Alex Balfanz

Last updated
Alex Balfanz
Born (1999-05-05) May 5, 1999 (age 25)
NationalityAmerican
Other namesbadcc, badccvoid
OccupationVideo game developer
Years active2008-present
Known forProgrammer and co-creator of the Roblox game Jailbreak

Alex Balfanz, (born May 5, 1999) known online as badcc, is an American video game developer who is the programmer and co-creator of the Roblox game Jailbreak.

Contents

Early life

Born in 1999, Balfanz began to code games using Roblox Studio at the age of 9. [1] Balfanz's father worked as a programmer, which Balfanz cites as one of the main reasons for his early interest in coding. [2] He attended high school at the Trinity Preparatory School. [3] Prior to releasing Jailbreak, Balfanz had made several other games on Roblox, which he stated had made him "maybe a couple thousand" dollars. [3]

Career

In January 2016, Balfanz and his business partner, who goes by "asimo3089", created the game Volt, an open-world game in which players complete minigames. [3]

In January 2017, Balfanz, along with asimo3089, uploaded Jailbreak, a cops-and-robbers game, to Roblox. On its first day of release, it reached 70,000 concurrent players, a number which Balfanz later said had shocked him. [1] It quickly became one of the most popular games on the platform, and made Balfanz a millionaire. [4] [3]

Personal life

Balfanz attended Duke University, where he paid off his college debt using funds from his games. [2] [5] Balfanz has also been a YouTuber since 2011, maintaining a channel with over 90,000 subscribers (and allegedly over 100,000 at one point) and seven million views. The content uploaded includes Roblox building and scripting content, custom musical pieces, and showcases of new Jailbreak content. [6]

Related Research Articles

An advergame is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. While other video games may use in-game advertising, an advergame is differentiated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau as a "game specifically designed around [the] product or service being advertised". An advergame is considered a type of advertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Blow</span> American game designer and programmer

Jonathan Blow is an American video game designer and programmer. He is best known for his work on the independent video games Braid (2008) and The Witness (2016). Blow became interested in game programming while at middle school. He studied computer science and English at the University of California, Berkeley, but dropped out to start a game company. After the company closed following the dot-com crash, Blow worked as a game development contractor. He co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and wrote a monthly technical column for Game Developer magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roblox</span> Multiplayer game creation platform

Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. Early in Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and as a company. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Baszucki</span> Canadian-born American entrepreneur; co-founder and CEO of Roblox Corporation

David Brent Baszucki, also known by his former Roblox username builderman, is a Canadian-born American entrepreneur, engineer, and software developer. He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Roblox Corporation. He previously co-founded and served as the CEO of Knowledge Revolution, which was acquired by MSC Software in December 1998.

Jon Burton is a British video game designer, director, and programmer. He is the founder of development studio Traveller's Tales and its parent company TT Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roblox Corporation</span> American video game developer

Roblox Corporation is an American video game developer based in San Mateo, California. Founded in 2004 by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel, the company is the developer of Roblox, which was released in 2006. As of December 31, 2023, the company employs over 2,400 people.

jacksfilms American YouTuber (born 1988)

John Patrick Douglass, better known as jacksfilms, is an American YouTuber, videographer, musician, and sketch comedian. He is best known for his series Yesterday I Asked You (YIAY) and Your Grammar Sucks (YGS), in which he commentates on content sent by fans. Douglass' career on YouTube spans over 18 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PewDiePie</span> Swedish YouTuber (born 1989)

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, is a Swedish YouTuber known for his comedic videos. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage has made him one of the most noted online personalities and content creators. He has been portrayed in media as a figurehead for YouTube, especially in the genre of gaming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CaptainSparklez</span> American YouTuber (born 1992)

Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer mainly known for his Minecraft videos. As of December 2024, his main YouTube channel has over 11.4 million subscribers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syndicate (Internet personality)</span> English YouTuber and Twitch streamer (born 1993)

Thomas George Cassell, known online as Syndicate, is an English YouTuber and Twitch streamer. Regarded as one of the earlier known gaming personalities, his videography consists of Let's Play videos on Call of Duty and Minecraft. Born in Manchester, Cassell had passion for a career in the gaming industry, which he started by purchasing gaming equipment using his money from McDonald's. On 3 September 2010, Cassell registered his gaming channel "TheSyndicateProject", where he found success and an online community. His prominence online was recognized by Call of Duty publisher Activision and multi-channel network (MCN) Machinima, where he signed to the network to monetize his content. Cassell's channel achieved substantial growth, passing one million subscribers in June 2012 and one billion views in late 2013. He further expanded his career into livestreaming on Twitch, hosting the same commentary over his gameplays. His Twitch channel became the first to reach one million followers in August 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stampy</span> English YouTuber (born 1990)

Joseph Mark Garrett, better known as Stampylonghead, Stampylongnose, Stampy Cat, or simply Stampy, is an English YouTuber, actor and author best known for his Minecraft video game commentaries as the character of Stampy Cat. He is well-known for his child-friendly demeanour and incorporating storytelling and education into the Let's Play format. In 2014, he was one of the ten most-watched YouTube channels in the world.

jacksepticeye Irish YouTuber (born 1990)

Seán William McLoughlin, better known publicly as jacksepticeye, is an Irish YouTuber whose videos focus on gaming, comedy and vlogging.

<i>Code Vein</i> 2019 video game

Code Vein is an action role-playing game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It was released worldwide on September 27, 2019 for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, and sold over three million copies but received mixed reviews from critics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SethBling</span> American video game commentator and live streamer (born 1987)

SethBling is an American video game commentator and Twitch video game live streamer known for YouTube videos focused around the 1990 side-scrolling platform video game Super Mario World and the 2011 sandbox video game Minecraft. He created original and derivative video games, devices and phenomena in Minecraft, without using Minecraft mods. He created an interpreter for the programming language BASIC and an emulator for the 1977 home video game console Atari 2600 in Minecraft. In addition to Minecraft builds that run without mods, he created plugins for the game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuggaaconroy</span> American YouTuber (born 1990)

Emiliano Rodolfo Rosales-Birou, also known as Emile Rosales and better known by his online alias Chuggaaconroy or Chugga for short, is an American YouTuber, Internet personality and Let's Player. Starting his online career in 2008, Rosales-Birou is most notable for his comprehensive walkthrough videos on various video games released on Nintendo platforms, including titles from the Mother, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin,Pokémon, and Xenoblade Chronicles series.

DavidWilliam Plummer is a Canadian-American programmer and entrepreneur. He created the Task Manager for Windows, the Space Cadet Pinball ports to Windows NT, Zip file support for Windows, HyperCache for the Amiga and many other software products. He has been issued six patents in the software engineering space. He is known for his YouTube channels, Dave's Garage and Dave's Attic.

Adopt Me! is a massively multiplayer online video game developed by Uplift Games on the gaming and game development platform Roblox. The original focus of the game was a role-play wherein players pretended to be either a parent adopting a child, or a child getting adopted, but as the game was developed, its focus shifted to adopting and caring for virtual pets, which can be traded with other players. Uplift Games, the independent studio behind the game, employs roughly 40 people and earns 60 million dollars a year, mostly from microtransactions. The game was averaging 160,000 concurrent players as of September 2022, making it one of the most popular and successful games on Roblox. As of November 2022, Adopt Me! has reached 30.8 billion visits and still has one of the highest concurrent number of players, their record being with the "Dress Your Pets" update, with over 1.6 million concurrent players.

Cory DeVante Williams, known online as CoryxKenshin, is an American YouTuber, writer and actor. Williams joined YouTube on April 26, 2009. Known for his comedic playthroughs of horror games, Williams was ranked the fourth top creator in the United States in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krew</span> Group of siblings on YouTube

Krew is a group of YouTubers from Canada, best known for their gaming videos. The group consists of Kat La (Funneh), Betty La (Rainbow), Kimberly "Kim" La (Gold), Wenny La (Lunar), and Allen La (Draco), all of whom are siblings. They have a total of 7 YouTube channels, with ItsFunneh being the main channel. Although the channel ItsFunneh is named after Funneh, it is a group channel for all of Krew.

References

  1. 1 2 Browning, Kellen (August 16, 2020). "You May Not Know This Pandemic Winner, but Your Tween Probably Does". The New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  2. 1 2 Fang, Shannon (December 10, 2018). "How the Jailbreak computer game made sophomore Alex Balfanz millions". Duke Chronicle. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Huddleston Jr., Tom (September 23, 2019). "This 20-year-old is paying for college (and more) off an amateur video game he made in high school". CNBC. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  4. Power, Ed (August 19, 2020). "Roblox: The booming video game that's now bigger than Minecraft". The Irish Times. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
  5. Lufkin, Bryan (March 24, 2018). "How video games turn teenagers into millionaires". BBC. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  6. Balfanz, Alex (November 14, 2011). "Alex Balfanz". YouTube. Retrieved August 1, 2022.