Dave is the CEO and founder of Roblox, and here is the audio, video, and transcript. From the episode summary:
With more than 100 million daily active users and booking an estimated $7 billion in revenue this year, it’s one of the largest gaming economies in the world—and one that’s made millionaires out of young developers in Argentina, South Korea, and everywhere in between.
Tyler and Dave explore why Roblox decided early on against prioritizing advertising revenue, why Dave thinks Roblox’s main competition is its kill speed instead of Fortnite, whether the entire mega platform is becoming an app for everything, how falling token costs will change the platform, why he insists that all games on Roblox are good, even if Roblox should have a replacement ratio of less than 3 to be a competitive advantage, why he doubts a blanket ban on social media, what her son’s bipolar disorder taught her about metabolic health, her two-year inter-company sabbatical that included a cross-North American road trip and an ongoing talk radio show in Santa Cruz, why Mutiny on the Bounty It remains one of his favorite books, his next read, and many more.
Quote:
COWEN: What percentage of your games now do you feel are good?
BASZUCKI: Everything.
COWEN: Some just look normal. They might be fun, but I wouldn’t call them beautiful, right?
BASZUCKI: Well, I was trying to get a few levels out of the box you have there. The reason I feel they’re great is when you say that, I quickly went to look and feel, but then I tried to imagine a 12 or 18 or 30 year old struggling to create something amazing and human connection in those games. By that definition, I think they are all good. All efforts are created by real people who are trying to pour their hearts out to make something that other people love to play.
On an artistic basis, I guess you could ask me what percentage of paintings in MoMA I think are good. I would say 20 percent. If I had to look at 1,000 Roblox games, I wouldn’t say which is the best for me because I think that is less important than the work from the heart of all the creators.
COWEN: I’ve been struck when watching sports that people don’t seem to care much about the visual beauty of their games. I would have expected something different, say, 15 years ago, and they just wanted a game that involved them in some way. Conventional standards of visual beauty seem to have fallen. Is that wrong? Can you fix that idea somehow?
BASZUCKI: I think you are right. What I feel you could describe is actually, if we look at other disciplines, the evolution of the story from fire to audio writing to film, and the increasing fidelity; all those stories, in one way or another, are good, but at the same time, for many creators, it may be that writing is easier than producing a 4K Hollywood movie. I feel like that’s a little bit like the metaphor you’re talking about right now in the game.
For many, many people, their story or their idea of their game is really good. Regardless of the fashion game like Dress to Impress or it’s a growing garden game, the games are undeniably beautiful, even if they don’t look photorealistic. What I think we’ll see, over time, as AI helps accelerate the ability to make games look really polished in whatever style the creator wants—whether it’s photorealistic, whether it’s anime, whether it’s the look of Warner Brothers 2D animation—you and I might say that looks great, but the core game is still some original game. I think we’re going to see games that are undoubtedly very good looking, or I think they’re all good.
The conversation takes a while to get going, but there are many interesting parts.
