My first draft of ROBLOX vs Minecraft was half rant, half article. The reason is because I just wanted to get my opinion out. This is an actual article that explains everything :P.
Today I will discuss another huge fight over the web, Minecraft vs ROBLOX. After doing a lot of research on Minecraft, and running a ROBLOX and Minecraft gameplay summer camp, I was surprised to find out that ROBLOX and Minecraft are too different to be comparable. This is surprising because I thought people were smarter than to compare 2 games just because they have building in them, but that’s pretty much the story of it lol.
Since I like ROBLOX more, I will explain what ROBLOX is first. ROBLOX is an online platform where you can create your own place or video game and share it. In ROBLOX you can create anything, you even create the floor. You build and script the whole game from scratch. ROBLOX uses an altered language of the programming language Lua to allow users to create their own games. Many say that it is not at all like regular Lua or any other language, but I have to disagree. It is pretty much regular Lua minus the file manipulating functions for security purposes obviously, plus object orientation. Lua is not an object orientent language, but ROBLOX is, since there are MANY more objects in ROBLOX than the plastic building bricks that you see in ROBLOX games. There are over a hundred different objects, which you can see in the Basic Objects Panel in ROBLOX Studio.
ROBLOX Studio is a program used for creating ROBLOX games. It takes a lot of practice to get good at, and the better you get at building and scripting, the more stuff you can create. Lots of Minecraft players argue that in ROBLOX everything is “handed to you” whereas in Minecraft you have to find the materials to create stuff. Anyone who says this obviously doesn’t understand the point of ROBLOX, which is to create your own game. On ROBLOX, you can create a game where you get materials to build stuff, just like Minecraft. You can even create Minecraft on ROBLOX, as shown with the ROBLOX game Skyblox (http://www.roblox.com/Skyblox-Fixed-Game-place?id=31434905).
Now lets talk about Minecraft. Minecraft is a survival game where you have to create stuff using different materials that come in block form such as Grass, Cobblestone, and Gravel, to create things to defend yourself from monsters. To me, this is the main game of Minecraft, and not creating stuff like in ROBLOX. However, there are mods in Minecraft, which are modifications to the Minecraft game that you can have, which do have scripting in Java I think. However, you are still just modifying Minecraft, all the servers are still mining stuff to survive monsters, and there is no other “game” besides that. With ROBLOX, you can create any game.
Users say that Minecraft is a lot cheaper than ROBLOX. This is a totally inaccurate statement. Minecraft costs $20 to start, and ROBLOX is free to start playing and building/scripting. ROBLOX has upgrades to your account, which costs money. It costs $6 per month of the cheapest Builders Club (the premium membership) subscription. This sounds like a lot at first, but it’s only 20 cents per day. Most kids can earn more than $6 a month helping their parents out with stuff. It is very cheap overall.
Also, in Minecraft, it is a complete hassle if you want to play online with your friends, because you have to not only spend money on, but also set up your own server. Me and my dad have been trying to do this for a while, and it is VERY hard. ROBLOX hosts their own servers FOR FREE. This is why the Builders Club is priced this way. Probably any lower, and ROBLOX can’t afford their servers, which costs a lot more than you think if you think they are cheap.
I am not trying to say ROBLOX is better. What I am trying to say, is that they are too different to be compared. Minecraft is a game, and ROBLOX is more like a game creating platform. Sure you can build stuff in both, that does not make them comparable. I overall like ROBLOX more, because you can create literally anything, not sure if you can in Minecraft, but I am positive that in ROBLOX you can create anything. You can create anything visually, and script it to do anything. Visually speaking, it may not look EXACTLY how you want it, but it will by far good enough. For example, you can’t create an EXACT replica of another game, but you can create a by far close enough replica.
There is also a YouTube video that says the same exact thing that I say pretty much, which is that they are incomparable. Here is a link to it: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjocffwVV20)
I hope that by now you realize that they are incomparable, and that you will spread the word that they are. I think that half the time these arguments come up, one doesn’t know a single thing about the other and only played/watched them for 5 minutes. In terms of ROBLOX, playing it is only a part of it, which is why this is that much more absurd than it would be even if they were both games by themselves.
ROBLOX is more of a game-creating platform than Minecraft, and Minecraft is more of a game by itself to me, hence why they are incomparable. That is pretty much all I have to say. Just because a game has blocks and building does not make them comparable.