As a Roblox developer it is currently impossible to have a successful game unless it is featured on the Roblox games page. Without it being featured, a new game has very little chance of being discovered, and gaining the popularity required to make it successful.
My request is to add a fair and concrete way for developers to get their new game featured on the Roblox games page. The idea is that if you have a quality new game, it should get a guaranteed spot in the featured games section for a short time (eg 1 week).
Otherwise Developers Will Just Stop Developing For Roblox
Imagine a scenario in which a developer has just spent months building a quality Roblox game. The game is released and … nothing happens. Nobody is playing the game because nobody can discover it in the sea of thousands of other Roblox games. The developer tries sponsoring and ads, which result in a short-lived small gain in population. It quickly becomes apparent that the cost of sponsors/ads to build a large enough population is far too expensive to maintain. Even with a high approval rating, the game did not get noticed by the new Roblox sorting system, and thus struggles to gain a footing. So the developer spent months developing a quality new game, which is now getting no revenue because there is way for it to get featured in the system. The developer has almost no other alternative but to leave Roblox and develop games elsewhere.
Affects Small To Medium Sized Developers
I think this is a problem that mostly affects small to medium sized developers. For example, developers that have a limited marketing budget, and that are either new or relatively unknown. Without a huge following, or a lot of money to spend on advertising, getting a new game discovered and building enough population to become successful is extremely difficult.
The High Cost Of Sponsors / Ads
It has become extremely expensive to build a game population with sponsors and ads. It is so expensive now, that it is out of reach of many developers. Not only is it expensive, but the dynamics are completely different than when a game gets featured. With sponsors and ads, users trickle in slowly one at a time, with a very slow population growth. On the other hand, when being featured, hundreds of players come in at a time, and the population grows very fast.
The Awesome Power Of Being Featured
Even just a day or two of being featured on the games page can make a game successful - the Roblox game page is that powerful. A full week on the featured list may generate enough revenue to pay for the development of the game. Being on the featured game list plays a vital role in Roblox game development cycle. It makes or breaks games, and provides the revenue developers need to keep developing games on the Roblox platform.
Ideas
There have been many ideas and suggestions provided by developers in the links below. Here are just a few of those ideas:
- Bring back the old hand-picked featured sort system.
- Give developers a limited number of guaranteed featured spots per year.
- Employ staff curators who help discover and promote quality new games.
- Many more ideas in the links below.
- Please submit a post if you have additional ideas!
Links
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/vote-for-your-favorite-feature-requests-at-rdc-2019/303369