Roblox has been around for a long time. The online game platform first launched in 2006 — just two years after vanilla World of Warcraft hit (the first
TechCrunch spoke to Roblox CTO Daniel Sturman about the challenges of future-proofing a game platform that’s approaching two decades old while still meeting the needs of a community that enjoys the old-school aspects of the product.
“Our user base is broadening pretty aggressively… so for people where the experience was just awesome with the traditional avatars, you know, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ is kind of a philosophy on that,” Sturman said.
In the announcement for Roblox Connect, which will launch later this year, the company wrote that “a person’s avatar will mirror their exact facial expressions, right down to the same blink rate” in the near future.
A company more concerned with curating a specific visual experience (Epic Games and Fortnite come to mind) might find the results too chaotic, but when Roblox imagines the kind of content it wants on the platform, it’s pretty much everything, everywhere all at once.
To keep them engaged on a platform that outsiders (i.e. parents, people above drinking age) often find strange and inscrutable, Roblox is keen to open pathways to more mature experiences without messing too much with the formula that got it here, quirks and all.
For Roblox, that means developers can use its tools to build high-fidelity experiences that look like AAA games or incorporate thematic content appropriate for 17+ users (romance and a touch more violence!).
The original article contains 1,180 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
TechCrunch spoke to Roblox CTO Daniel Sturman about the challenges of future-proofing a game platform that’s approaching two decades old while still meeting the needs of a community that enjoys the old-school aspects of the product.
“Our user base is broadening pretty aggressively… so for people where the experience was just awesome with the traditional avatars, you know, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ is kind of a philosophy on that,” Sturman said.
In the announcement for Roblox Connect, which will launch later this year, the company wrote that “a person’s avatar will mirror their exact facial expressions, right down to the same blink rate” in the near future.
A company more concerned with curating a specific visual experience (Epic Games and Fortnite come to mind) might find the results too chaotic, but when Roblox imagines the kind of content it wants on the platform, it’s pretty much everything, everywhere all at once.
To keep them engaged on a platform that outsiders (i.e. parents, people above drinking age) often find strange and inscrutable, Roblox is keen to open pathways to more mature experiences without messing too much with the formula that got it here, quirks and all.
For Roblox, that means developers can use its tools to build high-fidelity experiences that look like AAA games or incorporate thematic content appropriate for 17+ users (romance and a touch more violence!).
The original article contains 1,180 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!