Improved Asset Management Process Now Live

Roblox · July 12, 2019, 4:57pm

As the Roblox community has grown, so have the needs of our developers who now look for tools and resources to take direct control over the content incorporated into their games. Earlier this year we shared that we were working to implement new systems that will help developers more easily and effectively manage their game assets. Today, we are launching our improved asset archiving feature to help developers control (archive and unarchive) all uploaded assets, including those shared as part of a group.

Developers can now archive an asset making it disappear from Roblox.com and unusable in a game (users trying to access it will get a placeholder or see that it fails to load). To archive, developers can go to the Configure Item page for their specific item and click on the Archive button. Once archived, assets can always be restored. The feature is initially limited to Decals, Meshes, and Audio.

Archived assets can also be viewed by checking the “Show Archived” checkbox on the Develop page:

You can start designating assets with this improved feature starting today, but any asset archived now will simply be marked with a warning message. Five weeks from today (August 15, 2019) asset archiving will go into effect, and from that date forward, archiving an asset will happen immediately. This initial trial period is being offered to test how the feature works and help our developer community better understand the process for archiving, viewing, and retrieving content from their respective games.

Developers should also use this initial period before August 15, 2019 as an opportunity to evaluate all third-party assets in their games such as images, audio files, or possible IP pulled from another source and be mindful of the potential impact of these assets on their games. If a third-party asset is subsequently archived by the originating developer, your game might be impacted. For example, in the case of a copyright issue with any third-party assets, your game could be subject to our DMCA process. Learn more about IP rights and content infringement here.

Submitting a violation notice as a rights holder
Rights holders should continue to go through Roblox’s DMCA process to submit notices about content that they believe violate their IP rights.

Roblox is built for and by our incredibly talented community of young creators. We are continually inspired by what developers bring to Roblox, and we are passionate about protecting creators’ rights. We hope the Roblox community sees the value in having clear controls for asset management combined with our fair DMCA policy and expectations. As usual, we welcome your feedback and questions.

xuefei123 · July 12, 2019, 5:04pm

Finally. Great to have this long awaited feature!

SenseiWarrior · July 12, 2019, 5:04pm

Does archiving an asset prevent the creator from using the asset aswell?

Dekkonot · July 12, 2019, 5:05pm

If we already sent an email to ipcontent_removal_request@roblox.com are they still being processed, or has this replaced them?

As in, do we have to resend them?

OrbitectGG · July 12, 2019, 5:06pm

Hallelujah, the times of unorganized asset libraries are over! Can’t thank the Roblox Engineers enough for this feature.

buildthomas · July 12, 2019, 5:09pm

If a company sends a DMCA on assets and the developer has archived them in the mean-time, will the developer be eligible for copyright strikes even though they have already archived the assets?

This is great to have, but since archiving doesn’t seem to remove the asset from the platform (since it can be restored, so it can’t be removed entirely), this doesn’t seem like a solution for removing illegal third-party content ourselves. It is presented as such here. Do we have the guarantee that we cannot get copyright-struck through assets we already archived a reasonable time before any DMCA comes in against that content?

thomasviggorollmann · July 12, 2019, 5:13pm

Will archiving an asset remove the asset from the lists of assets to update to on the “Save to Roblox” page? (When you’re uploading a model to Roblox from Studio), I have over 100 models in that page and as a result it’s really annoying to scroll through to find the model I want to update.

ScholarOfZoghoLargo · July 12, 2019, 5:13pm

Now I don’t have to go through my useless assets anymore. Yay!

wravager · July 12, 2019, 5:19pm

If archive disables the ability for others to use the asset by making it not load, why is this not already a thing for private assets that can be stolen and then put into other games?

TZ_Tazuk · July 12, 2019, 5:24pm

This is a great feature, but doesn’t seem to be working fully.

It will allow me to achieve only certain meshes or decals

Example:

It will let me delete recently uploaded id’s but anything which wasn’t uploaded recently cant be deleted.

buildthomas · July 12, 2019, 5:29pm

I was told you should not re-send those. If you sent out the email close to when they posted that announcement, you probably have gotten an email back from them saying something like “hey thanks we are still looking into this”.

Nosniy · July 12, 2019, 5:30pm

This is a great feature but I wish there was an option to archive multiple assets quicker. Going to the configure item page and then clicking archive seems like a long process.

SelDraken · July 12, 2019, 5:35pm

So, just to make sure I understand. If someone in the past had uploaded something to free models, and people use it in their games, now if the original creator decides to archive it, will it now not work in the games that used it from free models?

waterrunner · July 12, 2019, 5:36pm

Thank you for this feature, this was needed for such a long time. I hope in the future developers will be given the option to fully delete assets.

H_mzah · July 12, 2019, 5:37pm

Yes, according to the above quote if you use my asset in your game and I archive it later, it can no longer be loaded into your game.

SelDraken · July 12, 2019, 5:40pm

Well that makes the idea of free models pointless unless you are willing to run the risk of random content missing at any given future moment in your game.

CoolMeeskop · July 12, 2019, 5:43pm

It is right now limited to decals, meshes and audio. If they do allow models to be archived in the future then free models will be pointless.

uJordy · July 12, 2019, 5:44pm

I agree, its seems awkward just being to index into each asset just to archive them; there should be an Archive button on the develop page on each of the assets (meshes,etc) which you can just tick and confirm what you want archived.

CoolMeeskop · July 12, 2019, 5:45pm

yes i agree that would be more efficient.

T0ny · July 12, 2019, 6:02pm

Honestly this is a big step forward. But who really has the time to sit down and go through hundreds of pages of assets? I sure don’t. We need a list with check boxes so that we can bulk archive and bulk unarchive. It’d also be nice to get the ability to delete an asset once its been archived for x amount of days, months, or years. (any of those will do)

On top of this, it would be really helpful and efficient if we had the option to use the version control on our assets. (As seen in @TZ_Tazuk posts above)

Has [Make Current] next to it.

That would greatly reduce the amount of assets needing to be unnecessarily re-uploaded. All in all, I’m looking forward to what other asset management tools that may be coming.