Roblox developers are making verbal agreements and paying out employees in Robux in their multi-million dollar deals, and it’s creating problems. Yet another Roblox lawsuit was filed, this time in a Virginia court, in which two Roblox creators are fighting over their percentage shares of their highly profitable games. This lawsuit is over Tower Defense Simulator, a long-running Roblox game with nearly 5 billion Roblox visits.
Jake Shirley filed the lawsuit on Friday, alleging a breach of oral contract, unjust enrichment, copyright ownership, and other claims. He’s asking for at least $35 million in damages. Shirley said he was dropped from the game and the partnership in December 2023; he claims he was never an employee of Tower Defense Simulator studio Paradoxum Games, so couldn’t be fired in such a way. (Tower Defense Simulator players began to wonder what happened to Shirley after he disappeared.)
The whole lawsuit is a glimpse into the messy world of Roblox dealings, in which contracts are made over Discord and unfathomable amounts of money exchanges proverbial hands in the Roblox app.
Shirley writes in the complaint that he and Timothy Kim started collaborating after meeting on Discord in 2017. They worked on two games, Ninja Simulator and Woodfields, together before Kim asked him to help with a new game, Tower Defense Simulator, which he had made as “a high school computer science project” and put on Roblox. The then-high schooler offered Shirley a 30% share in Tower Defense Simulator‘s revenue, according to the complaint. They agreed to a so-called partnership agreement through Discord chats and calls. Shirley said Tower Defense Simulator brought around $20,000 in revenue each month, and in 2019, he took home $200,000 for his share.
Shirley’s revenue share increased to 40% in 2020, and both he and Kim formed individual S corporations “to manage their assets and reduce personal tax liability,” used “solely to facilitate Shirley’s and Kim’s respective Partnership distributions.” Both developers quit college in 2021 to pursue development of Tower Defense Simulator and move into an apartment, then penthouse, according to the complaint, together. They hired two software engineers to help on development, and considered a new, official business structure.
Instead, Kim started a C corporation of his own, called Paradoxum Games. Shirley and Kim also changed their payment structure to account for the two new employees; first, they paid them—. They put $50,000 or so into a separate, third Roblox account every few months to “to facilitate payroll” using Robux, according to the complaint. (Developers have to then exchange that Robux for real money using a payment system.)
They got an office space in 2022, per the complaint, and that’s when problems started. More team members came on, and Kim asked Shirley to sign a new agreement. Shirley refused, he said in the document, because he wasn’t an employee, but a partner. Shirley alleged he got his last revenue share payment, for $92,749, in September 2023. By November, Shirley and Kim met to “unwind” the partnership, but they didn’t agree. Shirley said Kim kicked him out of all business accounts in December 2023 and sent an email to “terminate” Shirley’s employment.
Shirley wants the court to confirm copyright ownership of Tower Defense Simulator as a co-author and co-owner. He alleged there’s been breach of contract, among other things. He wants $10 million in unpaid “partnership distributions” and $25 million for “[Shirley’s] interest in the Partnership.”
This sort of thing happens a lot on Roblox. There’s a bunch of different lawsuits in which young Roblox developers are fighting over their share of the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars they rake in from in-game microtransactions. Roblox itself is free-to-play, but developers make money—lots of it—through millions of these tiny transactions. But the informal nature of Roblox, and that actual kids are doing a lot of the development, means that contracts get messy. Deals are made over Discord, without lawyers reading the fine print, if there is any at all.
Neither side has responded to Aftermath’s request for comment.
