Developer Awards! Phase 1: Swag Bags

[Missimo93]

Hey developers,

We’re always looking for fun and rewarding ways to show how much we value your dedication to the platform and celebrate your successes. Now, we’re pleased to present a new program that aims to do just that: Developer Awards! This is a program driven by data and designed to reward developers for reaching exciting, meritorious milestones per game.

There are three different types of Developer Awards. We’re still finalizing details on the other two categories, so we’re introducing the program in phases, starting with Phase 1: Swag Bags!

The swag bag itself is a stylish Roblox-branded backpack full of goodies*, of course! The bag is awarded to developers who achieve 40M+ lifetime Robux!

*Contents of the swag bag are still in production and mockups shown are not final.

We can’t wait to show you what else we have in store for the Developer Awards!

FAQ

Q: How will Roblox choose which games get the items?
A: The system is fully automated. If you meet the criteria you will get the awards.

Q: Are these awards retroactive?
A: The awards are based on a 12-month rolling period starting from January 2020.

Q: How can I see my progress towards these goals?
A: For Lifetime Robux, developers will need to add up the stats themselves - this data is only available since 2018, so old games unfortunately won’t be calculable.

Q: How does Roblox know where I live?!
A: The Developer Relations team is all-knowing! Just kidding - you will need to fill out a form if your game qualifies for swag bag.

Q: How will DevRel reach out?
A: You will be receiving an email from devawards@roblox.com with a link to the aforementioned form.

Q: What makes me eligible for the Developer Awards?
A: In order to get the items both the creator and the content must adhere to our Terms of Use and Community Rules.

Q: Will the future Phases of Developer Awards be based on Lifetime Robux earned, too?
A: No, the future Phases will be awarded based on different metrics.

Q: I’m pretty sure I’m eligible for the swag bag, but I haven’t received an email! When can I expect to receive the form?
A: The forms for the swag bags are going out in waves. If you haven’t yet received your email, hang tight. If you qualify, you’ll be in one of the future waves.

Q: Does this award count towards UGC?
A: No, this award is for a game only and not UGC.

[M_caw (Macaw)]

Ah, yes. Let’s award developers who make money because money is success, right? What is this “milestone” to reach? ‎Not visits, not community impact, nope. It’s money. And for a backpack, some hats, three pairs of socks and witch’s brew. Dear god.

‎
14k USD → A few textiles. Sounds great, especially since only about about 3.7k people have ever made it to 1k USD, much less in a year. About that- you’ve mentioned both lifetime, after 2018, and yearly as the time period to earn 140,000 USD. Which is that?

Perhaps lower the bar? From 140,000 USD? Only the most profitable developers will get anything.

Furthermore, is this your response to the “Developers need awards” situation? It’s poorly done.

[ChipioIndustries (chipio)]

Oh dang, this is pretty sweet! I’m curious as to how it works with groups, though - My team easily qualifies for the swag bag, but it sounds like only the group owner would get the awards since the revenue is paid out to him and he pays the rest of the team in USD. Is there some special case for teams of multiple developers? If not, are there plans to make awards accessible to all team members in the future?

[ONLYTW3NTYCH4RACT3R5 (Chars)]

Do you get the rewards based on how much you earnt or is it about how much one game makes?
If it’s the latter, does the entire team get the reward?
Knowing this would make a huge difference.

[nikolozdotart (Niko)]

Finally, Developers will also be getting some awards like youtubers do, tho, requirement of having 40M+ lifetime robux earned is a little too much, it basically means we have to earn 140K+ USD to get a backpack, pair of socks, sweetshirt, and other stuff that swag bag contains. Which is honestly, pretty unproportional.

Anyway, I got a couple of questions, first of all, when will developers who qualify for the rewards start getting them? Or is this already live and they are getting emails with the form to fill out?

Let’s say, I uploaded an image to roblox which got me temporary banned for 3 days, due to the image’s content violating Roblox’s TOS, does this mean I am not longer eligible for Developer Awards?

[FruitySama]

Its if the game you made the robux on does break TOS

I wonder if anime games are eligible

[INT_L]

Pretty please?

[ButterrDev (Butter)]

It’s always nice to see developers getting more perks.
But, why are we getting awards for making a good amount of money? I don’t think that it’s ethical to give rewards just to the developers that gained more than 40M Robux, developers that gained more than 40M are a really small amount of people. I first thought that the requirement is so high because they will pay for the backpack etc. and give them to us for free. But, then I remembered that we give 90% of the Robux we earned as taxes. I think the aim of this is to make developers and star creators get equal perks but it’s not working quite well.

@Missimo93

Q: Will the future Phases of Developer Awards be based on Lifetime Robux earned, too?
A: No, the future Phases will be awarded based on different metrics.

I hope they won’t be something about the money you gain again. Also, I’m still wondering, do we get the awards if the game we’re working for gets 40M+ total?

[LowPolys]

Pretty cool but uh…

$140,000 USD worth of robux to get anything, seems pretty high…

Clarification: It’s not only the high number that’s my problem. I think that revenue isn’t really the best metric to give rewards on. It would be like YouTube giving you a play button for making $140,000 in ad revenue. Just seems weird! Like YouTube gives awards for subscriber count, Roblox gives Star Creators awards for follow count (iirc), why is it completely different metrics for developers.

As well as my above concerns, I think that the top developers (which are the only people who will be making this much) won’t care as much about these sort of awards. Maybe I’m wrong, but these smaller to mid-size developers who are still getting relatively impressive numbers, might really need the motivation that receiving awards like these can provide.

Smaller developers are, bluntly, essentially ignored by Roblox. Largely the relationship between someone like myself and Roblox is, I make a game, I get paid via DevEx, and that’s it. There is essentially no communication. As discoverability continues to decrease and competition gets harder, I think that Roblox could benefit from a bit more acknowledgement of the next generation of developers, as the current state of the platform can be pretty demotivating at times.

Obviously, you can’t give small developers awards. But at the very least, there should be awards based on metrics besides money. If I’m motivated by money, the large amount I’ll have cashed out to get these awards in the first place was more than enough to keep me going. I believe that Roblox should look into slightly more human metrics, engagement, player satisfaction (don’t have a clue how this would work), and plays.

Sorry for the rant.

[Happy_Errors]

Wow! I’m really hyped for this! If our game receives a reward but many people worked in it as well, will all the developers get the robux?

[PysephDEV (Pyseph)]

Looks like a good incentive for new, young developers to start working on their games. Probably not important to big devs, but still interesting idea nevertheless.
also, Roblox finally put a thread in the right category POG

[FruitySama]

Im 99.9% sure its individually 40M robux

[FearMeIAmLag]

So let me get this straight… I have to earn $140,000 to be rewarded with some socks, a backpack, a sweatshirt, a hat and other small branded items. This seems extremely disproportional compared to what star creators get who really don’t directly bring in revenue for Roblox. The 40M threshold is so high that the overwhelming majority of people will not reach it so it’s not really something to strive for. If I was in the position where I was making this much money off the platform, the biggest driving factor(other than passion) would be the money, not the chance to possibly get some branded merch.

Also the wording of this post is very vague. The 12 month rolling period, does that imply that games are only “automatically checked” once per year, are the swag bags only sent out once a year, or that the “40M lifetime robux” is actually 40M in one year? Also the post does not state that you have to have a game/creation that makes that much, so do developers that do commissioned/contracted work count towards this? Do influencers with star codes count towards this? Does this count multiple games/creations or does it only count 40M from one game/creation? So many unanswered questions.

[cmodii]

This is really cool for developers, a new way to make developers feel valued and be dedicated and aspired into working in roblox.

But 40,000,000 million robux which is equivalent to 140,000$+, damn that’s tought even for a bag.

[FamedChris (Stefan)]

Amazing! I’m sure many developers will be extremely happy to have a chance to get some cool stuff from Roblox. Will developers who work on a game under a group still meet eligibility for this?

[rogchamp (pasta)]

@Missimo93

40M+ lifetime Robux!

@Missimo93

12-month rolling period

Which is it?

@Missimo93

Q: How will Roblox choose which games get the items?

Does this mean each game only gets one set of the items, instead of one swag bag per team member? Does that mean UGC creators don’t get any bag at all?

[Tom_atoes]

It is worth it for the Witches Brew my friend.

[TheReverseRainbow (TheVictorianWizard)]

Imagine turning up to meet some friends, sipping on witches brew, trying to get them to ‘respect the drip’

[Mystifine]

This is definitely something neat that may motivates developers a little more. I see 2 more panels that have been shadowed out so I’d assume there are 2 more phases. Can’t wait to see what lies in store for us for the new Developer Rewards Program.

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Also a bit of clarification seems to be needed on if this will be an annual thing (can be repetitive) or once in a lifetime. I’m going to assume selling limited items won’t be eligible for this form of reward.