Yes this technically is not design support, but there is not a general game design support category.
What are the rules surrounding subscriptions in games? Here are a few examples of common possible uses for it.
Pay Monthly for Premium Membership/Perks instead of one time purchase
Pay Monthly for Access to the Game
Use the VIP server system and code the game so that the it only works in a VIP server, with a result similar to the last example
I have seen some uses of the first example but never seen the other two used; are there rules against doing so or is this just a frowned upon practice? I doubt I will ever use the second and third example but I would like to be aware in case I decide it is appropriate to do something similar; however I do imagine I will at least consider using monthly payment premium perks in the future.
One of the reasons why the second and third examples are never used is because it’s a great way to get your games dislike-bombed. Lots of players would join your game, realize that they can’t play it because they need to pay Robux, leave, and dislike your game. You really shouldn’t do those things, unless it’s a Premium Place inside your game which is subscription based but the game is still playable without paying monthly.
About rules, I don’t think there’s a rule prohibiting such. I’ve seen the Premium subscription feature in many games, and none have been taken down.
I don’t really like the idea of subscription-based payments imo.
As a consumer I’d rather pay a lot of money to own something forever instead paying small monthly payments and never owning it and the money will really add up and hurt you in the long-run.
I look down on companies that switch to subscription-based payments business models.
Just a small vent I felt that needed to get out. Everyone is entitled to how they feel about the issue.
Sometimes there are valid reasons for companies having subscription services (although in my opinion having lifetime subscriptions wouldn’t be horrible for a company to have either).
I think the main thing you need to consider is your target audience; you want things to be kept simple. Kids may not understand how subscription services work, or even how to buy a subscription (play your game) in the first place. Often companies need the money to keep things up and running, especially if they are small and don’t have heaps of users.
I learn Japanese on a website called WaniKani and it uses a subscription model (although it has a lifetime option!). The company and the service are both fairly small and community driven, and while there are probably over a hundred people using it at the moment, that not’s big number in business terms. The money is not only being put towards WaniKani itself, it’s paying its staff and paying for additional Japanese services being developed by the same company as we speak.
Anyway, I think something simple and completely limited to in-game premium access would work fine, but having to work around Roblox’s game access system (subscription to play the game itself) would be too unintuitive for users atm. Just remember that you want to be giving your players value for money. You want to make revenue, yes, but remember to not scam kids lol
This is probably allowed, but I would refrain from doing it, since Roblox does not offer a mechanism for recurring/subscription purchases. Subscriptions aren’t as effective when the subscriber needs to actively send payment every month (they will forget / not bother). You’d be better off just adding more consumable purchases to your game rather than adding a special subscriber tier of content.
I’m bumping this topic since I’m considering implementing the first method, and would like to discuss this more.
This is true and is probably why no game has implemented this yet. But I’d argue that Fortnite’s Battle Passes are a form of subscription model. I haven’t played the game myself but I imagine the passes require active purchase each season.
Maybe if you raised the duration from 1 month to ~10 weeks this model can be viable?
I’m using VIP servers as the monthy subscription method to allow multiplayer gameplay in Flood Escape 2 Map Test. If you don’t own a VIP server you will be teleported to a place with the same build of the game but limited to 1 player, unless you join a VIP server.
It is not effective but if I were to do it, I would utilise tick() and developer products. When a developer product receipt has been proccessed, you could create a value for the player which contains a tick() value + 2.592e+6 (since that is a month in seconds)
local currenttime = tick()
local timestampexpiration = currenttime + 2.592e+6
I would then store this in a datastore and when the player loads in, it checks if tick() has overtaken that value. If it does, make like a button which tells the player to renew the subscription and take away the perks they had. If it has not, then continue as normal.
Yeah this is not really worth pursuing because you don’t net much of the benefits of automatic subscriptions (e.g. the unpopular but true nature of subscriptions is that you end up letting it run / paying more because it requires an active action to cancel it), and Roblox is working on an official subscription feature anyway as per last RDC.