I can confirm that you have to be 13+ to use this forum. Anyone under the age of 13 could have their DevForum account revoked if brought to the attention of the Developer Engagement Team. In a couple of other threads the Community Sages mentioned you have to be 13+ to use this forum:
I don’t think there has been any rule changes about <13’s joining this forum but I could be mistaken.
(Reply to main thread)
I don’t think investment requests should be allowed on the forum. If you want to find an investor you should use a different platform like Discord.
If your game is fun and you use Roblox’s community to your advantage you can grow your game purely through word of mouth. You don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of Robux on advertising your game because if your game is fun it will advertise itself. A few front page and big time developers have already mentioned you can grow your game purely though a community and word of mouth.
You should start on smaller projects, maybe solo or with a small team, before you make a front page game. This way you will be able to grow a small community, earn Robux for advertisements and gain experience on how to effectively monetise your game. Once you have all three of these things investors are not necessary to have because you already have Robux and experience in monetization.
Problem is, users who need investments the most, won’t be able to get them. It is incredibly difficult to receive money in general if you do not have a membership (and if you can afford Premium, you can probably pay for assets). I feel this would need to be solved first before a proper channel for investments would be at all valuable (outside of exploiting loopholes to receive more than 10% of it).
If that was solved, I’d be all for an investments system. As long as
there are clear guidelines to keep both sides safe,
repercussions for abuse,
and the person who needs the investment has to prove there is value in making the investment.
I honestly cannot see marketplace fees realistically being reduced any time in the near future, From the fact developers have been asking for high Dev Ex rates for years with roblox doing nothing about these requests I doubt they would do what you want.
The developer exchange rate requests was supported by 100s of devs many of which are the leading developers on this platform, and I can’t see roblox honestly changing anything since raised rates or no raised rates, we are still going to develop on the platform.
Sure you can have someone else put a bunch of money into your game with virtually no promises and then when your game flops or gets cancelled, leave you stranded on how to pay that person back or you can just not give them that funding back. Fundamentally speaking this sounds like a scam: direct exchange of funds without guarantee the other party gets what they paid for.
Investments on Roblox didn’t start becoming a thing until recent times; and even if they did exist before, they were so rare that you wouldn’t even know they were trying to become an active part of Roblox culture. All games in the past have grown organically and you are capable of doing the same. Start small and work up. Investments are silly cheap tricks to the top with no guarantees attached.
Sure you can argue that investments have or can work or whatever, but a lot of those conversations that I’ve seen are comparing outside culture to Roblox culture. The markets are completely different and don’t work the same way. Organic growth is free and powerful. Use it.
I can say without reservation in my mind that we don’t intend to allow investment threads again and I sure hope it stays that way. Investments are dangerous gambles.
Yes but that brings me back to my point, the rule should be modified so investors CAN OFFER investment, since as you said
But we as investors should be allowed to find people to invest in since we accept these gambles, if we don’t get a return, thats our own problem since we were the ones wanting to invest, and therefor we live with the consequences.
Do that on your own time then, don’t use the DevForum for it. It’s really that simple. People offer their contact information and you are fully capable of sending DMs.
There’s no difference between looking for investors and offering to invest as far as a thread goes, it’s just who’s posting it or initiating the activity that changes. Both are no good. Do that somewhere else.
Keep in mind this is as request and is not some sort of order or rant asking for the rule to be revoked. im simply trying to show the pros of allowing investing back but with a modified method to hopefully have solved the issues which lead to its removal.
Never suggested anything about a rant. I said do investments on your own time off the DevForum. There are several platforms, community servers and other methods that host channels for doing this and you can also touch down with individuals as well.
I know, thats what I currently do, but u still don’t get my point. im simply asking if we could be allowed to offer investment instead since personally I don’t think that part of the rule is that important, and honestly I can’t see what negatives there are to it.
Sure there are alternatives, but the forum would be easier.
I fully understand your point and I am telling you that there is no difference between asking for investments and offering it. The only thing that is changing is who is initiating the discussion. This is why offering is held in the same regard as asking; not allowed.
If you believe investments should be allowed then feel free to make a strong case (but not to me). I believe in organic growth and the forum is completely a free tool to facilitate that. That is what I wanted to say primarily, not have a back and forth banter about whether investments should be allowed or not.
This is the last I’ll offer for this conversation but thanks for your input.
The main issue with investments is that people don’t pay the invest back. Not even with the interest rate. Now, I work over at Hidden Developers. We had an investment channel. Notice the word “had.” It was shut down because people don’t pay back. Investments are a huge risk to take if you’re the one investing. It’s also a risk if you’re the one receiving it. You can be called out for scamming if you don’t pay it back.
To me “Hidden Developers” is such a sketchy place. Due to the fact most people on there have nothing to lose since it’s on discord, scamming is really prevalent. Investing is also a lot about trust, as roblox considers it as donating, you can legally scam your investor, so some investors would use fear mongering to insure they don’t get scammed. And the reason people get investors is because they have no money, and due to most HD members not having a real development plan, projects fail and they have no money to pay back their investors, resulting in a split community of investors who feel they got scammed, but in reality, it’s their fault for not investing into a place where it can and will grow. I also see how many people hire investors for ads alone, and it makes sense to a certain degree, but with ads;you don’t know if they will do well, and the growth isn’t organic, so the players you get from ads may not be the same when you don’t have ads. Another thing I noticed is investors that just give money, with no extra framework being done in the game (Perhaps gamedesign), and expect them to make money and get their money back. Personally, in my opinion the devforums is enough for my needs with reputable people, helpful people, and people who are simply interested in learning. (Sorry for the long rant on HD)
I keep seeing threads like this, because people want to be able to do x or y on the forum when it’s been restricted/banned. Arguing to remove restrictions on the forum is, in my opinion, pointless, for one simple reason: we choose to be here. The following outlines my justification.
The DevForum is a private, moderated platform for developers to get ideas and help with their projects. Highlight the words private and moderated. This isn’t our place to create rules for; discord servers are. If you disagree with the rules here, you can always take your conversations elsewhere or create your own. If ROBLOX says a certain topic or subject isn’t allowed, that is their right, and we must respect that. Freedom of expression cannot fully exist in a moderated environment, by definition. Moderation entails censorship; the latter is a tool of the former. I understand wanting to have the right to post whatever you want, but sadly this is not your chat forum and thus, your desires are not the principle objective to be met.
If you’re looking for money/support, the best way is always to go knocking on doors one by one, regardless of the platform. You’ve seen campaigns for office, or religious groups selling bibles, or other groups trying to spread their message around town before. I guarantee you have. All major businesses that exist today started by just going to one person, then the next, trying to sell their wares. Is it easier to get your message to people when you can guarantee a larger audience? Yes. That’s why places like the devforum exist. However, if the platform you’re using doesn’t allow a specific message, then if you want to get it across, you must go to people one on one. There are two advantages to this:
A) You are far more likely to get a sale if you go one by one to people because it’s more personable to the consumer. As a composer, I can’t just spam people with my portfolio to get work; I need to convince them I have a vision, and sell it to them. Same thing with getting investors. They are more likely to invest with you if you convince them personally they have a vision first, before asking for the money, and you can only do that by going door to door, one person at a time, asking for help.
B) You do the exact same thing here anyways. You must go to one person at a time to get help here, because realistically you can only talk to one person at any one point. The difference between the devforum and doing it elsewhere is that here, there is a larger concentration of people to talk to, and it’s easier to go down a list here than just finding people randomly. Nonetheless, the basic process is the same: you ask for investments, people respond, you talk about it, and you either get invested in or you don’t.
We can always find business elsewhere. I want to address the common counter argument, which is that places likes HD are full of scammers or are generally untrustworthy. To this I pose the question, “What makes the devforum different since Roblox will not take action over scams anyways?” I also pose the following line of reasoning: just because you don’t like a place of business doesn’t mean that place isn’t an option. You have chosen not to do business there, and ROBLOX is not responsible for facilitating everything according to how you’d like it. You chose to be here, and thus you must respect and follow the ROBLOX guidelines for the forums, even if you disagree with them.
To summarize, developers choose to be here, so ROBLOX has no interest in changing their guidelines to fit the whims of what appears to be a minority. I do not want this to be construed as an attack on the OP, because it’s not. It’s just my thoughts on the subject.
Not entirely sure what you’re saying behind all the flavour text but you’re replying to a post that was made 3-4 years ago, FYI. Although spoken from a personal perspective, this is a post I made while I was still doing Community Editor work. It’s no longer relevant, and Roblox’s stance on investments on the forum has not changed - go elsewhere if you want an investor.
See:
You shouldn’t make your case to me because like Roblox, I have an opinion that hasn’t been changed for all this time (which is that investments should not be allowed here) and I have no leverage in getting that discussion tabled, that was my opinion. Not interested in discussing investments this much time later to be honest.
There’s no real point in necrobumping this post whether you agree with me or not because I’m ultimately not the one who has a say on this.