The Roblox oof. A loud, muffled cry of pain whenever your blocky little chap dies. It's an iconic sound, one that is so ingrained in my memory I'm not sure I'll ever forget it. Sadly, Roblox Corporation will have to forget it after it was forced to remove the sound from its platform.
That's because the "oof" noise wasn't actually created by anyone at Roblox. The sound originally came from an obscure 2000 action game called Messiah, created by Intellivision founder Tommy Tallarico. Its usage came to his attention in 2019, where he tweeted that he would "need to be fairly compensated" before cheekily adding: "I've never been cheap."
Tallarico and Roblox seemed to work something out, as in 2020 it was revealed that the "oof" sound would be replaced but with the iconic version still licensable for $1 or 100 robux. Tallarico also provided a handful of other sound libraries for the platform, ranging from $10 to $250.
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Now, two years later, it seems that the initial deal has come to an end. A tweet from Roblox cites "a licensing issue" as the reason behind removing the sound. It's also created a replacement sound, and wow it sure is a sound effect alright. Instead of "oof" we now have "deh," which sounds more like you've just stepped in a puddle than popped your clogs.
For a giant that's worth more than some of the biggest developers out there, it seems strange that it's not willing to cough up the dough for a simple sound effect. Whether Tallarico will license the sound effect out himself is unknown, though Roblox says it's working towards "the ability to add sounds by getting them directly from the creators and licensors."
