I am glad that roblox is being transparent on where their money goes . I’m looking forward to better anyalytic tools and the specialist to help us out . Hopefully they will post something in learning resources or something 
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Hope you know. Apple takes 30% of all things a Application Sells, within the App, then 15% after 1 year.
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What I don’t understand is why roblox doesn’t take a simple approach to fix this issue:
The approach would be quite simple, have a “partnership” like program that allows the top developers (ones that make a good amount of money, etc) to be a “partner” with ROBLOX. This giving them either:
A. Removal of the 30% marketplace fee for sales (because they’re trusted, and run through the roblox system, etc).
B. Increase their DevEx rates to ~50%.
This would resolve (most) issues in regards to the DevEx situation, and could allow them to expand out, because that extra 150 dollars per 100k would be quite helpful towards the high-end developers that are in studios, or have roblox as their full time job and are struggling to make ends meet.
This is the format that twitch follows. It seems to be quite beneficial towards their streaming community.
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What about those of us who are struggle to launch our own game and can barely get by with what we make due to these front pages just dominating causing us to get little to no exposure? All that would do is benefit those who are front page devs and doesn’t address everyone else who grinds on roblox with their games not knowing if they will get a paycheck or not since dev ex for the lower tiers atm is just that too low. (Hopefully I worded that well enough)
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Ive got a feeling that this issue wont ever go away untill roblox decides to move away from them being the game, to them being the platform for the games. Like steam, when the games are up top, and steam stands as the platform to advertise and sell the games.
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But Roblox is a platform and I believe they made it clear that it’s not a game and is a platform. When the brand guidelines was here on the Devforum, it was clearly stated that Roblox is a platform and not a game. Even though the Parent’s Guide to Roblox do show the same statement.
Roblox has been making these moves, even if the community doesn’t feel the same. Roblox is a very unique platform and cannot be easily looked at in the context of Steam and Epic Games Store.
Roblox don’t make games, they don’t. They host the servers, the UGC, the players, the currency, etc.
While they do make catalog items (like hats), it was made public they also plan to allow developers to do the same.
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That would still leave the servers to deal with. Who would host them? I don’t think you could get a better deal on third party hosting rather than just use Robloxs own servers. And if it’s a marketplace, will we be downloading games or using the Roblox player? If the later, it’s basically the same as it is now. If the former, will the Roblox application become the store? Other stores are not allowed on the Play Store or App Store. This is not a problem for PC, but mobile is a major market for Roblox games. I just don’t think you can think about Roblox in the same way as Steam. Roblox is an integrated platform of engine, player, and website. Not like other platforms at all.
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The 30% tax is to revalue the currency and actually make robux profitable - the fact that robux is thrown into a hole means that players have to purchase more of it which provides a fiscal backing to robux. It’s basically artificial deflation.
If everyone could just transfer 100% of robux for any products, fewer people would purchase robux, so the robux would devalue. It isn’t about trust.
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@LaAero_Aviator I’m not sure what you mean - Steam takes 30% of all product sales, and doesn’t provide multiplayer hosting, engine updates, or moderation staffing.
@XenderSquared PayPal takes a percentage, so do wire transfers, and so will whoever provides the payment portal - and even if the payment portal is run by Roblox, that costs money to maintain and so takes a virtual percentage.
It’s great that we get a offical response like this. However, as mentioned above, we need the full breakdown. @berezaa mentioned the inconsistencies in the mobile vs pc payments. This just does not make sense, if you are already accounting for payments, why do you do it twice? Edit: It appears this is due to builders club, but we still need more information on how and why these percentages are spent.
Furthermore, a efficient way of paying out to fellow developers is needed. You should not have to sacrafice 30% more income just to pay your team.
More tiers are needed. There is a huge gap between 500k robux and 1mil robux. Same with other areas, it should be a constant increase of a value like 250,000 (250k, 500k, 750k, 1mil, 1.125 mil, ect.).
Hopefully will get a follow up on this. Honestly, it is great that we got a reply. It’s real cool roblox is actually listening to the community. However, we need more info.
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There are no inconsistencies. It’s a matter of Builders Club incentives on desktop. You get extra Robux when you buy some with BC.
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Sorry for the misinfirmation, forgot bc did that. Even so, we still do not have a exact breakdown of why certain percentages go the way they do.
A strong downside to tax as a method of artificial deflation is that it restricts the depth of the economy: developers get 70%, but anyone who supported them (contractors) effectively get 49%. There is less money in the market for supporting the successful games, so less people support them.
In order to currently have efficient transactions that allow contractors and secondary developers/markets to thrive, utility needs to leave the system through the Developer Exchange and be traded in real world currency anyways. This allows some to circumvent the broken tax system and places unneeded bias towards developers who can participate in the Exchange. Artificial deflation should be done either at the entrance or exits to the system, not bogging down the works. Don’t revalue Robux, value it appropriately in the first place. Change incoming/outgoing rates until they about match or cause deflation, don’t overburden the system with taxes.
I tend to be a supporter of business competition and free markets rather than government subidized programs; I would like to see less taxes and more buying power for devs. In other words: less excess burden of taxation on the markets and deeper dissemination of profits.
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With increasing revenue for developers, one way would be to bring back mobile ads, but regulate it more and dont allow developers to abuse these ads. And maybe allow developers to incorporate ads into in-game Guis for mobile players, so its not out of place.
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I see this point get trotted out too often. The marketplace tax is anti-developer and has not been necessary since the Developer Exchange was added. The vast majority of Robux would eventually be cashed out by the Developer Exchange without the tax. It’s completely silly to compare real-life economics to Robux. DevEx is a black hole for which there is no real-life equivalent.
One of the best decisions Roblox could make would be to entirely remove it.
Not to mention there’s already the Roblox catalog, with thousands of non-Limited items that drain Robux away, and developers do not see a penny from.
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agreed, the tax has been in existence long before the developer exchange was even a thing. taking away or lowering that tax would also be a fair solution
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Just because YOUR game is only on PC doesn’t mean the person didn’t buy Robux on mobile.
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I feel like the mobile prices should reflect the store fees, tbh.
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Why are WE having to pay for store and transaction prices for platforms that have store fees? It makes no sense at all. Fees should only be deducted when the set of Robux was purchased via a platform with fees.
If anything, the store processing fee should be covered in the price of purchasing the Robux.
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The general consensus of this is a joy that ROBLOX is being more transparent, but still anger about the fact that ROBLOX is doing nothing about a highly valid issue.
Telling us why you can’t change it makes us a little more empathetic but it does not make it any less of a problem.
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