The current payout options for group games don’t allow for much creativity, and from what I’ve seen most payouts are done manually as opposed to automatically – ROBLOX doubtlessly has metrics to back this up. Group payouts could use some more options that make them more viable to use automatically.
#Absolute percentages
For the sake of discussion, let’s say I have an equal payout distribution across 4 people (25%), and my game has a product that yields 75 ROBUX post-tax. ROBLOX tries to split it 4 ways, but that comes out at 18.75. We can’t get partial ROBLOX, so each member gets 18 ROBUX, leaving 3 ROBUX to go into group funds. Even though our total payout is 100% to users and 0% to group funds, we have 3 ROBUX going into the group fund every purchase. 1000 purchases later and we have 3000 ROBUX in group funds that we have to manually pay out. A lot of groups don’t bother with % payouts because of this, and just end up doing manual payouts.
Instead of depositing the remainder into group funds, the group should leave it in the escrow. For instance, using the same example, here is a table that shows what would happen:
As you can see, the remainder in the escrow is depleted over time as opposed to building up, and the developers each get the correct share with no revenue going to group funds since 100% is scheduled to be distributed to developers. This removes the need to micromanage payouts as remainders are now handled.
#Per-Game payouts
Imagine I’m brought on to help out with one of a group’s games. This does indeed happen – for instance, I was contracted to work on Beacon Studio’s Zombie Rush due to data saving issues, but I don’t help out with any of their other games. It may also be the case that I’m a late-start. I may be permenantly joining the development team, but why should I get a % of past games I didn’t work on? I should only get paid for the games I do work on.
#Per-Product payouts
This may seem like an awkward request, but it has some pretty amazing uses:
- To encourage higher-quality UGC, give UGC creators a % of the income made from selling their assets (ROBLOX already does this as a matter of fact
:P) - Attracts high-quality developers who may have not wanted to create it for free
- Encourages developers to create better UGC since now they have a stake in it and the better it sells the more revenue they get
- Lowers the entry bar to making revenue on ROBLOX since startup developers can make low-risk UGC assets but sell them in a popular game
- Encourage my game’s developers to brainstorm better monetization options by giving them a higher % of income for products they design