The ROBLOX corporation has started out as a small game company that offered fun and enjoyable 3D sandbox experiences to its clients...now, it is a greedy moloch aimed towards making money off little, dumb kids. I feel ashamed for ROBLOX. I really do.
I think that it is not necessary to discuss why ROBLOX is nowhere near what it used to be, but I will still bring up the most important points.
Demographic change. Yes, making money off little kids is better. But this leads to a majority of the older audience leaving, as a change towards younger players necessarily entrails a severe reduction in the personal freedom of the player. The chat is being butchered. The forums were butchered (the decrease of the age limit was probably done in preparation for an upcoming removal of the forums, everything was planned!). Lifetime BC was butchered (in order to milk parents for their money). Many easy and convenient features were butchered. Every second ROBLOX update does not add but remove. The lowering of the target age means we get little kids, and little kids are toxic, leading to mass punishments of the community, e.g. forum removal.
Monetization. Already mentioned above, but look at what happened in the past 3 years - first, the reduction of BC bonuses, then tickets, price floors, et cetera - soon, ROBLOX will likely add microtransactions and do things like limiting the amount of games playable per day. Why not make ROBLOX Studio a paid program (separate from BC, to make it more inconvenient)?
Ignorance of the community. The ROBLOX Corporation only listens to 1% of their audience, namely the major game developers. Ordinary players are ignored - S&I has become an unmoderated waste dump by 2014. Nothing against developers - but the professionalization of game creation stands in direct conflict with the original idea of ROBLOX! A simple game thrown together in two hours that contains free models and has a title such as "Fall 50.000 Meters For Admin" can be much more fun than a frontpage RPG. But these games were banished from the list of popular places long ago. In order to create and maintain a popular game on ROBLOX, you must now assemble a team and spend a majority of your free time on it. The original idea of ROBLOX was that everybody who desires to do so can create a game - and be it complete garbage, but fun and enjoyable garbage, not the boring and bland, "freemium" or P2W ripoffs of steam games we can see on the modern ROBLOX frontpage.
Lying and deception. Do you know what angered me about the tickets "update" most? The fact that the announcement consisted of fake "arguments", bland lies thrown into my face. I would be glad if ROBLOX would, like any other game developer, honestly say something like "We are out of money and need to remove tickets. Buy ROBUX instead. The more you buy, the higher the chance that tickets will come back." when doing such "updates".
Double standards, praise of perversions. ROBLOX seems to be owned by Hillary Clinton now. It is impossible to say "I am proud to be a caucasian-type christian" without being banned for racism. Roblox is doing an excellent job in promoting diversity and tolerance, except for Christianity. Roblox is trying to do something against online dating, but at the same time not only tolerates but also encourages groups that promote false reproductive orientations and perversions AND CONFRONTS CHILDREN WITH THEM.
Only four points of an endless list. I think that everybody who replies to this will be able to bring up at least 10 examples of wrong and nonsensical decisions and "updates" ROBLOX did.
I do not know if ROBLOX has already jumped off the cliff, but if there is still a chance for the survival of the platform, everybody who sees this and is interested in the further persistence of ROBLOX must take immediate action by boycotting the game, trying to message the criminal "developers" of ROBLOX and just leaving if nothing works. Maybe a playerbase drain will teach them.
If nothing is done, the following will happen until 2020, according to my prediction. Just a note, I joined ROBLOX in 2012 and was banned (e.g. silenced) last year for trying to spread the truth on the ROBLOX forums.
Removal or drastic limitation of the "groups" feature.
Monetization of game creation, making ROBLOX studio paid.
Further increase of BC prices; addition of weekly subscriptions.
Removal of classic ROBLOX aesthetics - in an update that will add more features to (now-paid) studio, Robloxian 1.0 and 2.0 will quietly pass.
Complete removal of chat or return of mandatory safechat.
Complete transistion to P2P or a more severe "freemium" in which the selection of games will be limited and adding new games to the list of playable ones will cost money.
TLDR: ROBLOX is going to turn into an "online social hangout for kids with games created and curated by professional developers" operating on a "freemium" (e.g. "As long as you won't pay for temporary extra "perks", we will nag you and limit your experience.") model.
This will lead to a reduction in the player base soon. Even without my post, thousands of players are deciding to leave ROBLOX every day. Soon, the amount of account abandonings will outnumber that of new account creations, and ROBLOX will fall into a severe financial crisis, possibly going bankrupt.
Please, please, do anything to save ROBLOX. If it still can be saved.
Just as a note: I used to own LIFETIME OBC until I was banned (and am not playing ROBLOX anymore). I am not a "NBC ranter" and very well favour BC privileges.
RIP ROBLOX.
If you want to read more and/or discuss and contribute, go to the new subreddit I made for the purpose of criticizing ROBLOX and the criminal cartel behind it. Mostly consists of crossposts right now, but I hope that some original content will be added soon.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RobloxCriticism/
