Text | Chopped pepper TMT, author | flashlight
"I started playing Robles around July, before and after the charge of 2000, originally the whole platform open, and then suddenly shut down, the official said refund, but I did not receive." "Children in the homework assigned by the teacher to play with the mobile phone, today when looking at WeChat change found that every day is dozens, hundreds of no, check the recharge order only to find that it is charged more than 1,600." "Robles National Service Test Suit Deletion Refund December 8 to December 19, the recharge money has not been refunded."
Searching for "Robles" on the black cat complaint platform, there are 44 user complaints, most of which are related to "applying for a refund / withdrawal is not in the account". According to users, Robles, who previously said that "the whole platform is open", "issued a notice at 2 p.m. on December 8 to delete the file and close the service at 23:59 p.m.", and there was no timely refund. Most of the above complaints are in the state of reply and completion. Tencent Games' reply to this has led players to Tencent customer service. According to the webpage prompt, the "completed" of the black cat complaint platform refers to the default state that the user has not made further operations after the past 30 days since the merchant replied.
Source: Black Cat Complaint
In the comment area, other users also asked whether the refund had arrived, but did not get a reply from the initiator of the complaint.
Seeing this, most players can't help but ask, what happened to Robles?
Roblox's path to Localization in China is not easy
Launched in 2004, Roblox is the world's largest community of multiplayer online creative sandbox games, with 42.1 million daily active users in 2021. The game includes the user-made game tool platform Studio and Roblox game platform, the biggest feature is that users can recreate their own game world in the virtual world, which is popular among foreign young players. With the popularity of overseas games, Roblox has also started the pace of internationalization.
On May 29, 2019, Roblox and Tencent officially announced the launch of a localized Robles specially designed for Chinese mainland users. Tencent, as the publisher of Roblox China, has established a joint venture with Roblox to take charge of operations in China. Among them, Roblox holds 51% of the shares and Tencent holds 49%. However, Roblox's path to Localization in China is not easy. On July 13, 2021, the beta version of the national service of "Robles" was launched, and the "deletion test ended" before December 9, and the online period was less than half a year. Officials said that they would "continue to optimize the product" after that. Such a short online time, so that domestic players have not formed a more extensive understanding of it. People engaged in game development and game planning said that "Robles" is not highly discussed in the game circle, and they do not know enough about it. Within the game group, most players said they hadn't been exposed to it, and some players would confuse Robles with Minecraft, which is also a sandbox game. Compared with Roblox, the beta version of Roblox's national costume has some gameplay and content that is limited due to regulation and censorship. According to the B station game area Up main "AGamer92" video, the screenshot of the beta version of "Robles" national service is online and the notice of the customs service is as follows.
According to the Owner of Up, Robles gave players 3 points of compensation before the end of the deletion test, including receiving a limited set, exclusive gifts, and a 50% Robb reward after the official non-censorship version was launched.
In addition, the Up owner said that Tencent did indeed achieve a full refund to players. But for the gamer, the deletion of the hard-earned game data is indeed a disaster. This may be the reason why at the beginning of the article, users are still emotionally dissatisfied after the complaint is handled. There is no official statement on the reason why the platform did not hesitate to delete the file and stop the service.
For the introduction of overseas games, domestic supervision has become stricter. As early as 2020, the state had introduced a policy of "banning global service". According to game publishers close to Rob Ross, the release of overseas games in China requires attention to various comprehensive factors, including version numbers, content review, data security, basic inability to share overseas services, the background of the developer, and the need to cooperate with a local game publisher. Among them, content review is mainly in line with the mainstream cultural values of the country, as well as keyword screening, etc., and data security is also a big issue that needs to be paid attention to. The above factors, for Tencent, which has rich experience in domestic game operations, have long been included in the scope of early consideration. Industry insiders believe that in terms of market strategy, in the early stage of cooperation with Robles, Tencent saw the high growth of Robles' overseas users and the model of "young users + UGC".
According to people in the game circle, under the domestic supervision, a complete UGC model is unlikely, and the path of PUGC is relatively feasible.
Some insiders speculate that after the deletion of Robles National Service, the next step will be to adapt to the localization supervision and launch an iterative version.
Earnings were poor, with Roblox going from "looking to the money" to "looking forward"
The most important reason why Robles has received widespread attention is that its parent company Roblox, once as the "first stock of the metaverse", soared in 2021 and boosted the popularity of the metacosmonic concept.
However, according to Roblox's earnings report released last week, the U.S. company's performance in the fourth quarter of 2021 fell short of market expectations. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Roblox revenue was $569 million, an increase of 83% year-over-year, well below the market Wall Street's expectation of $772 million; net loss attributable to shareholders was $0.25, exceeding Wall Street's expectation of $0.14. Due to the poor performance of the earnings report, Roblox shares closed down 26.51% on the day of the earnings report. As of the close of trading on Feb. 18, EST, Roblox shares were trading at $49.71, down more than 60 percent from an all-time high of $141.6. Roblox's "Roblox" game platform is a kind of sandbox game. On this platform, everyone can be a player, can also be a game developer, players through the Roblox Studio game development platform to develop the game, published to mobile phones, tablets, game consoles and other devices, to achieve the player with an independent virtual ID, the virtual world to create and interact. The reason why it is called "the first stock of the metaverse" is because Roblox wrote the concept of "metacosmity" for the first time in the prospectus submitted at the end of 2020, and listed the 8 characteristics of the metacosmonic concept, namely independent identity, social friends, high immersion, low latency, diversity, anytime, anywhere, economic system, and civilization.
Roblox Metaverse Source: Roblox Prospectus
Industry insiders said that at present, the market has not clearly defined the metacosm, and it is more conceptual. Roblox defined himself with the "metacosm", gave an explanation of his own, and eventually sparked a carnival in the capital markets.
As the "first stock in the meta-universe", the financial report performed poorly for two reasons.
First, the continuous expansion of the scale of business has increased the company's costs. Roblox acquired online communication platform Guilded in August 2021, spending $90 million in cash and stock. The company not only has a large user base in the IM space, but is also known for focusing on competitive games. With this acquisition, Roblox intends to expand its user base. In addition, Roblox has made multiple mergers and acquisitions in 2021, including companies such as Humen.ai and Bash Video. Some of the acquired companies are still in the red, further dragging down Roblox's earnings report, which increased net loss attributable to non-controlling interests from $4.437 million to $11.829 million in fiscal 2021, according to the earnings report. On the other hand, the easing of the epidemic has led to a slowdown in growth; at a time when most industries are affected by the epidemic and struggling on the brink of life and death, the game industry is thriving and ushering in a glorious period, and Roblox is one of the beneficiaries. However, in the post-epidemic era, the development of the residential economy has slowed down, the growth of user time has tended to be flat, and the easing of the epidemic has led to a slowdown in growth. Roblox's user and engagement growth in the fourth quarter of 2021 was primarily driven by international expansion and user growth 13 years and older, with negative growth in the U.S. and Canadian market for the first time. In the second half of 2021, some YouTube users said that Robles had been removed from the shelves because of the lack of child protection mechanisms and the problem of child users being deceived.
In 2021, some media outlets, including People Make Games, surveyed the company's business model, suggesting that the platform has problems such as under-sharing of developer revenue, exploitation of children, and lack of necessary protections for underage users.
In its shareholder letter, Roblox identified three key goals, namely to expand international markets, attract older users, and expand the application breadth of the platform, and said that it is more focused on long-term value creation.
In terms of expanding the international market, the launch of a localized game platform in China and Tencent is also an important step for Robles. The suspension and deletion of "Robles" also had a certain impact on its parent company Roblox.
At the same time, industry insiders also believe that the platform's profitability is less than expected. Deleting files and suspending services means closing its revenue platform, and refunds and compensation for players are also an expense. Under multiple factors, overseas players' enthusiasm for Roblox's participation is still undiminished. This is due to the user base of Robles, whose founder Dave Baszucki started with edtech. Since the establishment of Roblox in 2004, from education and tutoring to game entertainment has even influenced two generations, there is a relatively solid user base, while there is no such mature game ecology in China. Driven by long-term goals, Roblox continued to collaborate on multiple parties to raise awareness. On February 9, Roblox announced a partnership with the NFL to expand the reach of the meta-universe through NFL TYCOON EXPERIENCE, after which the company also cooperated with Sony Music and Warner Music to increase the visibility of the platform.
Roblox need to stick to long-termism
1 in 4 people will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse. Gartner predicts at a third-party research organization that this vision will happen in 2026. Working, shopping, studying, making friends, and having fun in the metaverse may become the way of life of the future. And in early 2022, the development of the metacosm is still a bit far from this vision. At present, the meta-universe infrastructure technology is still in the industrial layout stage, and the development of the meta-universe infrastructure is not perfect. Corresponding regulatory policies are also being formulated, requiring attention to the network security issues of data interoperability and content review.
On February 18, the Office of the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on the Disposal of Illegal Fund-raising issued the "Tips on Preventing the Risks of Illegal Fund-raising in the Name of "Metacosm"" on the 18th. The tip pointed out that recently, some lawbreakers have rubbed hot spots, absorbed funds in the name of "meta-universe investment projects" and "meta-universe chain tourism", and are suspected of illegal fund-raising, fraud and other illegal and criminal activities, including fabricating false meta-universe investment projects, defrauding under the banner of meta-universe blockchain games, maliciously speculating on meta-universe real estate circles, and engaging in meta-universe virtual currency illegal profits in disguise.
On the basis of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission's issuance of risk warnings to prevent illegal fund-raising in the name of "Meta-Universe", on the same day, the stock price of Hong Kong-stock Yuan-Universe concept stocks plunged, with Kuaishou falling nearly 5%, SenseTime falling 3.75%, Bilibili falling 3.2%, and Bubble Mart falling 2.5%.
In an interview with the media, some experts have compared the meta-universe industry at this time with artificial intelligence. Experts said that the metaverse is still in the conceptual cognition period, everyone's enthusiasm for new concepts in the early stage is often impulsive, it should be noted that the industry landing requires time and patience. "A few years ago, artificial intelligence also encountered a similar situation to today's metaverse, and as a result, the industry cannot quickly reach the level that everyone imagines, so now there is disappointment, but rationally speaking, artificial intelligence is now slowly growing up and beginning to apply." Whether it is the twists and turns of Robles' development, or the financial performance of the "first stock of the meta-universe" is less than expected, it is undoubtedly cooling the meta-universe. At present, the popularity of related topics has also receded, and the meta-universe game platform and related industries need to pay more attention to how to land and long-term development, and the capital will be more rational. After all, ushering in the new Internet era is undoubtedly a marathon.