Small and medium-sized developers take on the challenge of developing content for Roblox. Approximately one year has passed since the start of the investigation and study.What are the current results? [CEDEC 2024]

On August 23, 2024, at the game developer conference "CEDEC 2024" , a session "Japanese game developers tried developing on the metaverse platform Roblox" was held.

In this session, Samurai Soft's CEO Keisuke Inoue will introduce the environment surrounding Roblox as a metaverse platform and the results of his one-year challenge to develop content for Roblox. did.

Latest trends in existing markets (home use, PC, mobile)

The session first introduced the global game market size in 2022. According to this, the total amount is 26.8 trillion yen, of which mobile games account for 16.15 trillion yen, PC games account for 5.65 trillion yen, and consumer games account for 5 trillion yen. Mr. Inoue pointed out that although the market for mobile games is said to be difficult in Japan, globally they account for 60% of the total and are still the top.

Looking at it by region, of the global market size of 26.8 trillion yen, Japan accounts for just over 2 trillion yen, or only 7.5% of the total. Mr. Inoue commented on the current game industry, saying, ``If we don't look globally and capture the remaining 92.5%, it will be difficult for us as developers.''

Next, it was shown that the global game market is expected to grow by 20 trillion yen over the eight years from 2022 to 2030. Mr. Inoue said, ``On average, it's an attractive market, but the Japanese market will probably remain at the 2 trillion yen level.If things continue like this, the game market as a whole will grow, but Japan will be in a difficult situation, so global We need to develop content that will be accepted,'' he said of his predictions.

Next, the gaming situation for mobile, consumer, and PC in recent years was presented. First of all, in the mobile game market in 2022, the top 20 titles will earn 25% of the total sales of 16 trillion yen, or 4 trillion yen. Mr. Inoue prefaced this by saying, ``This is just a guess,'' and commented that the top 100 titles probably accounted for around 8 trillion to 10 trillion yen. In addition, he pointed out that the initial development costs for some famous titles from overseas can exceed 10 billion yen. "The current situation in Japan is that we will continue to have a difficult time competing head-on."

In the consumer game market in 2022, Nintendo titles will be in the top 10 titles in Japan, while in the US and UK, AAA titles made by large companies will make up most of the top 10 titles. Mr. Inoue said, ``The number of individual consumer game releases will continue to decline,'' suggesting that it will be difficult to survive in this market.

So, what was the PC game market like in 2023? The sales of the top company, Steam, was 1.348 trillion yen. This is approximately 24% of the total PC game sales in 2022 of 5.65 trillion yen mentioned above. However, there are over 50,000 titles currently being distributed on Steam, with over 3,500 new titles being released in the third quarter of 2023 alone, and over 13,000 new titles released annually.

The 13,000 titles released annually include approximately 130 AAA titles and 12,500 indie games. In terms of price, 96% of the products are sold for less than 26 US dollars, or 3000 yen or less. In that case, it would be possible to enter Steam with a PC game created with a development cost of several million yen, but in reality there are 13,000 competing titles, so it's not that easy. Mr. Inoue also pointed out that, based on other KPIs, the goal for recouping is to be within the top 1%.

Considering the recent gaming situation, Mr. Inoue commented, ``Developers like Samurai Soft should choose to challenge new markets other than existing markets.''

Possibilities of the Web3 area (blockchain games, metaverse) In 2023, Mr. Inoue focused on the Web3 area, which was expected to grow by 7.3 trillion yen from 2022 to 2030 and was expected to be a future growth field. Typical content in the Web3 area is blockchain games (NFT games) and metaverses. Comparing the two, it can be seen that each has different challenges: blockchain games have a high cost per customer, but the number of users is small, and Metaverse platforms have a large number of users, but the cost per customer is low. Mr. Inoue said, ``There is a possibility that they will merge in the future and create something like a blockchain game in the metaverse, or vice versa,'' but that by 2024, the two should be treated as separate entities. I expressed my opinion.

Next, the situation surrounding blockchain games and the metaverse in recent years was presented. For details on the situation surrounding blockchain games, please refer to the slides below, but in summary, Mr. Inoue believes that the NFT bubble in 2021 was at its peak. In fact, he also develops and operates blockchain games at Samurai Soft, but he feels it is difficult to attract customers.

Regarding Metaverse platforms, the situation was mainly shown for

"Roblox"
and "Fortnite" . According to the report, Roblox has more than 70 million daily active users (DAU) and more than 300 million monthly active users (MAU). Sales in 2022 will be 328.8 billion yen. On the other hand, "Fortnite" has 44 million DAUs and 70 million MAUs, but its sales are higher than "Roblox."


In this way, both "Roblox" and "Fortnite" have a very large number of users and high sales, so Mr. Inoue thought that there was ample potential for them to participate in the competition for users within the platform.

Metaverse platform selection as of fall 2023

Based on the above, Mr. Inoue began researching and considering participation in "Roblox" and "Fortnite" in the fall of 2023.
As a result, although "Roblox" has high DAU and MAU as mentioned above, it turns out that the average billing amount per unique user is extremely low at 2,850 yen per month. This is due to the fact that nearly 60% of all users are under the age of 16. The ratio of male and female users is almost evenly split, with 33% playing in North America and 29% in Europe.
On the other hand, "Fortnite" has lower DAU and MAU than "Roblox," but 62.7% of users are between 18 and 24 years old, and the average monthly billing amount is correspondingly higher.

Mr. Inoue said that while the main users of both are in their teens to early 20s and have low purchasing power, there are reports that the age group of "Roblox" will be on the rise from 2020 to 2023, and there are Point out that you can expect purchasing power. He also expressed the opinion that most of the users of "Fortnite" are users of the main game, and it is questionable whether it functions as a metaverse platform.

However, apart from such analysis, Samurai Soft is a developer. Therefore, in October 2023, we decided to try developing content for ``Roblox'' and ``Fortnite.'' The development period was one to two weeks, and the number of employees was approximately one planner and two programmers.

As a result of actually developing the content, there was a problem with the version control function of Roblox's development environment, Roblox Studio, but Samurai Soft was able to resolve it independently, so it was not a major problem. . In contrast, the development environment for Fortnite, ``Unreal Editor for Fotnite,'' said that there was little that could be achieved in 2023. Overall, as of the end of 2023, ``Roblox'' had a better development environment and was able to provide a stable development environment, so if Samurai Soft were to participate, it was said that it would be the one.

Taking that decision into account and looking at the sales of "Roblox" again, the total sales including PC, mobile, etc. will be approximately 330 billion yen in 2022. Looking at mobile alone, it was found to be 5th in the world with sales of 130 billion yen, which is actually higher than ``Pokémon GO'' and ``Monster Strike.'' If you decide to release content within "Roblox", you will be competing in such a situation.

On the other hand, Mr. Inoue said that the quality of the content released within "Roblox" did not seem to be very high. He decided that ``content created by Japanese developers can compete well,'' and decided to start developing content for Roblox starting in early 2024.

The reality of content development for “Roblox” In early 2024, Samurai Soft decided to develop content for Roblox, release it on a trial basis, and measure KPIs. The development period was approximately one and a half months, and the team consisted of five people: one director, one planner, and three engineers. He also decided to take the opportunity to make a game with a samurai motif.

And at the end of February,
"Samurai Dark Castle"
was released on "Roblox". This content was a racing game set in a castle at night, but the result was a crushing defeat. However, Mr. Inoue says that there was still something to be gained.

The first thing we discovered was that even in an organic state with no announcements at all, 30 to 40 people played per day, and 264 people played in one week. Mr. Inoue said he was surprised that with MAU reaching 300 million people, 250 users would play the game in a week just by releasing it.

In addition, the users who played the game lived in the United States, Brazil, and Indonesia in descending order. Mr. Inoue expressed his opinion that it was ``probably in descending order of the number of users,'' but said that he was moved to see users coming from all over the world. On the other hand, he also wondered, ``What was it about this game that struck these people?''

It was also found that most of the users who played the game came from searching for "Roblox." In addition, "Roblox" users can play one game in "Roblox" → If they get bored, they can return to the top screen of "Roblox" and search, and see the recommended game introductions that come up → If they find something that sticks I've come to realize that I play around in Roblox all the time, playing it when I see it, then returning to the top screen of Roblox when I get bored of it.

Based on the above, in mid-March, we decided to change the way we create content for Roblox. Specifically, each week we create game names and introductions for at least 10 titles one after another, and measure impressions. Therefore, we will actually develop and release games only if there is a demand for them. In other words, they switched to an approach that is similar to the development process for hyper-casual games, by asking users directly about the pros and cons of the game's concept.

As they continued this approach, they began to see titles with good impressions and high visit rates for game introductions. One of the titles was based on sumo wrestling, so they worked on its development from May to June. The result was a ``Sumo Survival Simulator'' with the concept of ``Sumo x Battle Royale.''

This title also had a clever name. First of all, one of the game genres that are a global hit on Roblox is called ``XX Simulator,'' and it is said that if you include it in the name, it will be more likely to be found in searches. Furthermore, although ``Sumo'' is an easily searched word, there is little competition, and it is easy to rank high in search results. If you use a word with a lot of competition, it may fall to the bottom of the search results and become invisible unless you scroll down, so just because it's popular doesn't mean you can use it lightly.

结果，每天玩《相扑生存模拟器》的用户数量是《武士黑暗城堡》的6.7倍。井上先生表示，在看到这些结果后，他认为自己采取的方法可能并没有那么错误。

然而，仍然存在挑战。比如现在DAU是240人，但是简单计算一下，每小时有10人进入房间，每个人进入房间需要6分钟。另一方面，平均游戏时间为 3 分钟，因此这不适合作为竞技游戏。井上先生表示，至少需要 1,000 个 DAU，并表示，“我担心是否要坚持下去并改进游戏，或者开发另一款会获得大量访问量的游戏。”他还表示，整体的专业知识已经积累起来，还需要继续发展和检验假设，而且可能不容易成功。

会议结束时，井上先生透露，当他四月份申请参加CEDEC 2024时，他认为自己能够“表现出更高的成绩”，并表示如果有机会报仇的话，他热衷于交出一份好的报告。未来。
此外，如上所述，为了在 Roblox 上成功发布内容，可搜索并获得大量印象非常重要，因此对于拥有知名 IP 的发行商来说，这是一个巨大的机会。是。

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