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Roblox
Roblox's logo as of January 10, 2017.[1]
Developer(s)Roblox Corporation
Publisher(s)Roblox Corporation
Director(s)David Baszucki
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Xbox One, Oculus Rift,[2]
ReleaseSeptember 2006
Genre(s)Game Engine
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Roblox is a massively multiplayer online game creation platform that allows users to design their own games and play a wide variety of different types of games created by other users through Roblox Studio. Roblox hosts social network games constructed of Lego-like virtual blocks. The top game is currently Jailbreak, a game which allows the player either to take the role of a security guard, or a prisoner. The security guard must make sure that the prisoners are in their proper order, and to prevent them from escaping their cells. Prisoners have to escape by pickpocketing security guards for their keycards so they can access doors that require them. Usually, cars are more accessible than helicopters because the player as a prisoner must use a keycard to open the door on the second floor of the police station to access the police helicopter. An Alien UFO update was recently added, allowing players to venture into an alien world and access a UFO, a futuristic flying vehicle. In the 2018 update, helicopters now utilize ropes, which can allow teammates to hold on to it while in the air, which is another tool for a way of escape. Both sides allow players to buy vault safes, each with the quality of being Common, Uncommon, Rare, Ultra Rare, or Legendary, containing items due to the rarity of the safe.[3]

Co-founder and CEO David Baszucki started testing the first demos in 2004 under the name DynaBlocks. In 2005, it was renamed Roblox and became available for PCs. The platform was officially released in September 2006 by the Roblox Corporation. As of 2017, Roblox has 64 million monthly active players.[4]

Overview

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Roblox Studio

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Roblox is a game creation platform which allows players to create their own games using its proprietary engine, Roblox Studio. Games are coded under a object oriented programming system utilizing the programming language Lua to manipulate the environment of the game.[5][6] Users are able to create purchasable content through one-time purchases called "Game Passes", and microtransactions through 'Developer Products'. Developers on the site exchange 'Robux' earned from various products on their games into real world currency through Roblox's Developer Exchange system (also known as DevEx).[7] A percentage of the revenue from purchases is split between the developer and Roblox.[8][9] Roblox Studio supports importing meshes,[10] shadow mapping,[11] parallax mapping, and screen post-processing effects.[12]

Games portal for Roblox.
The Games portal

Games created through Roblox Studio are hosted through Roblox’s proprietary cloud software for server hosting and matchmaking.

Players

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Roblox allows players to buy, sell, and create virtual items. Shirts, T-shirts, and pants can be bought by anyone but only players with a Builders Club membership can sell shirts, T-shirts and pants.[13] Only Roblox admins can sell hats, gear and packages on the platform.[14] Hats with a "Limited" status, or "Limited" hats, can only be sold on the Roblox catalog or traded with Builders Club.[15]

Robux is Roblox's virtual currency that can allow a player to buy gear, hats, appeal, and in-game perks. Players can obtain Robux through real life purchases, another player buying their items, or from earning daily Robux with a membership.[8][16]

Groups

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Groups allow users to group up with other users similar to a guild-like system. Group leaders can advertise their group, participate in group relations, shout out to other members of the group, and manage the roles of other group members. Groups can only be created by Builder's Club members, but ownership of groups persists if they lose their membership.

Groups function as ways for players to organize various types of communities and teams, ranging from game development groups to Roblox clans. Groups can publish their own assets such as clothing/games, which funds earned go towards group funds. Group funds can be used to run advertisements for the group or games under the group's name, and can be distributed among the members through the 'Group Payout' system.

Groups also have a 'Clan' feature - where players can compete for positions on 'Player Point' leaderboards. Clans can only have a limited amount of users per group. Player Point leaderboards are mostly a way to keep track of leaderboards for games, and thus have no monetary value.[17]

Events

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Roblox occasionally hosts real life and virtual events. One such event is the Roblox Developers Conference, which regularly takes place in San Jose, California.[18] They hold virtual Easter egg hunt events annually and previously hosted events such as BloxCon.[8]

Development

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The beta version of Roblox was created by co-founders David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004,[19][20] with the initial name of DynaBlocks.[21] Baszucki started testing the first demos that year.[22][20] The website became available for PCs in 2005,[23] when it was renamed Roblox – a portmanteau of the words "robots" and "blocks".[20] The website was officially launched in September 2006.[20][24]

In March 2007, Roblox became compliant with COPPA, with the addition of safe chat, a change that limited users under the age of thirteen to communicating by selecting predefined messages from a menu.[25] In August 2007, Roblox added Builders Club, a premium membership, and applied server improvements.[26]

In December 2011, Roblox held their first Hack Week, an annual event where Roblox developers work on innovative outside-the-box ideas for new developments to present to the company.[27][28]

On December 11, 2012, Roblox released an iOS version of the game platform.[29][30] In an interview with Massively, CEO David Baszucki stated he also wanted the game platform to be available on the digital stores of "Android, Windows, Steam, Mac, Chrome, [and] Amazon..."[31]

On October 1st, 2013, Roblox released the DevEx system, allowing developers to exchange Robux earned from their games into real world currency.[32][33]

On May 31, 2015, a feature named Smooth Terrain was added, increasing the graphical fidelity of the terrain and changing the physics engine from a block-oriented style to a smoother and more realistic style.[34] On November 20, 2015, Roblox was launched on Xbox One, with an initial selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff.[35][36] New Roblox games for this console will have to go through an approval process, and are subject to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board standards.[37][38]

In April 2016, Roblox launched Roblox VR for Oculus Rift. At the time of release, more than ten million games were available in 3-D.[39] Also by this time, Roblox had 30 million monthly active users, and a peak of 900,000 concurrent users.[40] Around the same time period, the safe chat feature was removed and replaced by a system based on a whitelist with a set of acceptable words for users under 13 years old and on a "black list" for other users. [41]

In June 2016, the company launched a version compatible with Windows 10. While the game platform has had a PC presence since 2004 with its web version, this is the first time it was upgraded with a standalone launcher built for Windows.[42] The following month, during an episode of The Next Level, it was announced that Roblox would be ported to the PlayStation 4.[43]

Legacy

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During the 2017 Roblox Developers Conference, officials said that creators on Roblox (about 1.7 million)[44] collectively earned at least $30 million USD in 2017.[18] Alex Balfanz, a developer on the site, told Business Insider that funds from his creation covered his undergraduate education at Duke University.[23]

Toy line

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In January 2017, Jazwares, a toy fabricator, joined with the Roblox Corporation to create 40 toy minifigures based on user generated content created by large developers on the platform.[45] The toys were announced to the player base of Roblox via their blog, on February 1, 2017.[46] The minifigures had limbs and joints similar to that of Lego minifigures, along with the fact that their limbs and accessories are interchangeable. The first series contained 40 minifigures in all, being sold in sets of three or six, or individual minifigures. All of these sets included a code that could be used to redeem virtual items.[46][47]

Later that year in August, Roblox announced the second series of minifigures, introducing 40 more minifigures of characters from popular games on the platform, along with the online avatars of popular developers. There is also a 'blind box', that contains a random minifigure and has a chance to contain a 'Mystery Figure'.[48]

References

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  1. ^ Baszucki, David (January 10, 2017). "Introducing Our Next-Generation Logo". ROBLOX Corporation. Archived from the original on April 14, 2017. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
  2. ^ McCaffrey, Ryan (September 24, 2015). "Roblox Helps You Make Your Own Xbox One Games". IGN. Archived from the original on March 21, 2016. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  3. ^ Needleman, Rafe (June 14, 2011). "Roblox: A virtual world of Lego-like blocks". CNET. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  4. ^ Bort, Julie (November 25, 2017). "50 startups that will boom in 2018, according to VCs". Business Insider. Archived from the original on January 31, 2018.
  5. ^ "The best Roblox games". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  6. ^ "Roblox Wiki - Scripting". Roblox Corporation. Roblox Corporation. Archived from the original on February 20, 2018. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  7. ^ "How to make money with DevEx on Roblox". Softtonic Editorial Team. Softtonic. Archived from the original on April 24, 2018. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  8. ^ a b c Fennimore, Jack (July 12, 2017). "Roblox: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  9. ^ "Roblox Unearths $92 Million to Challenge Microsoft's Minecraft". Bloomberg.com. March 14, 2017. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  10. ^ "Mesh Parts". Roblox Wiki. Roblox Corporation. Archived from the original on October 18, 2017.
  11. ^ "lights-on-dynamic-lighting-and-shadows-are-here". Roblox Blog. Roblox Corporation. Archived from the original on January 29, 2017.
  12. ^ "A Whole New World: ROBLOX Adds Post-Effects and Anti-Aliasing". Roblox Blog. Archived from the original on August 23, 2016.
  13. ^ "Roblox: Everything you need to know to keep your child safe". Metro. July 17, 2017. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
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  21. ^ Fennimore, Jack (July 12, 2017). "Roblox: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved July 30, 2017.
  22. ^ Neil C., Hughes (July 15, 2016). "How This User-Generated Video Game Is Leading The Way With Innovation and VR". Inc Magazine.
  23. ^ a b "A video game you've never heard of has turned three teens into multimillionaires — and it's just getting started". Business Insider. Archived from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved October 10, 2017.
  24. ^ Takahashi, Dean (June 14, 2011). "Roblox raises $4M for kids virtual world". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on July 27, 2017. Retrieved January 29, 2018. The company's site draws more than 650 million page views a month and it has been growing steadily since its launch in September 2006.
  25. ^ Dickson, Jeremy (June 23, 2015). "SuperAwesome and Roblox join forces on kid-safe advertising". kidscreen. Archived from the original on March 19, 2017.
  26. ^ LaRouche, Brandon (March 31, 2012). Basic ROBLOX Lua Programming. Double Trouble Studio. p. 237. ISBN 9780985451301.
  27. ^ Milian, Mark (December 2, 2012). "Hackathons move beyond Silicon Valley". SFGate. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  28. ^ Chaykowski, Kathleen (August 31, 2012). "Lua language helps kids create software". SFGate. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  29. ^ Grubb, Jeffrey (December 12, 2012). "Roblox goes mobile in time for the holidays". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017.
  30. ^ Clark, Matt (December 12, 2012). "ROBLOX Brings Millions of User Created Games to iOS". Mac|Life.
  31. ^ Bryan, Karen (December 26, 2012). "MMO Family: Roblox CEO David Baszucki talks mobile app, plans for the future". Massively. Archived from the original on August 11, 2013.
  32. ^ "Introducing Developer Central and the Developer Exchange". Roblox Blog. Roblox Corporation. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  33. ^ Grubb, Jeff. "Roblox is gaming's quiet giant — and it's only getting bigger". VentureBeat. VentureBeat. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  34. ^ "Roblox user-generated world moves from blocky terrain to smooth 3D". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on June 2, 2015. Retrieved June 3, 2015.
  35. ^ Woods, Ben (September 24, 2015). "Roblox's community-made games are coming to Xbox One". The Next Web. Archived from the original on September 18, 2016.
  36. ^ Grubb, Jeff (September 24, 2015). "Roblox comes to Xbox One, joins Minecraft in the growing player-made content space on consoles". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017.
  37. ^ Grubb, Jeff (January 27, 2016). "Roblox launches on Xbox One with 15 player-created games — watch us play them". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on July 28, 2017.
  38. ^ Parrish, Robin (September 25, 2015). "Roblox Comes to Xbox One In December". Tech Times. Archived from the original on January 10, 2017.
  39. ^ Gaudiosi, John (April 15, 2016). "This Company Just Introduced 20 Million People to Oculus Rift". Fortune. Archived from the original on December 14, 2016. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  40. ^ Takahasi, Dean (December 20, 2016). "At 10, Roblox surpasses 30 million monthly users and 300 million hours of engagement". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on February 25, 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
  41. ^ "Roblox". Australian Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner. Archived from the original on January 10, 2017. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  42. ^ Grubb, Jeff (June 10, 2016). "After Xbox One success, Roblox now has a dedicated Windows 10 app". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on September 27, 2017.
  43. ^ Hendrik, Jack (July 1, 2016). "The Next Level: 150k Celebration". Twitch.tv. Archived from the original on February 21, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017. PS4, soon, it's in production, that has been confirmed, we are working on it for PS4.
  44. ^ "This game turned players into $50,000-a-month entrepreneurs — now it has a plan to help them make $1.68 million a year". Business Insider. Archived from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved October 10, 2017.
  45. ^ Takahashi, Dean (January 10, 2017). "Roblox launches toys based on its user-generated games". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on November 22, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  46. ^ a b Baszucki, David (February 1, 2017). "Introducing Roblox Toys". ROBLOX Corp. Archived from the original on April 24, 2018. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  47. ^ "Matt Dusek". Jazwares. Archived from the original on November 8, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  48. ^ Fennimore, Jack (August 25, 2017). "Roblox Toys Wave 2 Hits Store Shelves This August". Heavy. Archived from the original on November 8, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
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Category:2006 video games Category:Internet properties established in 2006 Category:Android (operating system) games Category:Free online games Category:IOS games Category:Lua-scripted video games Category:MacOS games Category:Massively multiplayer online games Category:Online games Category:Social simulation video games Category:Windows games Category:Xbox One games Category:Video game engines Category:Video games developed in the United States