The physical rewards that developers could achieve instilled a sense of community, along with the other programs you mentioned. I have always felt quite passionate about what I was doing on this platform prior to 2021. It was always great to share your achievements with your friends and other developers, and developer awards were no exception to this. Of course, Roblox doesn’t need to offer any of the programs mentioned, the platform is functional without them. But those extra programs and opportunities were what made Roblox special to me, you didn’t really see that anywhere else. I do not feel as passionate about Roblox as a whole compared to 2016 - 2021, I feel passionate about the games I create still, but I don’t necessarily have passion about Roblox as a company or a community anymore.
I think in this particular case, Roblox should take a lesson from YouTube and how exciting it is for large YouTubers to receive a physical play button in the mail for hitting subscriber benchmarks. Developer awards gave that exact same feeling, it’s really just a nice thing to do as a company, to show appreciation to the people that drive the success of your platform. Those unnecessary and kind acts from companies are almost always appreciated and is just another thing that makes them stand out in a positive way.
I’m Gmama and I lead the Developer Awards program here at Roblox.
I want to take a second to thank you for your feedback. It means so much to us and we appreciate every bit of it!
Now regarding the Developer Awards - I apologize for the delay. There were a few items behind the scenes that needed to be ironed out before we introduced the next initiative. While I can’t get into too much detail, just know that my teammate @IMaSchmoopy & I hear you loud & clear, and that you can expect an update in the coming weeks.
Hi @BoyMamaG! Thank you for the response! It is very much appreciated
We understand things happen! The program is ran by humans, complicated issues arise, things break at-scale, people get sick, etc. With that being said, in the future would it be possible to communicate these things with the community as they happen / within a reasonable timeframe of the problems occuring? I would argue that a sizable portion of developer tension comes from developers being kept completely in the dark when a program runs into problems, or is being updated with changes. Something like a “DevAwards update : Long delays expected!” thread explaining that there would be a long delay, and even referencing why (e.g. form abuse) would go a long way with decreasing developer tension. It eradicates any speculation on what’s actually going on, and it makes it easier for developers to give useful feedback, because they have all of the facts instead of needing to go digging for them.
A post by @railworks2 goes into more detail about this, and also covers the need for having a dialogue with developers when these programs are going through big changes. I’d be happy to have a zoom call with you folks or somesuch to elaborate & discuss more on this
Based on you mentioning “the next initiative”, am I correct in assuming the developer awards program is not being permanently removed / discontinued?
Looking forward to the update! Will definitely keep an eye out for it.
this is my friend Zeirous
Zeirous really wanted a Developer Longsword, and I told him I’d be able to give him a code once my swag bag arrived.
Zeirous has now been waiting years for that day to come, and I have been waiting years to finally get the swag bag that never came.
Now Zeirous is sad.
Thankyou for the reponse @BoyMamaG, although I have one question to ask.
By the “next initiative” would you happen to mean the previous rewards such as the Crown of O’s, Swag bag, Tilt trophies, ETC being non rewardable from now on?
The “Accelerator” program was a program that allowed teams to create new experiences, while interning at Roblox.
The “developer stars” program was what allowed developers to create merchandise (such as toys) for their games, and it also doubled to highlight prominent community figures.
Hi @BoyMamaG! Sorry for the ping, but I was wondering if there are any updates on this? You stated that “in the coming weeks” we would be receiving an update on the developer awards program. Since it’s been 1 month and 2 weeks, I figured I would follow-up here.
I have been emailing devawards and support staff the passed week about this very same issue, that with my two semi-popular games combined I should rate certain awards from the program but have not received anything yet besides the crowns up to sparkletime (until now I had no idea the program was silently halted so that nobody was getting awards anymore) and this was their seemingly automated response: Roblox events only run for a set amount of time. Once the event has ended, the associated experience(s) and their badges may still be available, but related prizes can no longer be obtained. So no mention of the previous program and no mention of any future program possibly coming.
As a Roblox Developer, We should receive our rewards just like YT & Twitch because we worked really hard on our games and roblox should make a come back on the developer awards.
