The Roblox You Don't Know

Recently I was asked to give a demo and tour of the side of Roblox that is off the radar of many in the virtual world and metaverse spaces: the side with higher quality and fidelity than what is etched in people's minds.
Roblox, a platform where users can create worlds, games, and experiences, was launched in 2006, with a primitive LEGO brick-style interface that appealed to a younger crowd than other virtual worlds of that time.
Second Life, founded a few years earlier, had a higher-quality experience combined with a seamless world that focused on immersion. The tools were easy to use and anyone could make anything. Second Life also had a value proposition of enabling creators to control the permissions of objects and to offer them for sale using the in-world currency, Linden Dollars.
At some point, the paths diverged. Second Life– still with a thriving, profitable community today– has only recently jumped to mobile and remains a desktop application. Roblox, on the other hand, is playable on desktops, mobile, and consoles of all major platforms. The differences are the way the experiences are connected/disconnected and the creation mechanism. Roblox has a separate studio app, whereas Second Life's creation takes place in-world on hosted land that has become prohibitively expensive over the years.
Without further ado, let's go on a trip.




A variety of higher quality, user-generated builds.
Oftentimes, there are experiences labeled 'showcases', where creators work on creating a work of digital immersive art. They may or may not have game elements in them. Some can be educational, others meditational. My personal favorite pictured above is a working replica of the Montparnasse derailment of 1895, where I was able to ride the train before it derailed out the window of the train station.





A few more examples of deeply immersive Roblox worlds.
With a different style of multimedia support, Roblox supports sounds and music to achieve immersion, but can lack the familiar streaming parcel concept so popular and widely used in Second Life. Concerts in 3D spaces existed long before Fortnite and Roblox, contrary to the marveling of greener tech journalists newer to the virtual world space.


Taking a moment on a dark Korean street.
I fully appreciate being able to experience these worlds on whichever platform I choose. While my own projects started in Second Life 20 years ago, they continue to utilize the uniquely frictionless environment that I can use as a endless sandbox.





Skateboarding is never a crime digitally. Vans World.




Tim Hortons and Chipotle
I love hockey and I love Tim Horton's and in the Tim Horton experience, I can almost do both. Skating around, practicing shots, lamenting there is no Timmy's within driving distance. Chipotle had a haunted experience (and there are jokes to be made here).



Go for a drive.
I can't recall if this was a specific brand or just a generic racing environment– I believe the latter– but as someone who enjoys the racing genre, the experience of driving in Roblox feels far superior to me than in Second Life, as I do not have to deal with border crossings that are powered by servers in potentially different states. The cars just move.





Purina and Alo

Walmart's experience was as overwhelming as Walmart itself, except, snow!
There is space for many platforms, whether mobile, desktop, or console (or VR) and the purpose of this post is to highlight unexpected surprises that exist the vast Roblox ocean of Squid Game, Poppy Playtime, or Sirenhead knockoffs. And regardless of anyone's favorite platform, the era of creators is far from over as a younger generation grows with them and continues to build.