In the past year I have noticed more and more games starting to implement systems which allow users to ‘gift’ others game passes by tracking gamepass ownership on datastore in comparison to the website; This is good for a number of reasons:
Allows developers to make more revenue; Not only is this backed by data from games that already implement this system but it simply makes sense, a gifting system may mean someone buys a gamepass once for themselves and once for say an IRL friend who may be unable to afford it. Therefor resulting in a total of 2 sales in comparison to 1.
Gives more ways for developers to give back to and interact with their community. If you are like me and are not a star creator, don’t want to buy robux gift cards, and don’t want to break TOS (which I imagine is the majority of developers) it is currently pretty difficult to give anything of value back to your players in order to build your community. This solution would help to build a TOS compliant, secure way for developers to give back to players entirely using roblox infrastructure.
Increases player retention; It has been proven countless times that if a player purchases something in your game then they are more likely to stick with it and purchase more. A concept that can be applied to a large amount of purchase models in real life scenarios. If more players are receiving game passes, more players are likely to be loyal to your game and to an extent the platform as a whole in addition to encouraging future purchases since a gift gives almost a ‘sample’ of what owning game passes is like.
In addition to the obvious benefits to developers, there are also a lot of benefits to roblox for implementing a system like this:
It gives users who have already showed they can purchase large amounts of robux more to spend their money on. In monetisation terms, you are targeting whales.
Expands the way people are able to interact and experience together on roblox.
Introduces users to what it is like to own robux which depending on Roblox’s current repeat purchase rates may prove advantageous to converting more people to first time purchases which will integrate them into the robux ecosystem.
The system I propose is that roblox introduces their own official gift system which is available site wide on all game passes where the developer has opted in for the system. This is relevant since there are likely a few scenarios where it may not be beneficial to a game to see a massive surge in gifted game passes.
There are numerous benefits which I have not listed here, in addition to what I recognise would be some drawbacks, most likely related to account security and robux laundering however as roblox continues to expand its security options these are both ever diminishing issues.
Overall I feel this would be an amazing addition to roblox which would greatly benefit both developers and the platform as a whole.
Thanks for the requests. It seems to be pretty valuable to both developers and your players. Can you provide more details what you want to enable, e.g. developers can give Game Pass of your game for free, players can buy a pass and give it somebody else?
Sorry, when drafting the post mentally I did actually intend to specify that developers should have the functionality to gift game passes with no cost (I believe this also has its own feature requests so benefits developers in that aspect too).
However the primary intention of this feature request was players being able to purchase game passes for others, with the potential process being like:
Goes to gamepass page > Clicks a gift button > Overlayed menu with the ability to type player name (similar to group payout menu in terms of design) > after the user is confirmed click a button to gift to that player.
Edit: Changed title since I can see how it would have been unclear
Thx for the clarification. Looks like you mainly mean for players to purchase a pass and send it to others as a gift. Players probably don’t need to transfer their passes to others after the purchase for themselves, right?
I think that players gifting their purchased Game Passes that they have already used could potentially be dangerous, as some developers reward users a one-time bonus for purchasing Game Passes. Theoretically, they could just gift back and forth and reap the benefits for one purchase.
However, players purchasing Game Passes for their friends would be an awesome update and there would definitely be an increase in revenue for all developers.
For example, Friend A that has tons of Robux buys Game Pass/Developer Product for Friend B who doesn’t have Robux.
I think that this should also be expanded to all other assets as well, such as Shirts, Pants, etc.
Preferably players wouldn’t be able to send already purchased game passes to others. Gifted game passes should be intended to be a gift at the time of purchase, and not transferable afterwards.
Sorry I should try and elaborate further, I found this idea quite hard to put into words.
As @Extuls brushed on, the intention for this is for gifting it at the time of purchase.
So you pay 400 robux and the gamepass is instantly given to the person you are gifting to.
The best metaphor I can think of here is paying for a friend’s meal at a restaurant, they are eating the meal and you don’t get to eat the meal yet you will still be paying for it.
Quite a few games already have examples of this system, roblox bedwars has quite a cool implementation of gifting the battle pass which works in a similar way to how I imagine this system.
If it is still confusing please let me know and I can try and show some UI mock-ups / concise flowcharts tomorrow
Hi, this is great, thank you for creating this @LuaBearyGood!
I will be writing as both a player and a developer.
I currently play one of the top games on Roblox right now and the most common thing I see over and over in the community’s discord is players asking for the ability to gift Gamepasses.
As a player there is no doubt that it would provide a lot of benefits such as:
Youtuber / Streamer giveaways
Gifting a friend / family member
Contest awards
however it does come with downsides too like scamming and cross trading.
As a developer it is currently impossible to create a system that actual gives a player a gamepass (officially), the best you can do is let them own it in code which feels hacky and isn’t genuine.
Giving us (the users) the ability to gift gamepasses (and other assets) will definitely be a welcomed and a wonderful QOL feature.
To make it very clear, WE as a developer would like the ability to award / gift assets that we are the owner of such as Gamepasses, Clothing, Accessories and so on with no charge.
Players would also like the ability to gift other players assets as well however with a cost.
Can you add an option to prompt a player to gift another player a gamepass for certain amount of robux.
The same ui design as the buy gamepass prompt but just with a gift feature.
