I can’t comment on Brazil (I just know there are complications with e-commerce there, but that is all I know), but people in Russia are not going to have a good time anywhere for the foreseeable future due to sanctions. You aren’t getting Stripe payments, and you definitely are not getting DevEx. Third-party marketplaces like itch.io aren’t options either, nor is donations though Patreon. Just buying stuff is painful right now because of the sanctions. The best you can do on the current system is get Robux and then wait for who knows how long.
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Even if the plugins were offered in Robux, it would have to be the same price in a DevEx rate for the Developer to make a profit off it similar to what they would make by you paying USD. Would you have enough Robux then to afford it? The prices would still be comparative to what they are now, the lowest likely costing 1,427 robux (at the $4.99 rate).
Again, at least people can earn robux through group funds, microtransactions, etc.
They already are offered in Robux and cheaper than what you claim
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Yes, they are offered in Robux as of right now, and yes, I’m aware they’re significantly cheaper than 1,427 robux. However, when this goes live, the pricing will have to be adjusted. Seeing to it that the lowest price you can offer is $4.99, doing some basic math can get you to 1,427 robux at the DevEx rate. That’s the rate I’m comparing it to.
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translation: We aren’t making enough money so we are gonna force ppl now to pay with more real money
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so in summary, this update will make robux less worth buying, huh?
yeah i’m going to keep more than 5 digit amount of robux accumulated sitting in my account with no real use
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After having onboarded as a seller, I wanted to update the pricing for one of my plugins that is currently Robux-based. However, this is a group plugin, not hosted under my user account and it says that assets owned by a group are not eligible. What will happen to these assets on April 8th?
Reuploading under my user account seems less than ideal since I’d have to either maintain two asset listings for the same product, or deprecate one that people already paid Robux for.
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Absolutely don’t agree with this change, instead of improving Roblox pricing and taxes, you guys are just taking the lazy road and forcing a way that you think will benefit just one side when in reality, this will hurt both.
Roblox advertises itself as a global platform where everyone can create and play, regardless of economic problems, financial difficulties, and other important problems that can occur, a person can join Roblox and create. This change is quite the opposite of this. This makes creation harder, Plugins are meant to make our lives easier while being affordable for developers regardless of their currency. Inflation exists, and USD is not the only currency in the world, I would like to remind you.
I wouldn’t be so fully against this change if we still had the option to pay with Robux, and creators would be able to set prices accordingly. Or even better, you guys could’ve introduced a better payment system for Plugin developers, so while developers were still able to buy their favorite plugins, plugin developers would also make better money.
And don’t even get me started on the ID Verification thing again, I am absolutely not giving my private information neither to Roblox or a third-party company that I have heard nothing about. Even if I had, I still wouldn’t, and I think many others feel the same way.
(Dev-Ex ID verification is more acceptable as I directly know where the money is going. I’m generally talking about the ID Verification system in Roblox.)
If you think that this change will benefit the platform, sorry to break the news, but it won’t. Many solutions can be used to both compensate normal developers and plugin developers. But instead, this road was taken, and I think Roblox will see the consequences very soon after this change.
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Well, for me there are two distinct scenarios:
As a French citizen, I am under the obligation to annually report all of my incomes.
I will only be talking about the interesting case: having a game that makes you earn more money.
If robux are kept
DevEx rates would still be disastrous, which is indeed a solid pain. However, you have the advantage to be protected via a crypto. Yes, robux can be considered as a cryptocurrency to SOME EXTENT.
Indeed, it doesn’t have any blockchain system, it doesn’t require any mining with complex verification systems, it doesn’t rely on blockchain computers to perform transactions, … however, it still has that aspect of online currency you can get, and retrieve to real money.
Because of that, you are not confronted with all that administrative work, and the platform is kept user-friendly, especially for people under the legal majority age. That’s why it is a great thing: everybody can, WITHOUT THE FEAR OF DOING SOMETHING UNLAWFUL, create assets and gain virtual money, that they may be able (when ready) to withdraw someday.
If robux get slowly removed
I would gain money from my game directly. I don’t see why they would “store” my real money on a website, and then require me to use DevEx anymore.
This plugin application requires you to insert your internation bank account number (IBAN) so that they can directly transfer the money onto your account. You would no longer need to retrieve that money.
So, on the same logic, every penny I would get from my game would be on the bank account I precise. That would require me to declare this earned money. I don’t want to fraudulently scam public finance services of course, so I would deckare it. However, here is how it works in France:
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Below roughly 3k € per YEAR: you would be not charged for the overall money you got.
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Above roughly 3k € per YEAR: you would need to declare that money, and would be in need to pay taxes on it. That means you are 18+ of course. The ideal course of action is that you create a company so that everything is done properly. Of course, the more you get, the more administrative work is needed, and the more you’ll need to pay.
I’m not detailing how creating a company works in France, as I’m not familiar with this process. However, it is pretty clear that robux are beneficial to avoid all that hassle. Nonetheless, people below 18 would need their parents to do all that for them, which here, would nearly never happen.
Sidenote
Note that everything I said is true on the French soil. Differences appear in every country, which may be even worse for local developers there.
Conclusion
As discussable as it seems, I believe that keeping an online currency system would be better. However, we all know that since ROBLOX went public, decisions made by the administration are now mostly voted so that shareholders are happy.
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I didn’t realise Roblox got around to eventually allowing to sell group plugins for Robux, I think I had one I wanted to sell but I couldn’t since it was a group plugin
They don’t get that much money, that’s just it. They have a net loss, and almost two thirds of that is to DevEx.
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Roblox should integrate crypto payments on some kind of blockchain technology:
- No ID required
- No age limits
- Easy peer to peer transactions (commission developers, buying assets)
- Easy to purchase other things using any crypto
- Easy to withdraw to a bank
Problem is that on a blockchain these are permanent and irreversible transactions.Unless Roblox developed and centralized their own blockchain and it was centralized so they could reverse and moderate transactions. In which case why even have a blockchain?
And then you are just back to Robux basically…
I just wish there was some easier way to convert Robux to useable currency that didn’t require you to be 18 or ID verified. In the future, It would be cool if they allowed you to convert your Robux to Bitcoin or something.
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Please read the post(s) next time to create an accurate opinion on things
The Plugin Creators get 100% 90% of what the plugin is sold for, not 70%, and the “low” DevEx rates
It’s giving Plugin Creators more money
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I cannot speak for all parts of your post, but I can speak to the fact that this is not the case. Robux itself is not affordable for all developers “regardless of their currency”, this post points to that, and yes, while USD is not the only currency in the world, a majority of Roblox developers are US-based and Roblox’s HQ is US-based. If they were based in the UK, it would be GBP, Germany, France, etc. it would be Euro. They’re just doing it based off of where they’re based.
Roblox likely already has your private information, whether you think they do or not - consider the last time you made a robux purchase or any purchase on the platform regarding USD. You have to give them some information which is personal. Secondly, if you do not know anything about a company, you can always research them.
Mind you, by doing a quick search, Veriff appears to have no instance of data breaches (though I will note they are based in Estonia, but Estonia is in the EU and they probably have stricter privacy laws than the US) and they claim to not sell your data. If that is also your concern, your data has likely already been sold if you use any other platforms.
Regardless, I can still understand your concern about ID verification, I was hesitant to give Roblox my ID, though eventually I did.
It is important, though, that they do this, as it is one of the better ways to ensure that the users who are submitting assets (or participating in Voice Chat, though we know there’s been faults in this) are above the age of majority in California.
This is quite an absurd claim. I do not believe Roblox would ever assert this, especially as you have to buy Robux in the first place.
Plugins are meant to make Development easier, that is true, but nowhere was it established that they were meant to be affordable - Moon Animator is a good example of this.
Yes, I’m not entirely with this system, but it some ways it is a better step forward than other ways, and in some ways I imagine it could be cheaper for Roblox to implement.
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Developers get 90%, not 100%, just to clarify. 10% is taken by Roblox for transaction fees. 10% is still an industry-standard rate and WAY better than 30%.
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This might be technically difficult, but I wonder if some of the complains (purchasing difficulty, etc) could be solved by adding Roblox giftcard support to the Creator Store.
I wonder if it would be possible to still allow for R$ pricing, even if it was at devex rate, just for the few people who might not be able to use the payment options.
I also hope the increase in requirements doesn’t apply to free plugins, because it would be a pain to distribute free open source plugins without them being able to be in the creator store.
Overall, even though I know this update will get a lot of hate, this update is a great thing for developers and tool developers. For so long plugin creators have been paid in nickels and dimes for their work (begrudgingly even!). The payment rate is also so much more reasonable (90% instead of less than 30%).
- Your Roblox account must not have been recently banned for any reason.
I personally wish there was more dispersion for this part, perhaps there could be a real appeals process through the dev relations team or something.
I know loads of developers have been moderated and banned incorrectly with immense levels of incompetence on the side of the moderation system (myself included).
If plugins are only going to be allowed to be set at a fixed list of prices, why not do what has already been done with subscriptions and automatically convert the money earned into Robux for those that do not qualify for or do not want to share their ID to create a seller account?
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I think this could be done, though one concern is that the money goes out of the seller account as USD, so if people could pay in R$ it would effectively bypass devex.
They could do something where plugin sellers could opt-in to accepting R$ if they’re devex eligible.
L Update Fr. Let’s get to the facts, I don’t think that the MAJORITY of people who need a Plugin that badly are going to pay in dollars for the Plugin, this will only kill the Plugin community.
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