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0 pointsmodeless5y ago0 comments

That's a very good question. Also it seems that Roblox games are scripted in Lua. How do they get away with running downloaded user scripts inside their app?

The App Store review guidelines prohibit this very clearly:

> Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not [...] download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app [...]

There is only one narrow exception which clearly does not apply to Roblox for several reasons; for example it's only for HTML5 content.

Tim Cook just testified to Congress that all developers are treated equally, but this seems like a clear case where an app that is "too big to fail" gets special treatment.

0 comments

_kxbd5y ago

because most companies do not recognize roblox as a platform, they recognize it as a game. nobody realizes that the development of games on it is on a similar level to web development, it's like explaining social media to congressmen.

it's not them getting special treatment purposefully. it's been on the iOS app store since 2012.

apple's policy here is a bad one. if it were fully remove, true web browser diversity could come to iOS, and roblox could finally do JIT compilation of Lua, among so many other possibilities.

modelessOP5y ago

> it's not them getting special treatment purposefully. it's been on the iOS app store since 2012.

So they're grandfathered in? I wonder how much of their valuation can be attributed to the fact that it's essentially impossible for anyone to make a competitor available on iOS?

titanomachy5y ago

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. This seems like a reasonable question, and yeah Apple definitely breaks their App Store rules when needed if it will make them more money.

ec1096855y ago

And I for one think it is very good that Apple does not require them to break Roblox up into multiple games. It is nice having one game that I generally know what its content is like and mechanics are versus the crap that my kids want to download from the App Store.

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