I co-run (with a friend) a roleplay Ro-State group (TSO Belmont). We have a game which is fairly feature-complete and completely custom built over the course of the past 2 years. We have a small community of about 100-200 people, of which 20, max 30 are actually active (which I find adequate with the size of the group).
We really want to grow out. Roleplay games and Ro-States are still present on the platform*, and given that Roblox grows with more users each year, I don’t think it’s logical to assume that the genre is ‘dead’.
We’ve tried ads - both the old and new systems. The problem is that our game kind of requires other players to be fun, and with ads it’s quite difficult to get a server to exist with multiple people at once. We have a SSU** event system, but it requires attendees to be on Discord, and ~90% of our Discord members don’t come to SSUs (so about 2-5 attendees per SSU, 10 on good days).
Our goal is not profitability. The only income our group gets is through shirt sales on uniforms for police/fire/etc, and from premium payouts. We don’t have a way to purchase in-game currency, and we don’t sell gamepasses. Our game is not P2W in any way.
Would anyone have any tips on how to grow such a group, one that requires actual concurrent players? Thanks for taking your time to read this. Any feedback on the game itself is also greatly appreciated.
Footnotes
* - e.g. Mano County, British Columbia, etc. still do get players
** - Server Start-Up, essentially a scheduled Discord ping for people to join a server all at once so we all play the game together
PS. This is a repost since I originally posted in the wrong category
Honestly, add more monetization, Roblox pushes games mainly based on two factors User Retention/Playtime ETC. (which you’re trying to get), and Robux Income/Monetization. Don’t make your game p2w but don’t make it completely f2p. So balance both sides so Roblox can push your game out. For example, users may be able to buy in-game currencies but not super large amounts/to cheap to balance it out.
Doesnt brookhaven make most of its money from premium payouts? If your game is good enough that people have long sessions then shouldn’t be that hard to make some money.
