Changes to the Popular Sort

Oh. I must have misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

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On one hand, I agree

And something not mentioned is this also may alleviate some of the exponential free advertising that the to popular games have, which is good for flattening out the curve of games people are playing on Roblox. (while still not punishing the successful popular games) Not pushing for total equity, because obviously that canā€™t happen, nor should it, but itā€™s spreading out the limited advertising slots to difference demographics that in theory will be more interested in what appears.

And on the other hand, the perfectionist side of me doesnā€™t like seeing numbers out of order in a sort that historically has been all about the raw numbers no matter what. I and many others will have to get over that.

Where was this said?
What youā€™re referring to was already done, you just have to look at a gameā€™s detail page. Thereā€™s still no way to see how many people are playing on each platform for a game you donā€™t own unless you go to all other platforms and check the player count there.

Hi,

Thanks for all your responses so far.

It sounds like many of you want to be able to see the overall popular games regardless of age and platform, and also want to see whatā€™s popular in your gameā€™s target age group (which might be different from your own age group). This makes total sense, and weā€™ll look for ways to address this.

Several people asked about ā€˜Popular Near Youā€™. ā€˜Popular Near Youā€™ shows the most popular games played by people in your country. Since most of our players are in the US, this is fairly redundant for US-based players right now. We anticipate that as Roblox gets more international players, that will change, but we will also be looking for other ways to increase the variety of titles shown on the Games Page.

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I believe itā€™s important to have the first category on the Games page to show games that are popular in your age group; since it is the FIRST thing you see when you visit the Games page. Therefore I am a huge fan of this change- it makes games that are more kid/teen oriented to exist in their own bubble. Maybe the name ā€œPopularā€ is misleading here, and it could be renamed to something else, but still be in the #1 slot on the Games page.

There should also still be a sort that shows games that are popular across the whole platform (platform meaning desktop, tablet, phone or console), which would be named ā€œPopular Across Robloxā€ or something like that.

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I think this change makes a lot of sense for players. Honestly, Iā€™m all for changes that diversify exposure. Splitting up the popular sort by age groups makes it easier for games to break into the front page and have the exponential growth associated with that milestone.

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I remember a time when they did show overall player count, across all ages and platforms.

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ā€œCurrently, Game Tiles show player count by platform. Our plan in the near future is to standardize Game Tiles to show the overall player count, across all ages and platforms.ā€

If that isnā€™t what I think it is I will feel emotionally betrayed.

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My bad, I didnā€™t expect that actually. That seems counter intuitive for a diverse audience if we have a popular sort that is not catered to the person viewing it depending on their platform, age, etc.

Sorts should be the top-level actor that change behavior based on who the user is, not game tiles. Right now there are 3 different player counts that the user sees (potentially more) on our platform.

This is likely confusing behavior. Especially since the user may believe that those are the total amount of potential people they will play with which is not the case. Changing this will standardize the game tile and make it more clear.

Game tiles are what we see for games on our home page? Or Favorites on profile? Or even the games within a group.
If so I see now, I see at least 3 different player counts.
I misunderstood tiles vs sort. That is a good thing to standardize the tiles, thanks for clarifying.

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Thank goodness!! My game has an almost equal split across all platforms and it almost felt like I was being punished for that. This is great news.

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Iā€™m fine with the new popular section being sorted by age, but i think a new section should be added to the dropdown menu to sort by total player count. This new section should sort by total player count globally across all platforms, not just your current platform like it has in the past.

I really love this new update

I still donā€™t really see the purpose of ā€œPopular Near Youā€. If an international player is looking for servers of similar language they will be hard pressed to find them specifically by the PNY sort. It honestly seems pointless and would better serve as a spot for something more useful.

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The purpose of popular sort on other platforms/services (look at Netflix and IMDb for example) is to show the whole consumer baseā€™s favorite. These popular sorts are not restricted by demographic and platform criteria. Instead, I imagine the entire purpose of ā€œpopularā€ sort for them is not to see what your same-age peers and consumers are playing, but to see the collective popularity across demographics. I agree with @evaera on this. Sort changes like this should be made via an optional tab or through the settings somehow.

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To note, Netflix actually does show different home pages depending on which country you are in.

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My impulse reaction was ā€œThis is terrible!ā€ but Iā€™m changing my mind.
This announcement post mentions that the next change is displaying true concurrents across all platforms. If you look at the top 7 most popular games when adding all platforms together, this is the Popular sort youā€™d get without this feature.
#1 Jailbreak
#2 Royale High
#3 Bubble Gum Sim
#4 Bloxburg
#5 SuperPower Sim
#6 Bee Sim
#7 Meepcity

Basically 90% roleplay and simulator games, which many of us are absolutely not into. Iā€™m curious how the top overall list changes with this Popular sort shuffle. Games Iā€™m used to finding in the sort, like Phantom Forces, would be buried behind these games and far down the Popular sort without this change.

My main gripe after all of this, give us an easy way to see what different age groups are being presented on the games page! Also maybe rename Popular?

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I believe the same misunderstanding I had is being perpetuated with this response. The popular sort isnā€™t changing to show overall concurrent across all platforms. Sorts ~= game tiles

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