games with a distinct "voice"
Roblox was once described to me as the "YouTube of Video Games". It is less of a game and more of an ecosystem where creative game developers can put their niche, weird, often poorly-produced experiences on the internet for world enjoyment. Some of the most popular Roblox games today involve just standing in train terminals, waiting for something to happen.
If we examine the history of YouTube, the personalities that succeeded are the ones who embraced their weirdness and doubled down on delivering bleedingly authentic content. Our favorite YouTubers are the opposite of polished - they're human, immediately accessible our screens and in our phones. Roblox is already as prevalent as YouTube in this sense - it's another avenue for social interaction, and there is huge opportunity to explore weirder niches.
Video games, traditionally, are build by teams and take a lot of time and overhead, which means creators need to justify their creation with a promise of some sort of mass appeal. With Roblox, the production loop is so much smaller and nothing has to be polished - it just has to be fun.
I have no idea what the future holds, but I am placing bets on Roblox Games that are nonsensical, extremely niche, and weird. Similar to how folks will read anything by a certain author, I see soon we will see people who assemble a collection of Roblox games as a sort of social signaling. Players will gravitate towards games that make us feel close to the creators, and that empower us to find our own weird, wacky, unpolished and developing voices.