So I recently got my game I made to 4th on Top Rated after promoting a giveaway. The giveaway is currently 10 hours away from being executed and I will give away Robux, and an in-game currency called Tokens to randomly chosen players that reacted to an announcement in our Discord server via group payout and in-game promo-codes.
A friend tipped telling me that it might be against ToS so I immediately took to the rules and read up on it. I had no idea it could be against the rules and I’m not entirely sure if what I did was against the rules. There is a lot of ambiguity when it comes to these specific rules.
I have sent an e-mail to Roblox and I am awaiting a response, but I fear that they will take longer than 10 hours to respond with something I can work with.
So what do I do? I have the means and I intend to fulfill the giveaway considering I have essentially promised it. And I care about my community a lot.
As for the discussion
I read up a bit more and apparently some people get punished some don’t, but why? Why would I get punished if I can successfully help out my player-base and make their days a bit brighter by giving back to the community? I understand scams and I am not naïve to this. But I have no intentions of scamming and even if I did it would make my reputation look abhorred.
Will I get punished for it, despite not knowing? I understand the rules are there NOW but I’ve already done the deed. I have a clean slate, I’ve never had an ill intent, or broken any ToS/rules on Roblox soo far. I was just ignorant, I hadn’t a clue.
Do not quote me on this and I have no clue what the actual intent behind the rules are, this is purely personal speculation. I would say that while it is against TOS the fact you were unaware, not doing it for personal gain, and are paying out means I doubt you will face any serious consequences. However officials giving sums of robux at any point and any circumstance is not allowed, I wouldn’t worry to much tho if it was a genuine mistake
Well, since you are now fully aware that it is potentially banishable, you’ll have to step back on the promissed Giveway, atleast the “Robux” one if you intend to change your rewards to perhaps “exclusives” from your games.
I don’t generally know why some weren’t banned, but it’s a ToS that suddently came up years ago, so exceptions were made and another chance given for that.
It doesn’t really matter if you’re “trusted” though, the only way you can do something that generally have a risk is to get a actual manual approval of the action, which is originally not possible unless specific status (such as Star Program)
You could give something worth the equivalent amount of robux in your game to the victor and try to privately compensate them for not getting the amount in robux?
This does sounds troublesome, the main issue is the fact the giveaway have a connection to Roblox,
The thing is, as you said
The reason why you’re encountering a risk might be because it looks like the game has been forced it’s way into the 4th Top Ranked by your community, i’m not saying it’s the case considering the quality of the game, but that’s how it sounds like first-impresssion over the situation.
I Believe the most common giveaway now are Roblox code toys (is cards even allowed?), but then again, i don’t think you’d like this either way, much more loss than just group funds.
Well I read up and it states that… So even a giveaway of just Tokens (my game’s in-game currency) is somehow offensive.
I can clear myself of this if I remove the Robux giveaway. But again, I feel I would be committing a scam, or something that resembles it.
Ik for a fact many developers have given away in game currency so I wouldn’t worry about that at all, one again for the other one I would privately negotiate with the winner / disclose that roblox does not allow you to giveaway robux and try to compensate for your server in some way. if they are a fanbase hopefully they will understand.
One thing I saved myself from is that I didn’t extort likes for the giveaway. I just stated in the game’s description & title GIVEAWAY AT 10K LIKES. Which I’m hoping helped me dodge a bullet, because I could’ve said… LIKE THE GAME AND I’LL DO A GIVEAWAY. It was a marketing method, but it wasn’t an ill-intended one. I didn’t swindle anyone or trick people with what I said.
These rules are pretty unfortunate and very obstructive especially to legit creators like myself that just want to be nice and friendly to my community. This sucks.
Alot of people feels that way, some kind of limits in exchanges, unfortunate indeed but there are good reasons over this, Roblox did attempted several “occassions”, for example, The uses of Mobile Ads years ago, it got abused as it give robux even as a free user, the solution over this was to add a cooldown to Ads, which actually made developers spams it regardless, everything that exists with this kind of liberty are very abused, The only way Roblox want to make accessibility equals for everyone is to have everything automated, so yes, you being super mega legit still leads to nowhere.
I think your best pet with all things said it to wait for roblox to reply and sort it with them, since it was not done with ill / self gaining intentions they should hopefully be understanding
I just want to put it out there for the record. There is currently a Roblox Accelerator that is hosting a Robux giveaway competition for their game as well. I suppose there’s a double-standard for this whole thing.
It really leaves a bad taste in my mouth if there’s no way for me to get some kind of trusted reputation with Roblox so they can let me do this kind of thing.
I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to give away giftcard codes that give robux since I’ve seen plenty of devs doing it and this thread: https://devforum.roblox.com/t/robloxs-policy-on-giveaways-contests-has-become-unclear/30621
says that it’s fine. Doing it for likes isn’t allowed, but it’s better to follow through with the giveaway than scam your fanbase. You would probably get in more trouble for offering a giveaway and not following through since scamming is a lot worse than a giveaway that breaks a minor rule you didn’t know about.
Well I just went through with replacing the giveaway for Robux and I’m instead giving away more Tokens. I’m hoping Roblox and my fanbase will understand and forgive my ignorance. And that this won’t happen again in the future.
There has been no winners yet anyway, so it’s not like I took money away from people. I just had to switch what I promise to give. I’m just trying to do the right thing here.
If you give Robux through a gift card, you aren’t breaking the rules more than you already would with the tokens and your fans get what they originally expected.
