Reproduction Steps
Search for specific trends, games etc on the “Discover” page.
Expected Behavior
Games with relevant search features, player counts and rating should be shown first with priority.
Actual Behavior
Irrelevant games with no players, content deleted, or games with no matching search features are being displayed BEFORE relevant search results.
The problem is that games with no title or description relevant to the search queue is sorted higher than your game. I made a “Squid Game” style game for fun, it has around 50-100 concurrent players and over 6.6 million plays. What games are sorted higher than it when you search “Squid Game” you think?
It makes no sense how my game with more concurrent players, more visits, more relevant search fields, AND was created a few days after the whole “Squid Game” meta started is a search result under a CONTENT DELETED GAME
Not to mention I spent $5,000 in ads and after 6.6 million visits I’m STILL BELOW THESE GAMES
This is after zooming out on the games page, its a long scroll down on mobile. Why is my game here? It makes no sense to me.
Someone explain how “Sugar Obby” with 1 player is a more relevant search than my game. The whole search feature and games page needs to be thrown away.
The highlighted games are the only games that should be top results. Additionally, my game should be higher on the results, or at least not absolutely absent from them:
Some of the games in the first screenshot don’t even have the word “ro” or “chat” ANYWHERE in the title or description, whereas my game which matches the search result is not present.
This is a huge issue that was not present a few months ago (my game was #3 or #4 at the time)
EDIT: I think this may have been implemented, the search algorithm is, at least, much better:
I’m looking into it more, and it just seems that this issue only occurs for cases where generic cases are searched, but definitely not specifics.
I would like an improved algorithm, but considering the way David Baszucki reacted when I asked him about genre filtering, I doubt this is a high priority.
I don’t think this is a bug, I believe this is intentional behavior. This would be better categorized as a feature request if anything, if you believe that the current algorithm needs to be changed.
Another example. My game Egg Simulator is being hurt by the irrelevant search results. It has over 30 million plays, has been in multiple Roblox events throughout the years including Egg Hunts and yet when I search for “Simulator” it does not show up unless you scroll through hundreds and hundreds of games.
What experiences are shown instead when searching simulator?
The search algorithm needs to be changed to weed out these terrible results. These games should not be showing up as results, period.
How does a game with 30+ million visits not show up at all when searching for “simulator”. I zoomed out and did a page search for the game and finally found it. I appears AFTER all of these games. 50%+ of them being 0 player count games with terrible ratings, stolen game icons and spam titles and descriptions.
As a developer it has been frustrating to be thrown under the bus with such a large experience that does not show up in the first 100 search results at all despite having a higher concurrent player count, higher visit count, higher rating and longer history on the site than the spam games that show up.
This is not just happening to me either. Other simulator games are also being shown below these irrelevant and bad results. Why are developers left at the hands of a bad search algorithm to find new players? I don’t want to spend hundreds more in advertising when my game is already established.
The algorithm is actively harming game discoverability.
Here is a small list of experiences that should be easier to find in the search results that are not being displayed at all unless you scroll past hundreds of irrelevant searches as the search algorithm is failing to do its job:
Over a year later I am having this issue. I search my games exact title up and it does not come up. This is highly damaging my games stats which is likely leading to the game becoming even less relevant. Please fix this issue ASAP.
I just made a post about this today, but haven’t gotten any responses.
My game is called Designer Dash Fashion Show to Sell Clothes. If I search “fashion show” (without the quotes) games about flying airplanes and Russian spies come before my game. That doesn’t make sense and it certainly isn’t giving the players what they are asking for when they search for something and are shown totally unrelated results.
