(2020-06-15) Embracing The Metaverse Robloxs Ambitious Vision For Building Online Worlds

Embracing the metaverse: Roblox’s ambitious vision for building online worlds. Creators within the Roblox community published some 20 million experiences to the platform last year. Many of these are games, including murder mysteries, restaurant simulators and tower defense titles. But in other instances, the lines between gaming and social experiences are less defined

Craig Donato, Roblox's chief business officer, explained how his company wants to help build this metaverse, how Roblox usage has changed during the coronavirus pandemic, and how it's often easier for young people to hang out together in the digital world rather than the physical world

We have something called private servers, which enables you to play in one of our worlds, but it's only with people you know

Coincidentally, at the very start of COVID, we had our own version of the Oscar awards. We had over 6 million people show up for that event in March.

there are certain companies that have a vision for this digital place where people go and do things with other people. Something they're calling the metaverse now. Epic with Fortnite is heading in that direction. Minecraft is in that direction. Facebook, to a certain extent, is in there with Horizon. There are certainly companies that have that same aspiration as us, but we all attack it differently based on our own personal view of the world.

What the internet is for information, the metaverse is going to do for social connections.

if you have a metaverse, it has to start to evolve the constructs of a society. We need to think about rules of order. What's allowed, what's not allowed? How are those rules enforced, and are they aligned with real-world laws? What happens in different countries? (Rule Of Law, governance)

You also need to have an integrated economy. You need to make sure that people can make a living. We have our own currency, Robux, and we have our own economy.

kids, they've got an after-school activity that's led by an adult. They come home, they've got two to three hours of homework. And when do they actually have time to hang out with their friends? It's in the evening, and they're popping into Roblox. I think the lives that kids live today, they're finding that venue for unstructured hangout time, it's easier for them to do it in the digital world than in the physical world.