Review: PacSun's Branded Roblox Game is a Trendy Hit with Young Players

As more companies try to reach the cache of young consumers in online spaces, Roblox has seen an influx of branded experiences and games. While some brands missed the mark (*cough* Walmart cough), I think PacSun’s new Los Angeles Tycoon is a great example of an effective branded Roblox game.

You load in at an intersection of a few bridges which lead to other players’ lands. You are prompted to stand on a button which creates your own bridge. Like many tycoon games, you go around activating buttons to spend money and build up your city. While I say a lot of positive things in this review, it should be noted that tycoon games usually don’t keep players coming back forever. They need to be updated often, or they typically phase out after a while.

From the time that I spent in PacSun’s Los Angeles Tycoon it’s clear that they did their research. The main area houses four leaderboards which already creates an incentive for players to come back. They likely stole this idea from popular tycoon games that have a leaderboard. They added a feature where your city will eventually contain an obby (slang for obstacle) course, which is a super popular play mode in Roblox. Their whole game has a clean layout, understandable concept and tangible progress as you create your city.

They also stayed true to their brand (which if you’ve read my other reviews, is often a problem) by having players create clothing shops and artwork around their city that advertises PacSun. The whole style of the game really reflects Pacsun’s beachy, trendy, Los Angeles style.

This past week PacSun’s Los Angeles Tycoon has averaged around 90,000 visitors a day, and the average session length is around ten minutes, which is fairly high.

If you want to bring your brand to Roblox, I think this game is a great example to model after. While it’s not completely perfect, and it may not stay popular forever, it’s a great representation of PacSun while being genuinely fun to play.