Polygon.com / 20.12.24

One Piece's new official Roblox game pales in comparison to its knockoffs

One Piece just got a brand-new video game, but you may not have heard of it.  Thats because One Piece Grand Arena, which was released in early December, is only playable on Roblox. Formally licensed by Bandai Namco Entertainment, One Piece Grand Arena will allow Bandai to capitalize on Robloxs massive platform of young people and bring the world of One Piece to a new generation of fans. Theres just one wrinkle: Grand Arena is not nearly as popular as all the unofficial One Piece games that have been gaining traction on Roblox for years. An anime and manga series created by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece has long served as a cultural touchstone on Roblox because of the popularity of rip-offs and unlicensed games inspired by the show. One game inspired by One Piece, called Blox Fruits, set the record for the number of concurrent players in a single Roblox game. On Dec. 14, the Blox Fruits team released a new update. That same day, the games Roblox page logged more than 2.26 million concurre...
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