Roblox: The Welsh game creator with 11 billion visits
When Osian Taubman-Edwards came across an advert for Roblox on YouTube, it immediately sparked his interest. Over a decade later, the 32-year-old is Roblox's top developer with over 11 billion visits to his profile and five million new people playing his games every month.Osian, from Mold, Flintshire, has created over 20 games for the platform and is ranked among the top 250 creators out of 300,000. "This has opened a whole new world of opportunity for me and I'm only gaining more recognition each day," he said.
Osian started creating games on gaming platform Roblox in 2014 when he was studying music at college. "I always had a creative mind and wanted to pursue something that can challenge my mind," he said. "I had a deep passion for music but I also had a massive passions for video games."
Once he became aware he could build and create his own games, Osian said it was "instantly my calling", although his parents urged him to continue his studies. "As I left to say goodbye they would watch me out the window to catch my bus. "I would then get off at the second stop and wait for my parent to leave. "I then went into the back window [at home] and I started grafting away at Roblox, completely disregarding my education," he said.
One of Osian's most popular games starting out was Castle Battles in the Sky, which became "a hit" on Roblox. "Back then a hit game would only consist of around 50 to100 players. I hit the 105 players and I couldn't believe it," he said.The most popular game to date on Osian's profile, Platinum Falls, is Barry's Prison Run, which has gained a total of 3.1 billion visits.
Roblox has over 80 million daily users and is mostly used by children aged between eight and 12 in the UK. The platform allows users to create and share games with others. Over the years there have been claims of some children being exposed to explicit or harmful content through its games, alongside multiple allegations of bullying and grooming.But its co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki has insisted the company is vigilant in protecting its users. Mr Taubman-Edwards, who has been creating games on the platform from a young age, agrees and said the system blocks out harmful content. "I have heard about parent's safety concerns, but Roblox is really strict with it now and there's a system if someone is causing problems to someone. "If someone sends bad messages, Roblox completely blanks it out and it goes to a system where they can completely get rid of that person. So it's pretty good," he told Radio Cymru. He added parents could set age restrictions to protect children from inappropriate material. "So if they don't want their kids to bump into anything inappropriate, they can put the setting 'parental choice' on the phone to avoid their kids watching anything out of their age bracket," he said.
So what does it take to make a popular game on Roblox? While Osian does not put any pressure on himself, he said he liked to create games he would play himself. "To be honest I'm in tune with my inner child and I create games that I would have liked as a child," he said. "When I was a child I liked lots of different games so I've taken inspiration from that. I just love it and if you love something, it's going to do well." While Osian has worked with the likes of Warner Bros and Universal Studios, he hopes to start his own game studio. "I never thought working from under my staircase, making sure my parents wouldn't find me when they thought I was in college, would be my success," he added.
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