Data firm NewZoo’s annual PC and console gaming report reveals an interesting fact about Roblox and Minecraft players: They’re far less likely to engage with popular AAA titles like Ghost of Yotei or Assassin’s Creed: Shadows because they aren’t too picky about realistic, lifelike graphics in games.
“I think there’s been a shift in the last 10 years where the idea of chasing graphics has kind of faded and now you see the most popular games on the planet are not the most graphically high-fidelity games,” NewZoo director of consulting Ben Porter explained at GDC (via gamesindustry.biz).
Per Porter, Roblox is leading the pack when it comes to massively popular but visually underwhelming games.
“We saw that [Roblox’s] playtime grew around 50% year over year, which is huge,” Porter explained. “A lot of that was driven by experiences like Steal a Brainrot and Grow a Garden, which are very viral things.”
For the uninitiated, Porter is referring to two popular games created by Roblox players (though a Steal a Brainrot mod exists for Minecraft, too).
But if Roblox and Minecraft players aren’t getting into AAA titles with breathtaking graphics, what are they playing? The answer, it seems, is mostly other popular multiplayer titles.
“When we look at that, we see that Roblox and Minecraft players are playing a lot of the other really big top-10 live-service games,” Porter said.
Per NewZoo’s data, Fortnite takes the lead with a 55% overlap with Roblox players and a 46% overlap with Minecraft players. GTA 5 is in second place (28% overlap with Roblox, 25% overlap with Minecraft), followed by Call of Duty (26% overlap with Roblox, 22% overlap with Minecraft).
Of course, Roblox and Minecraft players do play other games, they’re just less likely to engage with single-player blockbusters.
“There’s a theory that these folks then drop out and play single-player experiences and then they go back to their live service experiences,” Porter continued. “And to some extent that is true, but what we find is that Roblox players underindex in what a lot of the industry would consider very ‘traditionally good games.'”
According to Porter, a Roblox player is 0.4 times as likely to play Monster Hunter Wilds compared to the average, non-Roblox-playing gamer.
“This is specifically for PlayStation and Xbox,” Porter said of the Monster Hunter example.
Console titles that Minecraft players are less likely to try out include games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which just earned a whopping 12 nominations at this year’s BAFTA Games Awards.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Roblox and Minecraft players are totally unwilling to try other titles.
“We do see that certain experiences like Gang Beasts, Among Us, and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator–people playing Roblox overindex in those,” Porter said. “They’re still a relatively small component, but they do get attracted to those games, which look a lot like the types of experiences that you might have within Roblox itself.”
The lack of preference for games with high graphical fidelity is definitely evident in Roblox’s playerbase, which is currently in an uproar over Roblox’s recent announcement that it plans to retire static, un-animated faces, and replace all of them with what are known in-game as Dynamic Faces.
“As a developer, you can’t really change what the Roblox audience likes, but I think it is important to be aware of this pattern,” he continued. “Especially because these are oftentimes younger players, this is their first experience within gaming, and that might set preferences for years to come.”
