKIKw?sub_confirmation=1

Share this video : https://youtu.be/0Am1ooI52wk