Our kids understand it better than we do. And it’s training them for the token economy.
The stock market drama keeps getting more exciting. In a tumultuous drama reeling from the tailwinds of the GameStop frenzy, the stock market gaming landscape will see a new entrant with Roblox. In the ultimate symmetry of sorts GameStop, the nostalgic mall retailer from our childhood, has set the stage for Roblox — the gaming platform for the future, which has already cemented itself as the pandemic memory that our kids will be nostalgic for.
For many parents this marks a crucial inflection point in witnessing an innocent pandemic pastime transform into a substantial business. The last time this emotion was felt was when ‘Baby Shark’ hit the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 40 list; but Roblox more than an addictive tune — it’s serious business. Throughout the past year, even if parents haven’t participated on the platform directly as gamers, they were either innocent bystanders or reluctant financiers shelling out their credits cards for in-game purchases. That’s a role Roblox is happy to let them play.
Roblox has seen its popularity surge among school-age children during the pandemic as in-person playdates were eschewed for virtual playdates within its many user-generated worlds. According to its SEC filing report, as of September, 2020, 54% of Roblox users were under the age of 13. Roblox boasts of 31.1M daily active users, comparable to Fortnite’s 31.3M.
Roblox has also kept up with the cultural pulse of its user base. In November 2020, it hosted its first virtual concert with Lil Nas X, who shot to fame through viral growth on TikTok, and is considered a worthy competitor to Elon Musk as the meme-lord of our generation. The concert with Lil Nas X was a coup that was on brand for Roblox. Perceptually it put Roblox in the same league as Fortnite, which hosted its own virtual concert with Travis Scott earlier that year.
What differentiates Roblox from Fortnite, however, is that Roblox is not a single game, but rather a paradigm shift in the form of “human co-experiences”, all created by its community of players. Think of Roblox as a Shopify versus Fortnite’s Amazon. Roblox is a vibrant and expanding universe of creator-built content, with over 18 million experiences.
Roblox is an economy.
This economy has its own currency called Robux. Users can purchase Robux to spend on experiences and on items for their avatars. Game creators and developers, on the other hand, earn Robux by building engaging experiences that compel users to purchase. The platform enables developers and creators to convert Robux back into real-world currency.
As we’ve seen with the popularity of apps like Clubhouse and Dispo, the creator movement is entering a point of inflection — favoring serendipitous and ephemeral content over curated, manufactured feeds. Roblox is unstructured play at best. It does not offer a consistent cutting-edge gaming experience like Fortnite or Halo; however, the focus is on immersive experiences and community interaction. When I asked my 3rd grader what he liked most about the Roblox game ‘Build a Boat for Treasure’, he replied that he and his friends got a kick out of building boats that were designed to fail. In fact, gaming is only one aspect of the experience; for these kids Roblox is their journey into the creator economy. Kids who start out as players can ladder up as developers, and collect significant earnings.
“What used to be a hobby has become a job for an individual person, and now is more and more becoming the foundation for large, incredibly creative studios who are emerging on our platform,” said CEO David Baszucki.
As detailed in its filing, over 960,000 developers and creators earned Robux on the Roblox Platform, of which there were nearly 250 developers and creators that earned $100,000 or more in Robux.
That brings us to the other aspect of the cultural touchpoint — tokens. Robux are tokens in a virtual economy, similar to tokens on a blockchain. By creating an ecosystem that runs on virtual tokens, Roblox is essentially priming our kids to understand the nuances of the token economy. The only difference right now is that they can’t purchase their Robux on the open market or on a blockchain. Neither can they auction their avatars or skins as NFTs.
It’s just a matter of time.
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Source: https://medium.com/@tabarak/roblox-is-at-the-nexus-of-cryptocurrency-the-creator-economy-7ff96bde84b3?source=rss——-8—————–cryptocurrency
