Experiences using Marketplace Items - Policy update

[spider123232 (Teenyeti)]

they do becuse everyone flooded there emails and twitter and devfourms its so much you can do till you have to take care of it

[Voidage]

I’ve worked on multiple inventory systems for games that allow you to craft clothing/armor, and now every time they equip those uniforms I have to prompt a purchase? Who thought this would be a good idea? Thanks a lot, Roblox. Great update. Wonder if I can just take the clothing template, reupload it to my profile/group to bypass this vacuous update.

[whatplayer5858 (keklik)]

I want this update to be reverted and this is an order. also this post had like 2.7k replies yesterday.

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

This update is pretty bad. It will break so many games that it isn’t funny. Make sure to private your game in protest.

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

They moved the rest of the posts that were critical into a different thread. That’s why theres significantly less posts.

[JustNylo]

This policy is stupid in every way. What is going on with companies recently? One word can sum it up: greed. First, Unity announced their bizzare fee policy and now this is being announced by Roblox? I’m sorry (or maybe not actually), but respect to users has vanished the recent years.

Do you think UGC creators will make more money this way? If you really want them to actually earn more money then reconcider your plans of making every UGC item limited and everything that contributes to UGC creators not making a fair amount of Robux.

I can suppose you were thinking about the experience owners through commissions. Right? Not that people will leave faster by being annoyed at the fact that a purchase prompt will be on their screen 24/7… This surely won’t affect the average playtime of the experience and the premium payouts…

[Voidage]

Avarice runs rampant in this world and I guess companies such as Unity and Roblox have fallen victim to it as well. How pathetic this is.

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

As they say, the love of money is the root of all evil.
If only the people running the corporations understood this.

[AlteFore (Barcode llIllIIIlIIl)]

Hi. I’ve been here before but I was so mad that I couldn’t make a well though-out post. I’m still really angry, but not so angry that I can’t even write. Time to really put ROBLOX on blast.

@Roblox

[Update] September 19, 2023

@Roblox

Hi everyone,

We value your feedback and concerns.

No the crap you don’t. Stop lying.

@Roblox

Our intent with this policy is to further ensure that UGC creations are respected and properly used across the platform.

No it isn’t, you liars. Your intent here is obviously to make money. STOP. LYING.

@Roblox

We realize that the requirements behind the policy are very nuanced and have a significant impact on experience creators. We sincerely apologize for causing these concerns.

I won’t accept this apology until you actually fix your [content deleted]. What’s going to happen is you’ll wait for this do blow over and then when there’s not as much heat on your backs, you drop this update and nuke your platform then act all surprised when everyone hates you, your stock bombs, and everything you worked for gets annihilated. Whoever wrote this policy did such a bad job that now there’s a civil war in your own company about it. Congratulations, policy team! You’re a failure.

@Roblox

In light of this, we have decided to pause the rollout of the policy. This means that on September 27, you will NOT be subject to moderation for this policy.

Cool, so what’s the date when you’ll drop this unchanged without warning? I need to know so I can be ready to watch everything I’ve built for a year get destroyed.

@Roblox

As a next step, we will thoroughly consider all your use cases and feedback, and refine the policy as appropriate while respecting creators’ rights.

So “thoroughly consider all your use cases and feedback, and refine the policy as appropriate while respecting creators’ rights” means thanos snapping over 1,500 replies to this post because you can’t handle the mean things people are (rightfully) saying? Ok, got it.

@Roblox

Once we finalize the policy, we will provide ample time to meet its requirements. We promise to keep you updated with any new information in the coming days.

Translation: “We hear your concerns and don’t care. We won’t tell you what changes we may or may not make, and any changes we make may or may not improve the situation. Expect your lives to barely change!”

@Roblox

Thank you for your patience. We are committed to learning from this and appreciate your feedback.

You were committed to learning from this during every terrible policy update you have ever made. When will you actually learn?

---

So now that that bullcrap is out of the way, let’s rip into ROBLOX’s other lies and mess-ups.

@Roblox

Hi everyone,

At Roblox, the importance of treating creators with mutual respect, providing equal opportunities for monetizing their creations, and protecting intellectual property (IP) is crucial to our platform. We strive to ensure a fair and supportive environment for all members of our community.

Clearly it isn’t, because otherwise:

• Constant copyright infringement on the UGC catalog wouldn’t be a problem,
• The audio update would have never happened (remember that?),
• You’d pay people who do dev-ex fairly,
• And this post wouldn’t exist.

@Roblox

To support this, we are introducing “Experiences using Marketplace Items” in our Community Standards (to be found in the Roblox Economy section after publication).

Oh boy, more vague and useless bloat to the already vague community standards?!? WHOOPEE!!!

@Roblox

If a creator makes an experience with unaffiliated avatar Marketplace items available for users to equip when the user has not yet purchased the item, the experience must:

• Prompt a purchase UI for the item when the user equips it and maintain a prominent ability to purchase later if the user declines to purchase in the moment, using the appropriate MarketplaceService tools for proper Robux pricing and creator attribution.

So now catalog games are effectively useless because the entire point of those games was to let players try things on, for free. “But Alte,” I hear you say, dear reader, “Doesn’t ROBLOX let you try on items on the catalog?” Yes they do, and in true ROBLOX fashion it’s a garbage implementation of a basic feature! Thank you ROBLOX!

@Roblox

• Prevent items that are not available to purchase from being used in the experience (i.e., zero quantity, only for resale, or off-sale items) with our CatalogSearchParams tools.

…So now literally every game on ROBLOX that has:

• NPCs
• Character creator
• Admin commands like :gear and :hat
• Catalog try-on features (you know what I mean, right?)

or any other feature that may result in offsale items being used in-game, whether by direct result of the developer or not, is now not allowed? Boy, you guys sure are great (terrible) at writing policy! (Whoever wrote this update needs to be fired.)

@Roblox

Please note that an unaffiliated avatar Marketplace item is one that the Experience creator did not create themselves or have a direct agreement with the item’s Creator to distribute or incorporate in the Experience.

Classic ROBLOX moment, using their terrible new UI and terrible rthro avatars to show off a terrible new update. Are you sure that you want to do this?

@Roblox

This policy will be incorporated into the Community Standards on September 27,

It wouldn’t be a ROBLOX policy change without an unreasonable deadline. Seven days?!?!?! You mean to tell me that every single roblox game, no matter how big or how small, how young or how old, how indie or how megacorporate, has to make updates ranging in size from near-nonexistent to COMPLETELY GAME-CHANGING in SEVEN DAYS?!?!?! WHY???

@Roblox

so for those of you it impacts,

Everyone. This is everyone on ROBLOX. Idiots.

@Roblox

please make the necessary changes as soon as possible to avoid any moderation of your content.

“Please change your game fundamentally in 7 days because we’re too stupid/lazy/cheap to actually solve whatever issues we have and therefore need to make users solve them for us, also give us money.” - ROBLOX

@Roblox

FAQ

Click here to view the FAQ!

So uh use of quoteblocks in these things are kinda finicky so I’m just gonna talk in italics ok?

Use of avatar Marketplace items in experiences has been a long-standing feature of Roblox. Why is this change happening now?

Because ROBLOX wasn’t run by greedy executives back in the day so this wasn’t a problem.

• Historically, our Marketplace was primarily populated with Roblox-created items. As we are about to open up creation to a larger portion of the creator community, we have to better ensure fairness to those creators.

But this applies to ROBLOX-created items as well, surely if this was really the case then this policy would only apply to UGC.

Is Roblox planning to offer any additional tools or support to help developers navigate this requirement and/or provide more choice to UGC creators?

Of course they aren’t.

• While this policy goes into effect on September 27, we are also working very hard to consider a more holistic approach to ensure a consistent experience for our players and to help our creators. We can’t commit to anything yet, but we are evaluating the possibility of providing additional tooling in the future.

“More holistic approach” = “A way for us to make more money” and “A consistent experience” = “The most intrusive and money-sucking approach to this we can possibly take without losing our entire playerbase”.

I found an experience that appears to be violating this policy (the Experience is using off-sale avatar items, Roblox’s items, someone else’s items, etc). How do I report this developer?

ROBLOX doesn’t usually read reports, so kinda just send in one and hope for the best.

• To report an experience, enter the experience, and navigate to the Reporting tab of the menu. Follow the prompts for reporting the Experience and Reason for Abuse as “Inappropriate Content.” In order to help our moderation team more accurately identify and handle your report, be sure to include descriptors and keywords in your text input, such as “UGC,” “Marketplace,” “Roblox IP,” “off-sale,” or “avatar item.”

Remember what I said earlier about every game on ROBLOX being affected by this? This is precisely what I meant. Roblox IP, off-sale, and avatar item are all things that nearly every single actual game has in it and therefore, every single game that includes one of these things (spoiler alert: it’s almost all of them) is now going to be thanos-snapped. This is why catalog games are all doomed.

What happens to violating experiences and developers?

They get banned first and then are given the chance to comply later.

• Developers who violate this policy are subject to moderation as they would be for any other violation of the Community Standards. This may include warnings, removal of your experience from the platform or suspension of your account.

Yup, I was right.

How do I inform Roblox of an agreement I have with a creator for using their creations in my experience without requiring it to be on-sale and purchasable?

Good question! We’re not going to tell you.

• If Roblox receives a user report of a potential violation in your experience and you receive a moderation warning or action, you should appeal the action and provide evidence of your agreement with the avatar item’s creator to use their content.

Hey, I was right again! I’m battin’ a thousand with this one.

How can I protect my IP?

By doing the same thing you have been doing: issue a DMCA takedown request and only get action taken when a giant corporation with actual lawyers gets a chance to sue ROBLOX into the ground for the fourth time this week.

• IP owners are the ones best positioned to tell Roblox what is infringing. And only the rights holder can report content that infringes on their intellectual property rights. If you find content on Roblox that you believe infringes your IP rights, please see our DMCA Guidelines for additional information on how to submit an IP takedown report to us.

No comment here, this is like the one good part of this post.

Roblox investigates each report and takes appropriate action, which may include removing or disabling the infringing content, and permanently terminating the accounts of users who have repeatedly infringed on the IP of others.

Jesus Christ, how quickly do you want your platform to die? Ludicrious speed or Unity speed?

Well that was a doozy…

@Roblox

Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

They aren’t actually going to answer them though. Just offer a vague reply that inevitably gets you nowhere.

@Roblox

Thank you.

I hate you. Everyone hates you and everyone hates this. Please fix it.

Thank you for reading this, dear reader. I sincerely hope that whoever you are - a dev, a player, or a ROBLOX employee - doesn’t get screwed over by this. But, to be quite honest. we will all get screwed over. We always do.

Kind Regards,
Alte

---

UPDATE:

I have updated this post to include lists of games that might be deleted and games that will be deleted as a result of this update. games that might be deleted is a list of games that may or may not be deleted because of this update, likely put in that list because the policy is so vague that it’s hard to tell if it would be. games that will be deleted is a list of games that I am absolutely certain would be deleted.

GAMES THAT WILL BE DELETED

click to view

• Starscape by ZolarKeth - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories, hairs, faces, and gears
• Prison Life by Aesthetical - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories
• Defend the Train by Banded Top Hat Games - uses offsale ROBLOX-made faces
• Infinite Welfare by Official Team Facepalm - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears
• Arsenal by ROLVe - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories and faces
• Typical Colors 2 by Arsenal - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears, faces, and accessories
• Item Asylum by JPX Studios - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears and faces
• Sword Fights On The Heights IV (and SFOTH Original) by Shedletsky - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears
• Doomspire Brickbattle by Temple of Brickbattle - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears
• The Wild West by Starboard Studios - uses offsale ROBLOX-made faces, hairs, and accessories
• Slap Battles by Tencelll - uses ROBLOX-made gears and accessories
• Murder Mystery 2 by Nikilis - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears
• Tower Of Hell by YXCeptional Studios - uses ROBLOX-made gears
• Last to Leave by Boomerang Studios - uses ROBLOX-made gears and accessorie
• The Presentation Experience by Minimal Games - uses ROBLOX-made gears
• Entry Point by Cishshato - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories
• Notoriety by Brick_Man (CURRENTLY CONTENT DELETED) - Uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories
• In Plain Sight 2 by Farm Animal Association - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories
• Harbor Havoc by… Harbor Havoc - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories
• Life In Prison by 403 FORBIDDEN - uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories
• Waste of Space by Eggs D Studios - possible to use offsale ROBLOX-made items
• Survive the Disasters by VyrissDev - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears and accessories
• Survive the Disasters 2 - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears and accessories
• Natural Disaster Survival by Stickmasterluke - uses offsale ROBLOX-made gears and accessories
• Work at a Pizza Place by Dued1 - Uses offsale ROBLOX-made accessories and gear
  and millions more

GAMES THAT MIGHT BE DELETED

click to view

• Aeronautica by Hyperant - uses offsale ROBLOX-made item for NPC

These lists are absolutely nowhere close to exhaustive, so I encourage you to send me any games you know of that may or will be affected by this and I’ll add them to this list. Just send me the name, creator, and reasons for deletion of the game (preferably formatted like the entries in the lists are) and a link to the game so I can put it into a hyperlink.

This list will give just a tiny, tiny bit of perspective into just how wide-reaching this policy change will truely be.

You should be extremely angry at ROBLOX for this. Get angry and stay angry and voice your concerns as loud and respectfully as you can until they fix this. Do not back down and do not be complacent!

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

Another thing I’d like to ask is if any command that allows you to wear another person’s avatar would be allowed under this update? I think it’s not allowed based off of what I’m hearing. (EX: the ;char command for HD Admin)

[Voidage]

It’s sad knowing all these pleas for reversal of this horrible update are simply going to be ignored. Roblox knew this would happen. They knew we would hate this. They really just don’t care, because in the end, it’s going to make them more money.

[Cantii]

I’m sure plenty of people are just going to ignore the update if they ever bring it back.

[Voidage]

Sure, I guess you could, but then you’re just waiting around for some troll or angry person to report your game and get it taken down.

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

They won’t. Believe me they won’t. The moment everyone finds out about this, everyones going to be so mad that the DevForums are going to turn into the Forums from 2017; full of trolls and angry people.

[Voidage]

Salutations, Fellow Capitalist Pigs,

At Roblox, our insatiable greed and unquenchable avarice drive us to concoct schemes that make Ebenezer Scrooge look like a charitable saint. We proudly present to you “Experiences using Marketplace Items,” a testament to our relentless pursuit of the almighty dollar (to be enshrined in the Roblox Economy 666 section, where we worship profit above all else).

Prepare to witness the unbridled manifestation of our gluttonous intentions:

1. Greed-Inducing Purchase Prompts: We are ecstatic to announce the implementation of relentless purchase prompts that will hound you until you succumb to our monetary demands. Equipping an item you haven’t purchased yet will trigger a barrage of shameless pop-ups, designed solely to exploit your wallet. We’ll stop at nothing to milk you dry.
2. Profit Maximization: We are tightening the screws on your enjoyment. Items that can’t be purchased, such as the rarest and most exclusive, will remain tantalizingly out of reach. Our avaricious hearts swell with delight as we watch you yearn for the unattainable.

Just to make our greed crystal clear, an unaffiliated avatar Marketplace item is anything that the Experience creator didn’t craft or have the audacity to profit from. We revel in creating a legal minefield to maximize our riches.

This rapacious policy will infiltrate the Community Standards 666 on September 27, an ominous date for your wallets. Brace yourselves for a descent into financial servitude as you attempt to navigate this labyrinth of avarice.

If you have any pressing questions about how we’re gouging your pockets, please visit our FAQ section [link that leads to more ways for us to profit].

We thank you for being unwitting pawns in our relentless pursuit of wealth, and we eagerly anticipate counting our ill-gotten gains.

Yours voraciously,

The Roblox Greedmongers

may or may not have been made with ChatGPT

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

@AlteFore

…So now literally every game on ROBLOX that has:

• NPCs
• Character creator
• Admin commands like :gear and :hat
• Catalog try-on features (you know what I mean, right?)

or any other feature that may result in offsale items being used in-game, whether by direct result of the developer or not, is now not allowed? Boy, you guys sure are great (terrible) at writing policy! (Whoever wrote this update needs to be fired.)

The person who made this update probably got a promotion, and declared a hero of capitalism most likely.

This is sarcastic, by the way.

[AlteFore (Barcode llIllIIIlIIl)]

I could tell it was sarcasm, but thanks.

I might have to can the project I have been working on for 2 years because of this, if ROBLOX doesn’t fix this shit. If this is updated to ONLY apply to ugc items, and any and all ROBLOX items - offsale or not - were fair game, then this might not only be not terrible, but - dare I say it - a good update. But nah. Because this is ROBLOX.

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

I say private your game as a form of protest. We should get a hashtag trending so that way we can spread the word.

[AlteFore (Barcode llIllIIIlIIl)]

I honestly might. ROBLOX needs to have it’s stock hit sub-dollar prices for them to learn. Let RBLX become the newest penny stock, please!

[Mogolovoniobrah (BrokenKeyboardCaps55)]

This situation kinda reminds me of some lyrics from “Stick Up” by Grandson.

Just take the bridge of the song, replace “America” with “Robloxia”, and you’ve got our situation there!

This is a joke. Please don’t take this seriously.