Roblox adds rare, resellable digital items – but they’re not NFTs

It looks like an NFT, it is issued like an NFT, and it resells like an NFT. But alas, there isn’t one.

Roblox, the dominant online gaming platform, recently launched a new class of wearable virtual goods that can be sold in limited quantities by third-party creators, according to a recent company announcement. The items, called Limiteds, can also be resold by Roblox users at any price they choose, with a 10% cut of each secondary sale going to the original creator.

If that sounds a lot like how NFTs work, you’re not alone. Virtual assets that are issued in limited quantities and exploit scarcity to generate profit, yet support creators as they trade hands in the future? That is the promise of NFTs, although enforcement of royalties has eroded in recent months.

There’s only one (big) catch that makes Roblox Limiteds fundamentally different from NFTs, besides the lack of Web3 in the mix: they also can’t leave Roblox.

Roblox Limiteds do not live on the blockchain. Instead, like other items previously issued in the massive game ecosystem in unlimited quantities, they live and die within Roblox’s internal game. Users can only access Roblox-issued in-game virtual assets while playing it.

While that critical difference doesn’t make Roblox Limiteds any different from avatar skins in Roblox or Fortnite, it marks Roblox’s embrace of a more dynamic, NFT-like economic environment where creators and users can exploit scarcity and speculation, a turning point for the hugely popular platform . Roblox reported 67.3 million daily active users February.

“Adding scarcity to our marketplace is a key element in creating healthy market dynamics that benefit creators, buyers and sellers alike,” Roblox said in the announcement.

To reduce the possibility of creators using the new Limiteds category to flood Roblox’s marketplace with countless items to generate quick returns, the company requires creators to put some of their own skin in the game when issuing a limited item or collection .

Creators must pay Roblox an upfront payment that is calculated based on the type of asset sold and the number of items issued. Once an item is sold, this advance payment will be returned to the creator.

Given the well-known Web2 stranglehold that Roblox has on its marketplace, the company’s profit-sharing model for Limiteds sales is significantly less generous than NFT marketplaces.

Consistent with the model used with other Roblox virtual goods, Roblox will take 30% of any first sale of a Roblox Limited, with creators getting 30%, and sellers getting 40%. All sales in the Roblox avatar store are made with Robux, a non-cryptocurrency virtual currency issued by the platform at a rate of 400 Robux for $4.99.

And because Roblox Limiteds aren’t blockchain-backed, Roblox is avatar shop does not show ownership history of virtual items sold in the store. It does, however, track the history of an item’s price over time.

The innovation of Roblox Limiteds all but certainly indicates that the company’s management is paying close attention to the rapidly developing economy of NFT-backed virtual assets used in metaverse games that Decentralized country and The sandbox.

However, developers of these games have long drew a line between the open, interoperable virtual worlds they are trying to bring to the masses – where virtual goods can flow freely between platforms, thanks to the blockchain – and “walled garden” online ecosystems like Roblox and Fortnite, where virtual goods remain trapped on a single platform.

Roblox is not the only Web2 company to embrace popular aspects of NFTs such as digital scarcity without actually using the blockchain.

DSTLRY, a recently revealed digital comics platform, similarly issues limited runs of digital comics that can be resold on the company’s marketplace, with a percentage of each resale benefiting the comic’s creator. But these comics likewise do not live on the blockchain, and therefore cannot move from DSTLRY’s proprietary platform.