OBSERVATION from OP: All of the information from this feature request was searched on multiple websites to contextualize and help to understand the origins until its end. Furthermore, this feature request is based on the recent mega bug report thread created by a forum user, which helped during the construction of some paragraphs. Feel free to support this idea by giving a like and/or reply!
Background & Context
In 2020, during the rise of COVID-19, more people turned to digital platforms for entertainment, and Roblox saw a significant increase in Daily Active Users, from 17.6 million in 2019 to 32.58 million in 2020 (according to Statista). With this growth, many users started learning how they could script, build, and model for their projects, often using the Developer Forum for guidance.
To further engage developers, the Developer Engagement Team (DET), a sub-department of Developer Relations, began hosting game jams, starting with the Holiday Developer Game Jam 2020, on December 1st:
Holiday Developer Game Jam 2020!
Game jams are small competitions where participants develop a game prototype within a set time limit based on a given theme. Submissions are judged, and winners receive prizes.
For the Holiday Developer Game Jam 2020, the prizes were:
Following the success of this event, more game jams were introduced, such as Game Quest Challenge 2021, which continued the tradition of awarding new computer monitors and Roblox Gift Cards. However, the Imagination Challenge 2021, held three months later, marked a shift in prize structure. Instead of prioritizing high-end tech rewards, it introduced exclusive avatar accessories:
This event introduced four new exclusive avatar items as prizes:
- Gold Challenger Award (1st place)
- Silver Challenger Award (2nd place)
- Bronze Challenger Award (3rd place)
- Achievement Medal (Participation)
This shift to avatar accessories became more evident in Developer Dream Jam 2022 (February 22nd, 2022), where a new medal was introduced instead of reusing Achievement Medal:
This trend continued with Connect 2022, where participants could receive:
At this point, itâs pretty clear that these game jams had all sorts of different prizesâgift cards for gaming electronics, Roblox gift cards for Robux, and more. But if you look closely, youâll notice a pattern: They started shifting toward exclusive avatar accessories as rewards, both for winners and just for participating. At first, they mostly stuck to medals for these events, and over time, they moved away from the Challenger Award trophies. Thatâs when they decided to change things up and solve the problem more creatively.
On June 13th, 2022, the Developer Engagement Team (DET) introduced the DevRel Virtual Prize Series to make prize distribution more flexible. Before this, if you joined multiple game jams, youâd just get the same participation prize every time. But with this new system, they made it so that each time you participated, youâd unlock a new prize from a set list, kind of like a collectible series instead of just repeating the same reward.
And it wasnât just for U.S. game jams. This system also helped international communities. For example, if a game jam was hosted in Poland, youâd still see these virtual prizes being used as part of the rewards:
Although they seem very creative and contribute to engaging and meeting other creators around the world, there are some problems behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, some of the items in this series were published with mistakes and did not follow usersâ expectations. For example, when the Achievement Medal was launched, the accessory type was set as âFaceâ instead of âFrontâ. Although you may find this silly and think the solution could be just changing to the correct type, it is impossible. According to a Roblox staff from the Catalog Asset Team, responsible for the fixes of every catalog asset, when an item is live, i.e. published on the Marketplace, they can no longer see its accessory type:
In theory, they could republish the accessory with the correct configurations, like they did with the Blanc Knowledge Visor in a recent platform event, âThe Hunt: Mega Editionâ, but there is another problem. The key difference is that platform event items are tied to in-game badges, while DevRel Virtual Prizes are based on player submissions, which involve Roblox usernames and user IDs. If they were to review both the submissions from U.S. and international challenges, it would take ages because thousands, if not millions of players outside were âhuntingâ for this item. This makes it an incredibly complex issue with no easy solution.
Thanks to @v6FiRE, who has pointed out many of the issues with these items, we now know that half of the accessories in the series are affected:
As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to address these issues because they are often buried under older reports or high-priority tasks. Currently, the Catalog Asset Team has a new policy of not reviewing items that are over 6 months old, focusing on those with much higher impact. This results in these problems remaining unresolved, affecting the experience for many creators.
With this in mind, a viable solution would be creating a modernized DevRel Virtual Prize Series. This new series could follow Robloxâs current branding, ensuring the accessories align with the platformâs overall aesthetic. It could also provide an opportunity for new, top UGC creators to collaborate with Roblox, sharing their creativity through their designs and allowing users to wear their creations. This would bring fresh energy into the series and potentially solve many of the existing issues, making it more sustainable and exciting for the developer community.
If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my experience because it would make things easier and prevent the frustration that comes with unresolved problems. A modernized prize series would also allow developers to enjoy more rewards, motivating them to participate in future jams and fostering a stronger, more connected community of creators.