<em>Hamilton</em>-Themed Crossover Roblox Experience Yet to Gain Mass User Growth - Here's How It Still Can

[To the tune of "Guns and Ships":]

How does a metaverse platform in need of a shower
Somehow become a global superpower?
How do we emerge from the Age Cliff quagmire
Leave the virtual world waving stock prices higher?

Yo, turns out we have a secret weapon
A Broadway brand you know and love, that's unafraid to step in

He's constantly confusin', confoundin' the OpenAI henchmen
Everyone give it up for NASDAQ's favorite fighting Builderman!

While Roblox now has 300 million monthly active users, about the population of the United States of America, it's still striving to diversify the demographics of its user base, about 75% of whom are under the age of 17. Roblox is actively confronting the dreaded Metaverse Age Cliff*, one of two key challenges to mass adoption (see below).

One possible solution: Import a ridiculously popular Broadway musical about the founding of the United States of America:

In the Hamilton Simulator, players use their own avatars as they rub shoulders with the musical’s characters and negotiate through 10 levels set during the Revolutionary War. It starts at the New York docks and the goal is to free the city from British yoke. Appropriately, the music-filled game requires no real money from players.

The game has the blessing of writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose blockbuster musical charts the rise and fall of statesman Alexander Hamilton and stresses his orphan, immigrant roots as well as his near-Greek tragedy of a fall.

Click here to start making redcoats redder with bloodstains.

Hamilton is actually an ideal IP to bridge the Metaverse Age Cliff, since the Broadway play is already popular with people across many generations, beginning with teenage theater kids, all the way up to Barack Obama.

Since launching last Friday, however, the Hamilton Simulator's audience numbers have actually been pretty mid: According to RoMonitor stats (see screengrab below), it's only attracted less than 500,00 visits:

Roblox's active user base is so large, hit experiences tend to draw millions of users at launch.

By point of contrast, for instance, my book features a Roblox experience called Starving Artists — co-created by someone who, like Hamilton, is from the Caribbean. (LAGurlz, now 21 and originally from Jamaica.) Since launching last year, Starving Artists has been visited over 320 million times.

On a quick visit of Hamilton Simulator, I can see some of the problem with user engagement:

The first-time user experience plops the player in the middle of Boston Harbor, with a golden arrow that points you to… buy stuff. (With Hamilton's secondary currency, not Robux). Along the way, you pass a sign offering you a Hamilton currency reward… in exchange for Liking the experience.

Ironically, Hamilton the Broadway play has been accused of being neoliberal, i.e. celebrating market mechanics or civic/community engagement. So it's a bit odd to made the Roblox version so aggressively neoliberal from the jump.

But politics aside, I think a better orientation on-ramp would make Hamilton in Roblox more successful. Most young Roblox players are likely only somewhat aware of the Hamilton play (let alone, you know, American history), so a first-time experience which gradually draws players into the gameplay and introduces the overall goal — drive the British imperialists from our shores! — would greatly encourage retention.

Googling around, I see very little engagement with the experience by Roblox YouTubers. I would absolutely get a well-known streamer to play the experience live, and walk viewers through the initial gameplay. Ideally play it live on Twitch or YouTube with Lin-Manual Miranda or another cast member.

Hopefully we see moves like this in future updates, because it's a great crossover opportunity, and a chance to give Roblox a more mature brand refresh.

*More on the Metaverse Age Cliff from my book:

Only a subset of people show highly active interest in regularly interacting in 3D game worlds and experiences; most of them are people in their teens and early 20s.

[This isn't] based on a disinterest in video games per se. Every smartphone owner is almost by definition a gamer on some level, and the number of smartphone gamers is estimated in 2022 at around 2 billion people. However, most of these mobile gamers do not prefer highly immersive experiences with first-person 3D graphics and enveloping stereophonic audio optimized for earphones, but casual 2D games, designed to be played in short, blooping, time-killing bursts.

This is true despite the fact that metaverse platforms and immersive 3D experiences are hardly new concepts. World of Warcraft, the first US-based MMO to gain active users in the many millions, was launched in 2004; Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the immersive sandbox game intended for an adult audience, was launched that same year and went on to sell nearly 30 million copies. In nearly every case, however, the player base for these titles almost always ages out.

You can see this in Metaversed’s 2023 Q1 age profile, with the sharp cliff or steep hill hitting at age 13, and just 3% in the 25+ cohort:

I suspect Metaversed’s estimate is a bit too bearish, and that it’s likely 10-20% of total active metaverse platform users are 25 and above. But even then, usage still rapidly declines into users’ 30s, 40s, and beyond.

“Roblox still has not crossed the age gap yet,” as acclaimed game designer Jenova Chen tells me. “People seem to just retire and graduate to Fornite after they reach 12 years old because you leave your middle school to high school — it's like, "Oh, you're still playing that game? That's not cool anymore.’"

amzn_assoc_tracking_id = &amp;amp;amp;quot;newwornot-20&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_ad_mode = &amp;amp;amp;quot;manual&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_ad_type = &amp;amp;amp;quot;smart&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_marketplace = &amp;amp;amp;quot;amazon&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_region = &amp;amp;amp;quot;US&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_design = &amp;amp;amp;quot;enhanced_links&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_asins = &amp;amp;amp;quot;1394155816&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_placement = &amp;amp;amp;quot;adunit&amp;amp;amp;quot;;
amzn_assoc_linkid = &amp;amp;amp;quot;09778d9a32dae1475f81139abdba7c70&amp;amp;amp;quot;;

Infographic via Metaversed.