In recent times, Roblox has been doing a lot of sponsored events, and since most of them target younger audiences, I haven’t been too fond of their existence.
Could we potentially push to optionally opt out of seeing sponsored content for players who are builders club members?
Specifically:
Billboards in-game
Thumbnails and badges that are related to the sponsored content
Catalog items in relation to the sponsorship
Sponsorship page links on the side of the page
I know I’m asking for a lot, and that’s understandable, but if Roblox isn’t going to stop this sponsorship stuff, I just don’t want to deal with it.
If it can’t be done, I may consider just writing some third party chrome extensions and programs to filter it myself.
I think you’re over-reacting a little. ROBLOX is aimed at a younger audience, it’s their decision, they probably got more than 50% positive feedback from that survey because of their audience. You’re basically asking ROBLOX to change it’s target audience as well as losing a lot of money from the users that would no longer see the sponsor’s advertisements.
Personally I use AdBlock and other Extensions that customize the look of ROBLOX for me to remove sponsored content.
On a different note I’d be happy if ROBLOX made the game more open to an older audience by only filtering bad language for the younger audience and allowing the older audience to have more relaxed age rating requirements on their games. During this process you may lose some of the younger audience due to a stricter upbringing (Only if they lied about their age) but I believe you’d gain a lot more players then you’d lose by doing this.
Another big thing is that the younger community is too accepting of “bad looking” games. Games that have bad Building, UI and other visuals are wayyy too accepted on ROBLOX. This is one of my main goals on ROBLOX, I’d suggest other developers be less “greedy” and ask for help from people that know what they’re doing when it comes to visuals as it will greatly help ROBLOX in terms of first impressions for new users. I’m sure we can all agree when we see popular people (youtubers) play ROBLOX for the first time on a RP or OBBY game we all cringe.
On the stance of making something friendly to all ages:
In a Wolf pack the old and the sick travel at the front to set the pace for the rest of the pack, the same principle should be applied when having children on a site that welcomes all ages.
But yeah, it’d be nice to see ROBLOX sponsor something targeted at an older audience every once in a while.
I just noticed that for certain events that were aimed at really young children, it wouldn’t have one of those little banner-like buttons on the bottom of the dropdown menu on the left of the website for me, and I actually had no way to reach the event page except going to its URL.
They should do more about age segmentation in general and have different rules on different parts of the website depending on what age group it is for, and rules on which parts you can access and which you cannot depending on age.
I find your posts here are looking at things from the side of a huge minority and focus on issues that I’m not sure entirely exist.
I’m not interested in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies. Therefore I did not click on the sponsorship button or play the sponsored games. I’m not entirely sure why you want ROBLOX to block the content just because you don’t like it? If ROBLOX had an algorithm to figure out if somebody would like a sponsorship or not, without asking the user, many advertisement companies would be very jealous.
I hadn’t heard about Jurassic World until I saw the banner on ROBLOX. I’m a fan of the movies but I am not up to date whatsoever when it comes to knowing about upcoming movies. Sure, you could argue that this movie had an older target audience, but the same applies to Disney. Disney movies are loved by people of all ages.
I’m confused. Why are you perceiving that you have to “deal with it”? As long as you don’t interact with the sponsored content there is nothing to deal with, right? What are you dealing with?
Twitch stream started with a Kung Fu Panda 3 trailer (Didn’t adhere to Twitch ToS there), instant front page for sponsored game, pre-roll ads become sponsored when not BC and you get a link on left hand side for the sponsor.
I think that is what is meant by “dealing with it”?
EDIT: Just so Roblox don’t get into trouble with Twitch if someone does start reporting promotion, here are the ToS for twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/user/legal Section 6
Oh god, I sure hate dealing with kung fu panda ads when I expected a regular ad. The sidebar icon argument is silly - it’s completely out of the way and you can adblock it. I just don’t see how sponsored content can be perceived as so bothersome that someone would rather use a custom roblox client.
If Roblox doesn’t show sponsorship ads when I have BC, why should I see sponsored content in any shape or form?
I get that it’s only a minor annoyance on my end, but it’s an annoyance nonetheless.
Well, I guess I’ve been outspoken
The problem with my idea ultimately lies in the fact that I’m asking for a general filter, instead of individual brand filters, and a general filter is already complicated as it is.
So what? I saw that same trailer when I went to see Star Wars 7. It didn’t make me inclined to go see it then, and seeing it on The Next Level as I moderated a storm of chats on the YouTube stream certainly didn’t make me want to go see the movie. So you know what I’m doing with the sponsored event? Ignoring it.
It doesn’t affect me at all that there are sponsored events practically year round. It’s been a thing on ROBLOX for a long time now.
What does bother me. and if you intend to discuss this further create another thread, is sponsored holiday events, especially when they’re just stupid little find-the-hat minigames inside of already-popular games. I much prefer when new games are created for events - and much prefer them without corporate sponsorship. But if that’s how ROBLOX chooses to make money, that’s not any of my business and if I find an event unenjoyable, I definitely don’t have to play it.
The moral of the story is that it simply doesn’t affect you. We see product placements at a constant rate, seeing logos and advertisements on literally everything.
Talking about older players’ perception of this site, I think there are numerous other problems that ROBLOX needs to address if they want to improve that perception. Sponsored content for kids is probably the least of it.
I’d say that ROBLOX “recommending” first-time older users to play games like “Ride 999999999 Miles Down Spongebob” right off the bat is probably a lot more damaging to said audience than having a few sponsored images on the side.
