I see where you’re coming from regarding the game settings, it’s been a pain point for us with this, too,
so it is something we’re brainstorming on how it can be improved further.
I’m strongly advocating for us improving how we communicate things and also how we listen to and incorporate dev and user community feedback.
I feel like a lot of the things done would be more well received if people would see we’re doing them with best intentions and not just listening to feedback but also incorporating it, sometimes it’s not easy to communicate some things openly for a company in all aspects, but yeah, something to strive for improving constantly.
Ideally we’d also catch more feedback earlier on in dev cycles and implement more improvements based on that already before full rollout, sometimes that’s not possible in some aspects as some additional feedback only comes in on broader rollout, so then there’s some post release adjustments needed.
So bear with us as we get there together.
Regarding giving a vision synopsis:
I’m a software engineer with game development background, so i’ll reply with first the company product vision synopsis and then how i picture that would affect a person like me (someone who would make a game/ experience)
We want users to be able to express themselves however they want, that includes all aspects of their avatar, the look, the sound, the facial expression, makeup, clothing and accessories, and, over time even upper body movement and being able to change their voice however they want and more.
And we want to level up communication further.
Like Initially we had text chat only, then voice chat, now avatar chat with animating your avatar’s face from mic or cam input and we’ll have animating the avatar’s upper body from cam input in the future and other enhancements.
All those should be additional options and choices for users and developers, where we present the additional features and open up new possibilities and then it is up to developers and users what they make of it and what they want to use how (much) in particular experiences and games at any given time.
Those features being worked on are independent of other UI, Rendering, Physics and other improvements being worked on as we have dedicated other teams working on all those and many other things.
Still, one could wonder hey, i’m personally not working on a “metaverse” kinda “experience”, what do i need those enhanced expression and communication features for?
Generally we see the more of the avatar expression and communication features a game/experience supports, the more that helps with playtime, adoption, retention and other metrics.
From the angle of a user, sure i want to express myself in the look and feel of my avatar and have any communication features available to me to the degree i want to use them in a particular game/experience anytime accessible right away.
Maybe in a particular game i’m cool with text chat, in another i may want voice chat or full avatar chat.
Maybe in one game i’m cool with the custom avatar it gives me, while in another i would prefer my own avatar to be in there or maybe sometimes it should look like a realistic version of me, sometimes like a cartoony or blocky version, sometimes like a version of the avatar i made but automatically adapted for the look and feel of that particular experience/game.
So as a user i want to have the choice on all of that as much as possible anytime i want and that is a common view among many users, in many places.
(One can see it in many other places, too where more limited expression and communication ways usually take a backseat as more expressive and elaborate ones appear and are adopted, like way less people use fax or sms nowadays that we have many way more faster, more expressive, fun and elaborate other means of expressing oneself, socialising and communicating. So hence, yeah, as Roblox we want to stay right up there on the leading edge in what’s possible and offer that to our developer community as additional options).
In short it is very popular among users to be able to express themselves and hang out and communicate with others.
Various experiences have risen massively in popularity since supporting layered clothing, dynamic heads and avatar chat with voice and camera input. And generally speaking some of the most popular games and experiences are ones which support full avatar chat features.
Not saying those only became or stayed popular due to those features, but yeah, they help.
Now as as an engineer/ developer with game development background creating a Roblox game/experience, what would that mean for me?
Every dev may be different, just speaking from my stance, both because i like experimenting with new fun tech and also to increase the chances of my experience/ game becoming//staying popular longer by giving my users expression and communication features a good chunk of them likes, i’d like my player base to be able to use the ones of such new features they want to use and which make sense for the type of game/experience i create.
That may be different features for different games/experiences.
For example if i was creating a chat/hangout, avatar editor or maybe yoga or fitness experience or dancing one, then something like upper body animation from camera input could be a feature i’d be excited about and would want to add to my game/experience once it is available.
Whereas if i’d make for example a first person shooter, maybe other self expression and communication features could be more sense making for such a game.
So we’ll have settings to set which of these features are available to users in an experience.
Which of these features devs use how in particular experiences/ games is up to them, our work is to open up new possibilities. I think there is potential for some amazing things there 
, no reasoning or even mention of it, it was just pulled under the rug.
