You gloss over the fact that within the 2 years of the last devex rate raise the platform expanded exponentially and actually reported to be profitable along with gaining millions of dollars in investments.
Totally true! Of course that comes with increased operations cost but I’ve experienced enough exponential growth in tech businesses to know that revenue grows much faster than expenses.
They gave a vague answer as you say and people accepted it. Otherwise this topic would be much larger. That sucks. It will take much larger / organized approach to get a larger share of the pie.
From my point of view, the only ones who can push for a change are the very top devs. berezaa seems to be the only one who is trying to do so and while important he is not ranked in either on what I think roblox considers the most important categories: Popular & Top earning.
Top members of this categories see very good returns from their work so they dont have as much incentive to push for a change (which may be a risky and demanding move to the eyes of someone who is already very well allocated)
The best solution to not making enough is to make games that make more money lol
Back to Studio until the next wave of “we want our R$”! Good points.
Just a recent thought
Would it be possible for Roblox to multiply the devex cashout rate by 1/0.7 times?
Because 30% is the minimum tax regardless of any purchase on the entire platform. Multiplying it by 1/0.7 would partially remove the minimum tax , without putting recursively taxed robux into account. (So only Robux that’s directly spent on something devexable, right after it has been purchased.)
And because you’re only affecting the rate at cashout, the tax could just reside like usual for premium and non-premium members.
The effects of such a change would only be limited to successful devex attempts.
Such a change would make the baseline cashout of 100k robux to 350 USD into 100k robux to 500 USD.
This change that only resides at the very end of robux’ presence in the market could incentivize developers a lot more.
(Something else I thought of)
I’m not sure how much USD gets spent on average before a single baseline cashout can be done since the purchase rates of Robux very per platform (and perhaps country too), and then there are also cases of Robux being earned from trading hats etc…
The best method I could think for approximating this would be by creating a table of all possible methods of acquiring robux besides: selling clothing, gamepass and developer products.
The table would include duplicates of the same processes but with different amounts of USD spent for every 100k robux acquired. At the end the average of all those methods could be displayed.
This isn’t a great estimation to say at the very least, but I don’t know of any other methods.
So if I’m understanding correctly, a 30% raise? I don’t get it.
How do you feel that this change would affect inflation and Roblox’s ability to remove currency from circulation as a result?
Also, is it appropriate to increase the stress/risk of using the DevEx system by increasing rates rather than alternate exchange methods?
There’s nothing innovative about increasing it 1/0.7 times over increasing it by any other amount, that’s still just an increase that means Roblox spends more money and we get more money. The extra money doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere. For all we know the current rate could already be adjusted for market fee. So this introduces no new argument in favor of increasing the cut we get unfortunately. The cashout rate is just the cashout rate, it doesn’t care about other fees, it’s always the same.
Yeah, nevermind what I said. What I brought up wouldn’t work cause the taxes and value of robux would stay the same but only the cashout rate would change. Which just means losing more money on Roblox’ end, unless players start magically buying more robux on a consistent basis as soon as that change happens. Which won’t happen.
It was an idea of how far Roblox could “realistically” go with increasing the devrate; it actually came out as a 43% increase because it was assumed that if a developer were to somehow get 350k robux that has only been taxed once, he/she would be exchanging 70% of that batch’s earnings (0.7*143 = 100). This was a bad approximation because of the very nature of how I came with that number.
After rethinking my idea it doesn’t seem like changing the rates rightaway is a great idea. I think Roblox is working its way to doing that by adding more sources of revenue and making roblox development more appealing by introducing new prices related to online memberships etc. (with premium being cheaper than bc (and doing immediate robux payouts when purchasing premium so users are more compelled to buy more robux when said gifted robux runs out)) before changing any devexrate.
Please hear me out. I know there are many developers that agree with these claims!
Roblox takes more money from Developers than any other platform, in fact they take more money from developers than Steam and Epic Games combined.
Steam - 30%
Epic Games - 12%
Roblox - 80.4%
How do I figure this? Well lets dive into some math shall we?
DevEx Rate: 1 Robux = .0035$ (At the time of writing a Doge Coin is worth more than a DevEx Robux )
Marketplace Rate: 1 Robux = .0125$
Player buys 400 Robux for $4.99. Player buys a gamepass in developers game for 400 Robux. Developer makes 280 Robux off this exchange. 280 Robux converted at the Marketplace Rate would be equivalent to $3.50. Now on any other platform this is where the transaction would end, the developer would pocket the $3.50 and the host would pocket $1.49, but this isn’t any other platform. This is Roblox, where sadly greed is king.
The second any Robux are purchased they must instantly be valued at DevEx Rates. So that $3.50 that you would of normally made becomes a grant total off… $0.98 Congratulations! You made 98 cents off a $5 purchase! Now you pocket $0.98 and the host pockets $4.02, youre basically being ripped off.
The math behind this claim
400 * (1 - .3) = 280 (Robux Earned | 400 is the Robux spent | 1 - .3 accounts for the marketplace fee)
.0035 * 280 = 0.98 (USD Earned | .0035 is the current DevEx Rate | 280 is Robux Earned)
0.98 / (400 * .0125) = 0.196 (Percentage Developer Makes | 0.98 is USD made | 400 * .0125 Is USD originally spent)
1 - 0.196 = 0.804 (Percentage Roblox Makes | This is self explanatory)
Heres some formulas
(DevEx Rate * (Robux Spent * (1 - Marketplace Fee))) | This tells you the amount of USD you would make off a specified amount of Robux with the current DevEx rates and Marketplace fees.
Example: (.0035 * (5000 * (1 - .3))) = $12.25
Robux Spent * Marketplace Fee | This tells you how much the player originally spent for your gamepass.
Example: 5000 * .0125 = $62.50
12.25 / 62.50 = .196 meaing Roblox took ~80% of your potential earnings.
Heres some code
Feel free to paste this code into a script in Studio and fool around with it, see how much USD you are going to make off your ingame purchases and also see how much you could potentially make by fooling around with the rates. You really get a feeling for how much Roblox is taking from you compared to other platforms.
local DevExRate = .0035
local MarketplaceRate = .0125
local MarketplaceFee = .3 -- 30%
local function CalculateEarnings(PriceInRobux)
local DeveloperMakes = (DevExRate * (PriceInRobux * (1 - MarketplaceFee)))
local RobloxMakes = (PriceInRobux * MarketplaceRate) - DeveloperMakes
return "At the current rates a purchase of " .. PriceInRobux .. " Robux or $" .. tostring((PriceInRobux * MarketplaceRate)) .. " would give you $"
.. tostring(DeveloperMakes) .. " and Roblox $" .. tostring(RobloxMakes)
end
print(CalculateEarnings(500))
Thank you and hopefully something can be changed. 80% is an absurd amount of revenue to be taking from developers. If anyone has anything they would like to comment on please do Have a great day!
EDIT: I don think I am a high enough member level to reply to questions about this post. You will have to DM me for me to answer any questions.
To reply to @Autterfly Roblox is a private company valued at over 4 billion USD. I am 100% sure they can afford to increase DevEx from .0035 to .005.
There has been long discussions about the very big differences between something like Steam, Epic Games and Roblox before. Have you considered that a lot of the revenue goes into providing you as a developer with services that other platforms don’t offer?
There’s a ton of useful info here. Roblox are very familiar with our thoughts, since then we’ve been given Premium Payouts which is great for developers that haven’t monetized but usually a 15% increase for those that have.
I truly hope that, at some point, people voice their concerns enough for this change to take place. This issue deserves more attention and discussion. Some may believe there’s no point in talking about it, assuming it won’t lead to change, but I strongly disagree.
Personally, I think the rates are great. I remember back when premium payouts were non-existent and you only made like a few percent of the robux users spent on your game, not to mention you needed things like Builders Club just to transact. I’ve tried DevEx and I’m a happy chappy. I agree it is quite low but they’ve listened to us and they do provide us with a huge set of features and a player base.
The App Store Fees are absolutely bonkers and ridiculous, that is beyond theft it’s a war crime. How come they are getting an equal share as us and Roblox itself? They didn’t engineer a fantastic engine and put in hundreds of hours of work into their games! Surely Roblox can push against this? Loads of users are on PC? 24.9% SHARE!?!
I have been working on my own engine now since I am too used to Roblox’s one yet I am unhappy with my revenue and the way mine and other games are pushed down (not to mention that I can’t customize and optimize the physics). In the end this all turns back on Roblox as they lose developers to other more enticing platforms. This is less of a plea but more of a indirect threat that developers will quit. Unturned and Lethal Company for example… But in the end, its all good imo, we should chill out a bit.
premium payouts do help, but an increase of DevEx rates will actually increase the amount of developers and games on Roblox.
More money = More Developers = More Games = Even more money
100k Robux is worth what? $1,000? Even a raise to $500 per 100k would be a huge help to ALL developers, allowing to expand the development team and the Roblox platform.
Oh, the irony of this… I think they’re finally scratching something, but boy oh boy does everyone know how ASS of a year it was before now.
Developers were complaining and worried about their livelihoods being affected by Roblox’s algorithm.
You know… maybe if they raised DevEx that wouldn’t happen.
Also, you would have fewer Developers feeding off of the soon-to-be monopolistic VCs that promote creating shovelware with innovative, new, and exciting ways to game metrics so their investors can believe they’re buying something of worth.
Good point. It should be taken into consideration that many of the developers before us quit, because there is really no motive any more. I’d assume that’s down to the direction the platform is taking, and fore mostly the lack of funding. I open Roblox Studio and my heart just sinks, but I think part of me is just happy to see something than nothing.
hopefully in the upcoming rdc…? maybe?
Well Roblox in RDC 2019 said they want 10,000 developers doing Roblox full-time, right now, it’s around 2,000. I’m grateful to be apart of that 2,000, but seriously if they want to reach their goals faster they need to raise the DevEx rate at least 15%-30%
wait seriously, it’s only 2000? I thought that number would be a lot bigger considering how big roblox is, but I do agree nonetheless.