TWIG Jr. (TWIG #271) Real takes on Lego Fortnite and Roblox from Mickey (8) and Rocky (10) Lowenfels

all right I am so excited for this next segment here today we have friend of the Pod Henry lenells and his sons the little loen Fels so why don't you guys introduce yourselves I hear you're fan of the Pod and you listen go ahead introduce yourselves what are your names and how old are you my name is Mickey and I'm eight and my name is Rocky and I'm 10 and Henry how old are you and are you a fan I'm dad and I'm 41 and proud dad of these two guys thank you guys for joining and I feel like Henry I needed to have you on because I need a disclaimer so I don't get sued or I get crap from other parents where I get cancelled can you please give permission to the kids if they make a really good point can you give them permission to curse is that okay yeah and a little bit of background here so this all started because as you guys know I'm a longtime listener a little bit of a degenerate listener I think I've listened to maybe every single episode of twig of all time and so every every now and then they'll

get into my car and Crest will be mid rant as I just plug my phone in and normally I would you know in the old days I would just kind of turn it off but eventually Rocky and Mickey kind of got wind of what was going on like no no leave it on we want to hear this we want to hear this and so I told them they could listen if they were actually paying attention to the content not just the cursing and then I told them that if they wanted to talk about it they could curse a little bit as long as they were making a good point so that's exactly right Jen they're allowed to it's got to be a good Point otherwise we'll cut the mic but these guys really pay attention they've learned a lot and it's a cool fun way for us to connect so I'm all for it as long as they're making good points oh it's a sad day I'm warping the minds of the Youth of tomorrow I suppose by my podcasting sad all right so the way that we're going to structure this is we have two topics one is going to be on Lego fortnite the other is going to be on Roblox and we just really want to ask you a bunch of questions and get your point of view so I think we're going to to start with Crest on Lego fortnite why

don't you go ahead well first of all I actually would like to know what platforms do you guys typically play on generally he plays on his tablet a lot and so do I sometimes but occasionally we will sometimes play on our switch Okay cool so your primary game is really Roblox right now do you play fortnite he doesn't but I play fortnite on the switch but I not really into fortnite I played it when I heard Lego fortnite came out but I was kind of disappointed okay so yeah what did you think of Lego fortnite the big release this is a huge thing for epic it's not that good because it's basically Minecraft just Minecraft is a lot better because it's more blocky and they tried to make it retro which just makes it cooler than a real life version of Minecraft yeah I don't think fortnite

and Lego is a good combination I think they should have done it in a little bit different like it's not really fortnite it just reminds me more of Minecraft mods or something got it got it and you guys are big Minecraft fans on the iPad and iPhone as well we don't we don't play Minecraft on an iPad he doesn't play Minecraft I beg him to play Minecraft with it me on the switch but then I should up oh so you play on switch that's your platform for Minecraft okay got it so what was so boring about Lego fortnite because it's kind of like Minecraft and you said it was a little bit more retro tell me more about that well it's like Minecraft because like you craft and the bad part is it's basically just like Lego Minecraft if they make Lego Minecraft so it's better in Minecraft yeah if they made a Lego Minecraft because it would probably be more blocky is there anything that you can think of that

would make it better probably making Lego fortnite a battle royale so like it's basically just a normal fortnite resin that would make it a lot better so legal characters in fortnite that that would be better than okay got it so just the blocky characters running around in the core mode yeah well more like a fortnite reskin where the entire background is Lego and it's just Lego fortnite and it's exactly what you think Lego for fortnite but the entire thing is just Legos you guys should start a company and do a ugc world where that's what you do it's just Create It All In Blocky mode okay so let me just give a little upfront here this is the other major ugc platform do you guys know what ugc means um user generated content oh Rocky's on it all right well done all right so first there's some news that CR I don't know if you saw this the CTO just resigned to take on new opportunities next they just had earnings and so they

talked about a $1.2 billion loss in 2023 they say they have boosted their user base engagement hours by 20% this past year and they also say that the increase is coming from International and an older demographic I just want to make a quick correction here if you take out stock based comp they actually do not lose money I keep making that mistake on the podcast true they are cash flow positive so it's kind of a leading to say they lose money how having said that part of the reason that a lot of these guys are leaving is because their options are out of money and their comp is all messed up because the stock is so depressed compared to where it was historically so that's probably the CTO has just got bajillions so he doesn't care so but I'm just saying that makes total sense and I forgot you have made that point in the past okay so here's a couple questions Mickey Rocky you guys play a ton of Roblox can you talk about the kinds of of people that you play

with we used to just join a game and then friend everyone on the leaderboard because we were idiots and we were like yeah we would just randomly friend everyone there but now we don't randomly friend people and most of the people on my friend list are people I actually know in real life who play Roblox and like it just as much as we do because Roblox it like works very well with a group of seven through 12 but still goes a little bit not really under seven but a little bit over 12 sometimes so why do you say that you guys were idiots and friending everyone on the leaderboard what was wrong with that well then it would make us just have a bunch of random friends which was kind of weird like having random people on our friend list we don't even know about in real life it was kind of creepy did they try to talk to you no not really we would just have them I know friend l so is it

important that the people you play with you know well um sometimes I chat with people but normally I just chat with them about the game is there voice chat on Roblox I don't even know we don't have it yeah but why not because people can curse on voice chat and we don't have a microphone I don't think Dad would let us use voice chat because people are like screaming at you cursing in voice chat we saw that on YouTube when they bleeped out the curse words on YouTube but yeah YouTubers will warn you about that oh this is this is great everybody so make sure to turn off voice chat if you have kids playing Roblox so when you are inside of Roblox you're playing a game do you like hang out with your friends and talk about other stuff are you talking about the game that you're playing what is it that you you do when you're actually playing the game my friends I know in real life like if there's a big event happening like when it was the snow week I would probably talk to them about the game and like the

snow but if there's not much going on I just talk to them about the game Rocky what about you well for me it kind of depends on the type of game if the game is like a common game or a role playing game I would not really talk to them as much as the game and just talk to them about normal stuff I would talk to them at school about and then if it's more of action attacking game then I would talk more about the game got it okay so Roblox is doing a lot of ads that are showing up you can walk around in the world and then you can walk up to a billboard and see like I don't know if you remember the Aquaman movie came out and there was an ad for Aquaman what do you guys think of the ads that are showing up in the game the ads aren't that bad like unlike the fuckwads who put ads on on consoles if you play like

$300 or $400 for a console and you still have to watch ads that's bad but Roblox is a free-to-play game and they have the right to put ads and they're not putting bad bad ads like there are ads in mobile games that are just terrible like I know why they do ads in mobile games it makes more sense than the console games but when you make ads in Roblox it's not as bad as the mobile games not at all okay can you give me some examples of what aad bad ad is versus a good ad the video ads are way worse than just like Billboards yeah like on a mobile game the reason Roblox is the only mobile game I play is because almost any mobile game other than most of homo's games you'll have like 5 Seconds to play and then you'll get a 30 second ad and then you'll get another 5 Seconds to play and then you'll get another 30 second ad wait a minute did you just integrate a shill for your dad's company yep games

on purpose oh my God this's like media training stuff going on here Master manipulation as the marketer in the room I just have to golf clap that and just say Well done all right so what games do you guys actually playing on Roblox these days just out of curiosity like what's the top couple games these days I play two tower defenses and I play blade ball which is the most popular game on Roblox and does your dad let you spend money in Roblox like how much money does he give you to spend in robblox we mostly spend our own money unless our grandma comes because when our grandma comes we end up getting like $40 worth of Roblox wow l so you can whatever your grandma gives you you can spend on Roblox almost always whenever our grandma comes she'll give us like a $40 Roblox gift card oh my gosh can I have your grandma that's a lot do you guys subscribe at all and get roblo every month no it's not worth it but some of the games I play on Roblox

are even though my own game isn't the best I just play it to give myself Roblox kind of but I'm going to do some chilling right now so I know how to code if you go to Roblox and go to friends search up capital r capital l i o n r o c k you can friend with me but you don't have to this one I recommend that you join but there are no game passes that you can do on it and it's called Focus marathon and I worked really hard in that okay focus marathon and then we'll need to get your ID we'll put it in the show notes so that people can come and find you on Roblox and play your game I love the entrepreneurial nature of what's going on right now that's some good chilling if you're going to come on I no no I I love how these guys have been media trained to shill all over the place this is It's Like mishas on the podcast you guys are like Junior mishas right now all right so you guys don't

actually play fortnite you're not allowed to play fortnite yet is that correct he are he doesn't really play fortnite because you can only do one player on the switch I sometimes play it but I realiz I don't really like it but my friends do and some of my friends will like Roblox and some of them will like fortnite and some will like both so like half of the kids in my class like Roblox and another half LS fortnite and both halves kind of hate each other there a rift in fourth grade between Roblox and fortnite yeah but I'm pretty sure in second grade no one really cares about fortnite as much as they do in fourth grade because no one's really interested in it now how about like fifth and sixth grade do you think in fifth and sixth grade that most people are playing what probably I'm afraid to admit maybe a little bit more fortnite but the kids who are playing fortnite don't understand they think Roblox is for like seven-year olds there are games that are 13 plus and it's not just a game for seven year olds there are other

age groups who can go on Roblox but then when a grownup plays Roblox it's mostly because their child convinced them to play Roblox with them like I convinced him to play Roblox and friend Us in Roblox I'm a big blade ball guy I like blade ball blade ball is your dad any good no no no of course not yeah I have to protect him all right what games are out there that you want to play that your parents won't let you play GTA no GTA have you seen your dad play GTA before no how do you know what it is so Mr Beast plays GTA he doesn't show the blunt he doesn't show the cursing he knows kids are watching isn't show the bad stuff the bad stuff do you know what GTA stands for grand theft Grand Theft Auto oh okay all right well done so if your dad were to buy you a gift what console would you want um meta Questa oh how about what's better Xbox or Playstation play

Playstation why dad has a PlayStation there's PlayStation are good sports game it's his but he asked us if we want to play on it but it's kind of boring you guys sometimes play sometimes play a little bit of mo the show right yeah you want to play Madden yeah there's a Roblox game that I play called football Fusion I've been a tarer than Madden oh interesting so there are sports games on Roblox yeah can I ask you something else about Roblox so sometimes there are companies like Vans or Walmart or Arm and Hammer that make worlds that are kind of like realworld brands that make a world what do you think about those kinds of Worlds I think it's kind of stupid because Roblox is for developers to make games not for stupid compan companies to advertise their like

company like I don't want to have Target to be a Roblox game I agree get rid of that crap God damn it I 100% agree with you it's terrible well it kind of depends on the company like if it's Target it's more boring most people will play fun games like with guns where you try and kill people but they won't really play boring skateboard games and stuff oh interesting okay I have a couple questions from Phil do you recognize Phil's name from the podcast he's the one that always makes fun of marketing and talks about money all the time he talks about his cats Hees the cats are really cute actually I have to say okay oh stop please stop all right Roblox introduce portals that take you to different games on Roblox have you heard of these and or used one I yes yeah yeah they're pretty old but they're starting to use them a little a little bit more I think it's a pretty cool concept like

it's not mice nuts it's pretty cool it's not a bad concept it makes sense and I think it's a good way to advertise other games without being annoying dude this kid is like a mini me this just you it's like talking to you it's it's oh my God it's like uncanny I wonder if my son is like that with me it's crazy well maybe that's all right I got I got another Roblox question for you from Phil some of the items are Cosmetics While others affect gameplay which ones do you buy more of the ones that affect gam playay I normally just buy gameplay I just wanted my avatar to not be like the average bacon do you think that having your avatar customized is important to show who you are no not really I think it's a cool concept but it kind of gets wasted when there is a person with the default Avatar and they're amazing at the game and everyone doesn't take them

seriously and then there's someone with an amazing Avatar that cost so much money in real life and everyone takes them seriously but they're actually a terrible player so do you think like your avatar skin should be earned and not bought is that what you're saying some are earned but most are just you need to buy them yeah if you could tell me the most favorite thing that you do inside of Roblox what would it be Tower defensive so playing just certain games are now is this a game that other users create is this ugc yes every single game that we play is ugc we only have a couple of stuff that aren't ugc we have some stuff for Avatar that was generated by Roblox but we've never played a game generated by Roblox oh interesting okay well Roblox doesn't make games so Mak yeah they only generate Avatar pieces and stuff like that and people's places but one thing that I thought was interesting you guys find sometimes you're playing a game by a Creator and then you find

other games from that Creator right I mean you guys seem to jump around when you find a Creator you like you've played multiple games by that Creator right that's because they do have that warping thing kind of but some games will also say get into this VIP area if you join the group they'll join the group and then all of the recommendations and then the rest of your recommendations will get based on that group it'll be more easy to find the games that they made you can also go to recommended cuz if you scroll down at the very bottom of the Roblox game it will have recommended games but that's not mostly how we find them if your friends aren't people that you know they most likely like the same games as you because the only way to find them is either by knowing their name and searching it or you can just go to a game and that person might be on it and you can friend them so who lets you play

more games your mom or your dad Dad yeah of course so how do you coordinate or meet up with your friends in Roblox they will like have a Green Dot next to your friend to show that they're online and then if they're playing a game then they'll have the name of the game under their name and the Green Dot so they'll have a Green Dot on the left of their name and then right under it will say the name of the game they're playing but if they're not playing a game then it'll just have a Green Dot and you can like basically text them just it's on Roblox there's this button and if you click on it then you go to this place where you can search one of your friends and then start chatting with them and it will send a push notification to your device when you text them and they're offline brilliant that's some user acquisition stuff right there well this is kind of what I was trying to understand and then for younger kids do you guys talk about it at school and say hey let's get

online after school and play some games together yeah normally just on Friday oh are people not allowed to play during the week are your friends not allowed to play cuz they have school most of my friends are but it's very hard to arrange dates like so when it what's so annoying is that the the exact day I have absolutely no clubs or anything to go to that's the exact day where my friends have so much stuff to go to yeah so it's very to arrange dates and even if they are allowed it's much more easy to arrange on Fridays or weekends because that's when most of us are free yeah mostly on Friday because we don't have to like tell them in Roblox we can just at the end of school tell them hey do you want to play Roblox and they'll say sure at 530 oh okay is there anything about your dad that you know that you could tell us that we probably don't know any secrets uh you just need to really support hom

and stop spamming [Laughter] ads from God's ears to your mouth let's get rid of the ads on gaming please nothing would make us more excited it was cooler when he worked at scopely right yes yes because scopely had good snacks and we would go there and they would have chocolate pretzels and they would have Pokemon stuffed animals on their desk you haven't even been to the home office yet you you know you want to try some choc let's talk about let talk about some French chocolate here all right the scop office did have a throne where you could sit in with the swords on the wall I used to work there I used to work there too you used to work for scle I did yeah did you also do this podcast not back then I worked on do you remember there was The Walking Dead game The Walking Dead game was really terrible you haven't even play it Mickey thank you very much that makes me feel great no I didn't make it I just did the marketing I did all the ads everything that you love I did all the

trailers and the ads and ComicCon all of that kind of fun stuff I worked on Monopoly Go version one I worked on Star Trek no you didn't because clearly they would have supported you if you did but you didn't because they don't support you Monopoly go wow he just called you out I do nothing everyone everyone want that's you know that's a real life lesson right there everyone wants to take credit for things that are successful that is true when they were involved that's true I still say that I was involved with the Marvel contest of Champions and Marvel Strike Force even though I never built a game in my life but uh I was there when they were being made we all take credit for we all take a littleit credit of making not play go I don't do credit I don't do any credit credit information every H game that was good made half of monopo dad your dad your dad isert that um you you said that

you were the reason that um that stumble guys is a popular game but you kind of are I never said that wow you are though you that's quite a claim what are you saying to your kids you know oh this is I I I did pick Rocky up at summer camp and was approached by about six boys who had been telling all week that I made suble guys and had to answer whether I made suble guys or not so in that moment I don't know what I said I was days I told them that you made stumble guys and I was bring about it telling them my dad made stumble guys and he works for this and he now works for this game company called H but he used to work this a game company he made stumble guys and he also made a couple of other games yeah my my kids basketball team all thought that I work for epic and I can get them fortnite v-bucks robu oh my God v-bucks v-bucks anytime I wanted right I'm like oh god oh I have a i I have a similar story when I worked at Disney my

mom didn't really understand what licensing was for toys and so I was making Power Rangers that's a power ranger helmet and and so my mom told everyone that I worked at Disneyland and I like was a ride operator and I'm like Mom no no no no no no I I I don't do that it's supposed to pump it's supposed to pump you up that's she so from then on she just told everyone I worked at Disneyland I'm like no I do licensing for toys in for no anyway so all right we digress we digress we we have we have taken up all of your time gentlemen this was an absolute pleasure I had so much fun is there anything else you want to shill as we go out do you want to give your Roblox user ID again and in your name game please play blade ball make it more popular make it be like 30 million people playing at once we'll do what we can Rocky I do not have a user ID so capital r capital l i o n r o c k go to

creations and keep on going through the arrows until you get to focus Marathon Focus okay all right all right we'll do it thank you for inv again oh you're welcome thank you this was a pleasure everyone so and now now we're going to do another podcast right after this aren't we okay