ROBLOX's frequent monetization: Are they becoming greedy?

As everyone knows, ROBLOX claims it’s free to 
play. But is this true? With update after costly update, ROBLOX seems to be getting more into having people spending money. To find out, I’ve compiled this list of reasons that ROBLOX is greedy and that ROBLOX is not greedy. (Personally, I think they aren’t greedy at all)

1. Builder’s Club: One of the most known features of ROBLOX is Builder’s Club. By spending just a few dollars a month, you can get a huge account upgrade. So why is this such a big deal, especially since it’s optional? It’s because a lot of features require Builder’s Club. But still, you get total access to developing games. You get a place to edit, you can even expand it to several places with the universes feature, you can create developer products, game passes, and tons of other things. Besides that, you get to play at least 99.9% of games on ROBLOX! You also get a customizable character, messaging, advertising, groups, and more! So this one is going to the “Not Greedy” section
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2. Paid Access: Here’s another feature that had a huge number of protests. Supposedly, ROBLOX introducing Paid Access meant that if you wanted to play games, you had to PAY twenty five or more Robux to play it, which is almost impossible for NBC’ers to earn. Except it isn’t. If an NBC’er sold a gamepass, or saved up for a long time, or got a lot of visits, it would actually be easy to play the game. Plus, almost no games on ROBLOX are actually permanently Paid Access. Most of the time it’s just during testing, or beta, or if it’s a work in progress. Even if all the Paid Access games were going to be that way forever, there’s still millions of other games play. So why get hung up on a select few? Plus, something that’s worth mentioning, NBC’ers can also use Paid Access! So this one is also going to “Not Greedy”
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3. Price Floor: Now this one is a tough choice. In early 2014, ROBLOX released a price floor update that limited how low you could price clothing. There used to be thousands of decent shirts available for one ticket or one Robux. Not anymore. The new lowest price is two robux and twenty tickets for t-shirts and 10 robux and a hundred tickets for shirts and pants. But is this really a big difference? If an NBC player logged in two days in a row, they could buy the shirt. Granted, in the beginning, ROBLOX set the floor at ten robux and a hundred tickets for t-shirts (which is ten days, for those of you doing the math) and 25 robux for shirts and pants (25 days), so that actually deserved an outrage. Doing this was for three reasons: Raising quality of items, rewarding sellers, and incentivizing robux. Yes, ROBLOX did in fact mention in the blog article that they were trying to get ROBLOXia to buy Robux. Which is understandable, considering that ROBLOX is a legitimate business trying to make it easier for kids of all ages to develop games. I mean, if you have to buy a couple robux for FIVE DOLLARS, or if you need builders club which is SIX DOLLARS A MONTH, is it really that big a deal? I heard from my uncle who works at Disney that his 3-D modeling software alone costs upwards of THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Still think the price floor is an outrage? Sorry, this one is going to the “Not Greedy”.

So that’s all I can come up with right now. In the end, The result is ROBLOX is not greedy under any circumstances. Did I miss something? Do you think I was unfair? Message me on ROBLOX if you think so, and I might get enough new material to write a second article. See you round!


-ChipioIndustries, Saturday 8/9/2014


[Editor's Note: Good job, Chipio! You've done great. However, only you applied for the contest. Come on guys, don't be afraid to join in next time!]