As a Roblox developer, it is extremely disheartening to experience the systematic removal of developer-facing services and community appreciation programs. Historically, these programs have served to strengthen the culture & symbiosis between the developer community, and Roblox. This positive symbiosis has led to many innovations, and has inspired & empowered individuals to use their creativity to create fun games or experiences enjoyed by millions of players around the world. This has led to many success stories of people on the platform improving their lives as a whole, and even starting their own companies, which is often an incredibly hard task. In some cases, this has even led to the games or experiences having some of the highest KPI numbers in the entire videogame industry, despite being made by a handful of indie developers and not teams of 200+ engineers and artists. This, in turn, benefits Roblox as a whole - it generates a lot of revenue for expanding the company, improving server resources, generates good PR, makes developers loyal to the platform, and much more.
Unfortunately, ever since going public in 2021, Roblox has been consistently and systematically removing resources from developers, as well as the community appreciation programs in favor of prioritizing investor needs instead, at the expense of the community. As a perfect example of this:
At the time of writing this post, the developer awards program has been silently shut down or halted. Developer crowns, tilt trophies and even swag bags have not been awarded to eligible developers for over 6 months, even well over a year in some cases. Any attempts to email devawards@roblox.com to report these issues fail, the email has not been giving out any responses since the summer of 2022, despite it being the only official contact method for the program. This is unacceptable - it is often the sign of a dying program that is getting ready to be officially terminated. Another example of this would be early last year when the developer stars program suffered this fate. Months and months went by with absolutely 0 communication from the program, false statements regarding its status were made, and then it was ultimately removed, despite a huge portion of the community rallying & protesting for it to be returned with improvements. The accelerator program was also removed late last year, along with the QA program, playfab program, and a few others.
Roblox has a habit of saying things like “our community is our lifeblood”, or “we prioritize community before company”. But as of late, Roblox has been directly contradicting these statements it makes. It does not communicate on these things, and it most certainly does not restore or improve these programs, regardless of how much of the community that protests for it.
Overall, it makes absolutely no sense to remove the developer awards program. It once served to show Roblox’s appreciation for its community. Being a small developer climbing the ladder and getting things like tilt trophies, virtual item codes to give out to early fans, and more can be very inspiring when facing what is often a monumental task - creating your own company with little to no resources or support. Other companies get this… youtube does it with its awards program, Discord does this with its partner program, Twitch has its partner program, and many more! Just because developer appreciation programs don’t directly generate revenue for investors like games do, does not mean they have no value! The fact that this post even needs to be made shows how dystopian the platform is becoming.
Imagine being a new or younger developer & getting trophies & virtual codes to give out… doesn’t sound like much, but it can be meaningful to a lot of developers!
In no uncertain terms, the developer awards program should be restored. With the removal of the stars program, the accelerator program, and many others, along with the negative state of other things (see : marketplace rev %s), Roblox is well on its way to alienating a huge portion of developers, both present and future.
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