Increase DevEx Rates

[E_3D (Popstar)]

For updated information please contact me, find me on LinkedIn, or discord eth.n

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Heads up, Roblox will take down your response to this post for “Necrobumping”.
I think the discussion should still be allowed since they also don’t allow you to create the same post with the same name/topic.

It has been seven years since the last DevEx rate was increased from .0025 to .0035 on March 1st, 2017. In the past four years, Roblox has grown immensely and they were valued at $41 billion dollars, up from the 2.5 billion dollar evaluation from my initial post in 2019. So I assume, there’s money to go around, and there are now even more developers racking in even more cash for the company. Roblox has scaled up immensely and is going to continue to do so.

https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/articles/developer-economics

In response to questions such as:
“Roblox cant they’ve already shown us how much everything cost”

8.8% going to “Platform Investment” these are really broad terms and the description doesn’t really help in giving a developer confidence that they absolutely can’t raise the devex ratio, which also leads to the discussion of premium payouts… Why can’t the Developer Share – EBP 1.7% contribute to devex rates even if it is a slight increase? Don’t get me wrong, premium payouts are nice, but it felt like a quid pro quo.

–Update / Edit
David B. on Axios discussing how he would like higher payouts for Developers, but the Apple/Google Store tax is ( / seems to be) the one barrier from stopping them.
https://twitter.com/axios/status/1401917363075702787

2019 Post

It has been two years since the last DevEx rate was increased (.0025 to .0035 on March 1st, 2017). In the past two years, Roblox has grown immensely and they are now reportedly worth over 2.5 billion USD. So I assume, there’s money to go around, and there are now even more developers racking in even more cash for the company. Seeing a lot of changes on the front-page can only make me assume they’re gearing up to scale even larger. A lot more games are being showcased and a lot more games are making money. However, if you’re unaware, Roblox surprisingly takes a large chunk of what you make (30% tax & other factors), not saying that this is bad, but this supports the fact that there’s room for DevEx rates to go up. There’s always the argument that Roblox is not only a distributor but also a game engine, a platform, and they provide free servers. But even with a slight increase of DevEx rates, they would still be able to cover the cost.

I don’t know if Roblox will be changing the DevEx rates any time soon, but it would be nice : )

– edit

Apparently 450M and 600M are now able to be cashed out.

–edit
You can now devex any amount without tiers, but still no increased rate

–edit

–edit

Roblox has introduced premium payouts and removed the tier list. Premium payouts are really nice, but I don’t see why nothing could have been put into devex

[FamedChris (Stefan)]

A higher Devex rate or some better and more reliable datastores for developers would be nice! Some features for developers definitely deserve an upgrade w/ current rates.

[ScriptOn (Genya)]

@nojustEthan

Roblox surprisingly takes a large chunk of what you make (30% tax & other factors

Developers actually only earn about 18-20% of robux profits. Some other platforms are giving developers 88%!

prepare for incoming “but roblox pays for servers”

[BuildIntoGames (Preston)]

This needs to be talked about more.

The rest of our cut is allegedly going into the website, data storage, a constantly updating engine & platform, staff, servers, exposure, etc. This was also before Roblox was a profitable company, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

Server quality is degrading and datastores have become one of the most unreliable ways to store data. Weekends and abnormal traffic cripples the site & services. The website is essentially a live testbed with changes rolled out before anyone outside approves of them. Communication with staff has almost disappeared as Roblox has grown and become more corporate. We’re personally held responsible to handle site-wide GDPR claims. While other game marketplaces & platforms are competing in favor of developers, it almost seems like we’re going backwards.

[cloakedyoshi]

I personally feel like the robux tax on buying products is enough to limit illicit uses of robux by developers and to allow Roblox to still profit.

Have the tax, and otherwise let developers cash out at a near 1:1 ratio. The tax and BC/TBC/OBC is more than enough for Roblox imo.

[Veov_Ekdosi]

Going up by another 0.0020% = 0.0055 seriously wouldn’t cause much harm to Roblox’s profit margin imo.

[E_3D (Popstar)]

That is .0020%, but regardless, I agree, I doubt it would destroy Roblox and the liquidity that they have.

[Veov_Ekdosi]

Oops didn’t even notice I miscalculated that. Thanks for that.

[Veov_Ekdosi]

I think to get this to happen anytime soon we’d need to get large enough support.

I’ll do my part.

[kni0002]

Or remove the Tax rate on items. But i support this, how can I say no to money

[JustSeanC (Sean)]

Roblox makes around .01 USD for every 1 Robux at the lowest tier.
I feel like they could spare to pay us .005 instead of .0035.

[UnderMyWheel (Wheely)]

An increase in DevEx rates is also benefitical to Roblox in the long term. More developers will be able to work full time on the platform and it will attract professional game developers to the platform too.

[wravager]

Even just a small increase from 3.5 to 4 would give us and extra $50 per 100,000 robux cashed out.

[madattak]

@ScriptOn

Developers actually only earn about 18-20% of robux profits. Some other platforms are giving developers 88% !

Where does this number keep coming from? Using price of Robux, in the UK at least, gives us ~29% revenue share.

[GollyGreg]

@ScriptOn

prepare for incoming “but roblox pays for servers”

It sounds like you were going to include a rebuttal here, but stopped…? Mentioning that this is a counter point (which can be opened up and explored) but not delving into it any further gives the allusion that the very mention of a counterpoint or any rebuttal to your statement is asinine and does not promote an open environment for discussion.

@BuildIntoGames

Server quality is degrading and datastores have become one of the most unreliable ways to store data. Weekends and abnormal traffic cripples the site & services. The website is essentially a live testbed with changes rolled out before anyone outside approves of them. Communication with staff has almost disappeared as Roblox has grown and become more corporate. We’re personally held responsible to handle site-wide GDPR claims. While other game marketplaces & platforms are competing in favor of developers , it almost seems like we’re going backwards.

This entire paragraph is rife with leading the witness, red herrings, and strawman. You’re making claims things are worse and doom and gloom, but fail to provide any evidence of this being the case. Making broad generalized statements like this is irresponsible and does not help punctuate your point.

---

I understand the community value in wanting increased DevEx rates, however we should be doing better to phrase our arguments in a way that is constructive and can be taken seriously from those with authority on the topic.

[E_3D (Popstar)]

@GollyGreg

@ScriptOn

prepare for incoming “but roblox pays for servers”

It sounds like you were going to include a rebuttal here, but stopped…? Mentioning that this is a counter point (which can be opened up and explored) but not delving into it any further gives the allusion that the very mention of a counterpoint or any rebuttal to your statement is asinine and does not promote an open environment for discussion.

There was already a “rebuttal” to what he is saying in the OP.

@nojustEthan

There’s always the argument that Roblox is not only a distributor but also a game engine, a platform, and they provide free servers. But even with a slight increase of DevEx rates, they would still be able to cover the cost.

You pointing out that he has no rebuttal doesn’t contribute to the topic whatsoever and destroys the point of having open environment for discussion. You didn’t even offer anything to counter-act his point.

[BuildIntoGames (Preston)]

@GollyGreg

This entire paragraph is rife with leading the witness, red herrings, and strawman. You’re making claims things are worse and doom and gloom, but fail to provide any evidence of this being the case. Making broad generalized statements like this is irresponsible and does not help punctuate your point.

You want me to sugarcoat it? These are factual statements.

[Zomebody]

Whether or not they are facts, they are irrelevant to the discussion. Ethan is providing arguments on why he thinks Roblox developers deserve a bigger cut, yet your arguments make it sound like Roblox does not have anything under control and in fact needs to cut down(!) on DevEx so they can instead put more funds into ‘fixing’ the issues you have described.

Personally, I would of course love it to get a raise. Though right now Roblox is growing exponentially in size, so it might also be worth waiting so Roblox can capitalize on the growth and make bigger and better features before increasing DevEx rates, essentially helping us developers even more in the (near) future.

[ScriptOn (Genya)]

Greg there’s probably a more productive way to go about this. If you really want some detailed discussion we could do that. Whatever you’re doing in your reply is not heading in that direction, though.

I posted the servers argument because we’ve all seen someone reply “but Roblox pays for servers and moderation and has a large fanbase” and then the argument goes in circles because said replier never acknowledges that all of those things aren’t that proportionally expensive. The fanbase could be an argument, as a matter of fact I think it’s why Roblox will be fine if they don’t change the rates for a while. I do still wish for more though, I’m watching companies on Roblox grow & a lot of them are having trouble with the current income. I think something more stable/higher rates would have mass benefits to both Roblox and the developer in the long term.

[BuildIntoGames (Preston)]

@Zomebody

Whether or not they are facts, they are irrelevant to the discussion. Ethan is providing arguments on why he thinks Roblox developers deserve a bigger cut, yet your arguments make it sound like Roblox does not have anything under control and in fact needs to cut down(!) on DevEx so they can instead put more funds into ‘fixing’ the issues you have described.

I think you missed the first half of my post and made assumptions. These issues rarely occurred while Roblox was unprofitable. They are now very profitable. Now these issues are very prevalent. I’m also making assumptions here - but I personally believe Roblox is cutting costs to maximize profits despite still taking the higher percentage. They aren’t holding their end of the bargain. I would love to hear an official explanation but we haven’t gotten one - which illustrates my point.