There are a lot of games available to play on the Roblox platform. I ran a quick Google search to find out how many and there are literally tens of millions of different games to choose from. These range from titles that have hardly ever been played to the titans of the platform that attract millions of players.
It is these titans that I want to explore in this series of articles. I want to find out what they are about in order to try and get an insight into what makes them so popular. This isn’t to say that I think these games are the best games on Roblox, that is purely objective, but these games are obviously doing something right to attract so many players.
The first game up for discussion is Adopt Me by DreamCraft which at the time of writing had almost 600,000 people playing the game.
Adopt Me at its core is a roleplaying game where the player can take on the role of either a parent or baby. Families can be formed and there are numerous activities that you all take part in including going to the park, camping or a trip to the beach.
The parent is also tasked with taking care of various needs for the baby including making sure they get food, water, cleaned and kept entertained. Once a need is taken care of the player is rewarded with a cash bonus which can be spent on items within the game. As the game has grown new features have been added and you can now decorate your own house, edit your avatar and perhaps most significantly you can own pets.
The pets are significant and seem to have taken over most of what Adopt Me is about. My six-year-old son can’t go more than ten minutes without telling me what pet he wants to get next in the game and the YouTube content he watches is all about the game.
Thes addition of pets triggers the collector in its players and lots of players spend most of their time in-game trading with others in order to obtain their dream pets. The pets have also increased the level of monetization within the game. Players can use Robux (bought with real-life money) to buy animal eggs that have a greater chance of hatching a pet of greater rarity. You can then improve your pet even further by making it ridable or giving it the ability to fly, it costs even more Robux to unlock these features. There are lots of items that can be obtained without spending Robux but the temptation is always there to increase your odds by spending real money.
The big success of the game has also lead to a black market appearing. Sadly there are people out there who are trying to scam players out of their hard-earned pets or items with the intention of selling them on eBay for real-life profits. I’ve seen pets for sale for up to £70.00
Another part of the success of Adopt Me has to be the regular weekly updates where new content is added. There are also numerous limited time events such as the recent Scooby-Doo tie in and the current Monkey Fairground.
To sum up, Adopt Me is a game that has far outgrown its original role-playing roots. There are still people who play the game in this way but from my own experiences, within the game, it is now firmly centred around the pets. I would say it’s also a game aimed at the younger gamer so whilst it’s fine to let your younger children play make sure they can’t purchase Robux without your permission!
