Improvements to Publishing and Selling in Marketplace

Will we ever see the return of the “Recently Updated” sort? While I understand the purpose of switching to “Recently Created” (soon to be “Recently Published”), I wish we still had the option to sort by recently updated as it gave creators the opportunity to advertise their creations essentially for free.

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You gotta be kidding me… :uhh:

Okay, well encouraging questions in an update announcement and then not responding to them is beyond me, so let me reiterate this:

@BrightYellowElephant Can you maybe provide some clarity here since you work in this area?

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Question, will this change to ‘Recently Published’ hide newly uploaded items that are still offsale from view?

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I have this exact same concern. Just feels like it’ll allow people blatantly steal other’s IP to better hide their stealing, doesn’t help with the fact that they’re hinting at removing the offsale sort without directly saying it (Roblox being purposefully vague of course to avoid the backlash they know they would receive as usual). Also, I can vividly remember back when recently updated was still a sort category that a handful of creators constantly updated their items descriptions with a single space nearly every hour to stay at the top of the sort and it completely ruined the sort for months with Roblox doing absolutely nothing to stop it until they just removed the category completely in exchange for recently created.

I’m honestly quite surprised this thread doesn’t have more attention/replies.

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Thanks for the feedback! The need for seeing recently created off-sale items makes sense. Those items will still be viewable in the Recently Published sort if the “Show” unavailable items option is checked.

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Correct - this will only be using the initial first publish.

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This is a little confusing. So basically, an item is considered ‘published’ when it’s first uploaded, and appears in the sort then, but will also be re-added to the sort when it’s put on-sale?

Essentially, the sort will function the same, but items will be bumped back up to it when they’re put on-sale?

Also, do you have a date for when these changes are scheduled to go live? This is quite a major API change and I’m under the impression you guys don’t really realize how many developers rely on the current behavior; it deserves it’s own announcement, in my opinion.

Thanks anyway for your long-awaited response :slightly_smiling_face:

CC’ing everyone who asked about this:
@CarlosGabriel2602 @idelww @Seebass404 @Oppressed_II @karlos_800 @Daudosu

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Hi Seebass4, we understand your concern here and there is no way we will allow users to abuse the recently published sorts that way. The recently published date is the time you first put that item on sale, it does not change no matter how many times you take it offsale and onsale. Otherwise, why would we bother changing from Recently Updated to Recently Created?

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Thanks for the clarity here, but can you also respond to this?

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Thanks for the update! I’m very thankful for still allowing us to see recently uploaded offsale items, as it will be easier to track down copied ip

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Hi roman, the way i understand it, (and MisterPebbles please feel free to correct me if i am wrong), the Recently Published sort now will take the time the item was first put on sale on the marketplace, if it never was put on sale, it will take the time the asset was first uploaded. In other words, newly created items that are offsale will still show up on the sort (if you select show unavailable items), it will be bumped to the top of the sort again the very first time the user puts it on sale but never again if they subsequently put it off sale and on sale again. This should not break your existing workflow of looking for recently uploaded items.

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Thank you for this clarification. When should we see this change going into effect?

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It seems as though this change is not working as intended.

I uploaded this item over a year ago and a user wanted me to put it on sale. Dragon Rider - Roblox I thought it would be a good item to test with, but when I go to recently published it does not appear:

That said, if I search for “Dragon” it does immediately pop up:

I am thinking the splash page for recently published is either broken or I am not understanding what this change does. Not having it place the items properly means I still have to upload my items at the same time as I intend to publish them, which is detrimental to my workflow in many ways.

I published the item over a half hour ago and it has never previously been on sale.

@misterpebblez

Hey - apologies for the issues with this. We’re looking into this now. The way you described it is the intended behavior (e.g. Dragon Rider should have showed up in recently Published).

Hi Reverse_Polarity,

It has been 7 hours since you published your item and i am able to find it on the RecentlyPublished sort, albeit at a far lower position now ~ roughly 5 pages of 120 items. Pls take note that because of caching, do not expect your item to show up immediately at the top of the sort after publishing, it can take anywhere from 15mins to 30mins before it updates. If you sort by your creations it definitely shows up at the top right now.

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Does it also take 15 minutes to 30 minutes to display newly uploaded items or is this simply because they’re older?

If everyone was on the delay it would be one thing but it seems like certain items pop up really late while others pop up instantly, thus some get drowned out artificially.

We have very little in the way of marketplace visibility for new items as it is, any little bit helps, which is why recently published is such a good update in theory…but if items show up really far down the list it’s a distinction without a difference I’m afraid.

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Everyone is subject to the same delay. The reason why you may feel like certain items update really late while others update instantly is because search results are cached internally for a certain amount of time, and depending on your luck, you may publish just right before the cache expires so the next query will pick up your newly published item.

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That doesn’t seem to be the case in my experience. Often I will publish items, keeping an eye on recently published (refreshing often) and my items will not display until after the delay. When they finally do display they are way down the list.

If all those items were subject to the same delay then either a ton if items were being uploaded at the exact same time as my items, or some items show up faster than others though why that would be the case I wouldn’t know. It’s difficult to tell because the publish date is no longer something we have access to.

Next time I upload / publish I will test this to see and record the results.

I wanted to test this today but instead of the expected behavior the system seems to be completely broken.

Searching recently published on my page do not show my newly uploaded items:

And when I search they appear at the bottom