[CLOSED] University Ambassador Program

If you mean adding a Guilded links on your games, then you can. You can add Guilded links to your profile, groups and games

Furthermore I am not sure what Roblox does to entice older audiences to join the platform.

Roblox continues to exclusively only support games that target young impressionable children. There aren’t even age-ratings on games. Everything has to be E for everyone.

Not to mention at a college level, a 15-25% return from the money you make Roblox is a laughable ROI.

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Fair points you’ve made, but I don’t think Roblox sees university students as potential cash-grab. It’d be fair to say they want their platform to be seen as a starting point to students as Roblox provides tolerable tools they can tinker with.

I can see the potential in the program as some students might want to know how developing an actual game on a platform, interacting with a community feels like without spending a ton of money on game engine licenses, publishing fees, music & art copyright fees, server & database setup and managing, it’s really cost-effective if you think about it. Roblox provides a base for you to work on, everything else left is up to you.

Before anyone mentions me and beats me up, I’m aware there are student offers — DigitalOcean servers for students, Unreal Engine has a $1M lifetime gross revenue limit before they take the sweet %5 from you & more, but come on, your average student wouldn’t develop networking protocols, database handlers, server & client protocols for a project they’re working in their free time, that is if they have any to begin with.

Other than this and that, Roblox should realize their platform isn’t only used by teenagers who develop these amazing projects in their free time and enjoy the R$ comes with it, but there are potential game studios (read: companies) that want to monetize and use Roblox as their main platform, Dev-Ex money can’t even afford them the dental care plans, let alone company-sponsored retirement plans/accounts. It’s time Roblox starts caring.

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This is awesome! My college program uses Unity, but wouldn’t it be great to see Roblox Studio being taught at schools? I think this is a good start overall, hopefully one day Roblox Studio will become like Unreal Engine 4/5 and Unity since those are the only game engines I was taught in school.

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Not that Roblox will see this because it’s obvious they don’t care for constructive criticism but…

This is yet another overstep Roblox is making without addressing the numerous issues that riddle it with such infamy.

Roblox you need to address your critical issues first. You will be lucky to find any college student or adult who will see past;

  • Understaffed or underpaid developer relations and support teams

  • Unfair, understaffed, inconsistent, and unprofessional moderation platform-wide

  • Meagre 15-25% pay for the amount of value developers produce, yet Roblox corporate has seen industry-record-breaking profits thanks to developers

  • Poor game discovery support especially for newer and low-funded developers

  • No age-ratings for games, I mean c’mon. There’s little creative freedom if we all have to cater to young children

  • Strict audio upload limits for new developers

  • The only games Roblox effectively supports and advertises are texture-less, painfully bright and colorful, typically low-effort, simulator gambling games that target young impressionable children. All the attempted high quality games young adults like most see no love from Roblox and are driven out

  • Inconsistent, non-scalable chat filter algorithm and its related policies (we’re all forced to use the same broken chat filters)

  • Broken or unreliable asset advertisement tools (games, groups, and other marketplace items)

  • Frequent site crashes, especially when a major game updates

  • No streamlined way to become a UGC creator for the Marketplace, it’s currently way too exclusive

  • DevForum, Dev/API wiki, creator dashboard, and talent hub are way too hard to find even for experienced developers

  • And the biggest one of all, poor engine performance and strict engine limitations

Most developers I know use Roblox as a stepping stone into more serious and profitable platforms like Steam, Unreal Engine, Unity, Epic Games, etc. Each of those devs have cited at least one (usually all) of those issues as their reasons for exodus off the platform.

Once Roblox fixes these issues then I see college students being a feasible demographic.
Roblox needs to understand most grad students are over-burdened with loan debt, and need at least a good paying entry-level job that makes them money ASAP.
Roblox is certainly not that in its current state.

Please listen to your developer community Roblox.

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Is it possible to pay the fees in robux? I mean, not that I have enough anyways

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some invaluable articulations from community members, and i have a similar consensus. while this campus-oriented initiative seems sincere, until core components are better streamlined, is it not silly to exhibit this platform in the very spaces where more robust and profitable catalysts are readily accessible?

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This is an amazing initiative! Glad to be a part of this as a developer volunteer :heart:

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Time to bring Roblox to MTSU??

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Would be nice if we could go in but sadly this is only US Based.

Some of the main points you discussed are completely valid, however I feel you’re being slightly pessimistic regarding the introduction of this program. I’m 100% sure that this will undoubtedly bring in more budding creators that want to kick start their career and enrich their skillset.

For starters, the angle you’ve taken focuses more on the weaknesses in Roblox’s primary offering (that being it game engine and platform) as opposed to the actual reasoning for courses being introduced in the first place, which is to keep up with the demand for Roblox Developers. You could make the same argument about introducing any simple Computer Science course 50-60 years ago (the first one was offered in 1953 at Cambridge University) because back then, computers were not as common and in fact as a society, we were only just getting used to them.

Is it ambitious? Sure, but it isn’t as ambitious as it’s been sold to be, and as time passes by (and Roblox’s goals are being met), I wouldn’t be surprised if one didn’t exist in the next few years.

Succeeding on roblox is hard. I don’t think that should be underselled at any point. But this is no different to the rest of the games industry. Infact, dare I say, it’s probably harder in the AAA* and Independent Game Market than it is on Roblox, because the bar of quality for games on those markets is not only higher, but subsequently, that contributes to an increased sunk cost in project development over time. Not to mention the fact that more than 60% of independent developers have to get a part-time job to even think about sustaining themselves while making a game.

On Roblox however, the bar of quality is fairly low and the bar of market entry is also fairly low. Server cost is not only covered by Roblox, but they provide you tools to market your experiences, and the learning curve to get onto the platform is incredibly steep/easy. This means that a developer who is competing at a high level, who utilises these benefits to their advantage, generally has a much lower sunk cost, with pretty much identical rewards/profits from their work, than an indie developer who has to put a lot more effort and time into a project to make it succeed.

I’m really sorry to hear you’ve struggled. I’ve got a lot of friends who are in a struggle/ have been throughout their years. I don’t want to undermine that or them by any means. However as you said, you want to step away from the platform eventually into the greater industry. I think that’s a totally respectable decision and it’s important to discuss and converse about the risks of being a full-time worker in any environment. I’d really encourage you to speak about the things you’ve learnt trying to be an entrepreneur (I assume since you mentioned being self-sustaining) so that others are more educated and can make the right decisions.

That being said, I also know plenty of people out there, me included, who’d love to work on Roblox full time and pursue it as a long career. I completely understand from the perspective you’ve painted that you want to branch out, and I think its good for outside perspective to be brought in every now and again to improve the platform. However, I also feel that people’s decisions, goals and motivations are there own. I know alot of people don’t want to study game design, but there are the odd few who absolutely adore it and want to pursue it, and just like in this instance, it’s not really our say whether a course like this is needed or not.

This is true, and the common pitfalls that cause these issues should be discussed in an open environment. But I also feel your argument regarding your game vs Black Ops for this isn’t as strong as it could be, especially since both games compete in wildly different levels of market volatility.

For starters, we don’t know a lot about your game, so I can’t really make a logical comparison between the two. However, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that player count does not equate to the effectiveness of your monetisation or the player engagement levels your experience is having. Black Ops 1 is an exceedingly successful product, that’s still selling at £25 to this day. For a product that’s been around for nearly 10 years, it’s still going really strong and it’s supplemented by DLC that can be bought year in year out.

Again, leading back to my point about people wanting to do what they want, I think people should be able to choose whether they’d like to enter the Roblox platform or not. They should 100% be aware of the risks, because that’ll allow them to make an educated decision. But to say things like…

… is utterly false and pessimistic. In fact, even saying Roblox isn’t viable as a career choice is factually incorrect as there are people who’ve done it, and that means there’s a chance for people to do that themselves. There is a definitely an element of opportunism involved in success but with studios coming onto the platform, there’ll be more opportunities to work on Roblox games professionally than ever before.

I’ll also say as a case study, (not trying to flex here lol), in my first year of university, I was not only able to successfully apply the skills I learnt off Roblox into AAA*/indie game development, but I actually ended up producing a project for the UK government, which ended up being submitted alongside other submissions, and resulting in my University being named as one of the best educational institutes for game development in the country. Let’s not undermine the versatility and the use of skills you pick up on Roblox, as actually even if you were to take a course on Roblox, it’s extremely clear you can apply those skills into general game development and other industries outside of Roblox. I’ve done it, so I’m sure others in my position would be able to as well.

People with this opinion do exist in the industry. It’s kinda undeniable, and I’ve encountered a few during my time at university. Legitimately though, this doesn’t really matter to the people who want to take a course in Roblox. As specialised as a Roblox course would be, you’d have to imagine that the people taking them would apply for roblox specific jobs, so you’d think that employers on the Roblox Platform would be looking for desirable experience within the space.

Sure, external employers might feel different. However, going back to the transferrable nature of skills picked up on Roblox, you can easily demonstrate your level of experience through work outside of the platform. If you’re coming into a Senior Programming Role that works in C#, you might struggle if all of your previous work is in Lua. That kinda makes sense since it’s not what they’re looking for.

So to answer your question, it would depend on the employer and the job you’re applying for, but I don’t think I’d apply for a Computer Science role with an English Degree. Also, since the degree doesn’t exist at the moment, I don’t think it’s worth dealing in hypotheticals when we have very few applicable case studies that relate to this.

All in all I think you’ve posed a very interesting perspective and I think it’s definitely worth the University Ambassador program spreading more awareness of the risks and difficulties that you might face in the industry, as after all, the purpose of any course or university degree is to prepare students for the future.

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Why do you think? Roblox owns Guilded, and not to mention is on uneasy terms with discord atm.

Damn I wish I was old enough to be in uni now

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As much as I would love to join this program, this is entirely correct

Roblox is probably the least respected game development platform in the world, and thats not an exaggeration. Not only do the general public see it as a “kids game”, but now media are starting to close in on the narrative that roblox is an evil business, with the most notable videos being from PMG, Ruben Sim and Moon. If you say you play Roblox you get ridiculed, if you say you develop on roblox then people will be like “oh isn’t that that one company that exploits its workers and uses child labour”

As it stands Roblox needs to work on fixing their reputation and establishing themselves as a viable option for game development, otherwise barely any uni students can bring themselves to take Roblox seriously

This is also unfortunately true. I’ve always seen Roblox as an “introduction to game development”, and when you’ve learnt it, you can pull away and start learning how to apply your skills elsewhere: it’s like how everyone learns the recorder as their first instrument, but then move to another woodwind like a flute or clarinet when they get the chance. There are still recorder masters, but the general population think the recorder is an annoying, screechy joke of an instrument for kids, hence all the memes. Roblox is the recorder of game development (bad analogy ik but bear with me)

There are quite a few people who have made a career out of Roblox, but for the average developer it seems quite out of reach for the most part. To make a decent salary out of Roblox (lets say ÂŁ35,000 for ease of calculation) your games need to earn 10 million robux a year. That is, on average, 27,000 robux per day, which is pretty crazy, and that number is restricted to the top development groups. Keep in mind that the vast majority of users consider anything over 100 robux expensive

Roblox can’t even increase the devex rates, cause iirc they’ve been operating at a loss for years. Increasing the devex rates would absolutely destroy the company, but leaving them as they are would drive developers away - a classic catch 22

With all that being said, I would still love to join this program since I’m a sucker for all things Roblox, but the problems still stand. If there was a roblox club in any uni, it would have like 2 or 3 members since people don’t actually respect roblox as a real game development engine.

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This is a great program but there are alot of people outside U.S

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Personally Roblox has and always will be just a tool which opens the path to real development. The platform is too restrictive, their share of the profits is too high and I’m not going to even get started on all the proven ways this company pretty much scams children into working for almost nothing.

Before you try and make Roblox a “standard”, you should first make sure it’s worthy of being one.

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Dang you just summarised my essay into 3 sentences

if someone here goes to Penn State and can bring this there for future students, it would make this alum very proud!

Roblox bought Guilded therefore they are attempting to promote their events on the platform they own.

Which explains why the Guilded servers are so slow and the app is so unresponsive.

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