Introducing Improved Genres and New Subgenres

No different than anything else user-generated on roblox, we’re already down the rabbit hole :man_shrugging:

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Any genre Roblox adds will most likely have multiplayer. Would it not make more sense to add a Filter for Server size? (1, 2, 3, etc.)

That way you can filter by games that support the amount of players you want to play with. Saying that though, server size is different than gameplay itself. My current project has single player game design but allows multiplayer interaction. Thus, the ultimate solution would be a Tag for “single-player” and “multi-player”.

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It seems that removing Horror really leaves a big hole in the list? Especially with October and Halloween coming up of all times? :roll_eyes:
If it spans so much, why not leave Horror as-is and create appropriate sub-genres to go with it. How else are players going to find their favorite “horror” game next month during it’s celebration? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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I think that should be a Filter people can use to find games, rather than a Genre. Any Genre Roblox has can have Voice Chat. A Sort for Voice Chat specifically could help, but I don’t think enough people use Voice Chat to warrant a whole Sort (instead of a Filter).

That’s an interesting idea for sure. I’m torn between requiring it and not, but I do see your use case.

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As a member of the new research program, it’s nice to see this finally announced to the public and being worked on!

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Roblox first wanted to update their Genres before focusing on Tags. I think that was a good call, and I know more can be done (as evident by the replies here). I can’t wait for the Filters & Tags systems to be fully developed, but that all takes time. Roblox has the Core Value of “Taking the long view”. That means they want to get things done correctly, and that takes time. So, while I don’t like how long it has taken, I’d rather them do a good job.

Source:

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While I do think this is a step in the right direction, I don’t think it’s doing enough for game discoverability. It’s been nearly seven years since genre filtering was initially removed and this was seriously the best you could do?

For starters, only allowing one genre for a given experience is laughable; how many games can you list off the top of your head that would only fall into one genre? I’d be willing to bet the answer to that question is zero. Additionally, the concept of subgenres is interesting, but falls flat when you don’t incorporate nearly enough to span across all the games on the platform. Maybe you’re worried that providing too many options would spread games too thin, but at the end of the day, people are looking to play games they’re interested in based off genres they enjoy playing.

Decent concept, but needs depth. If you’re looking for ideas, check out this game which does everything you’ve done but better.

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Where are PVP Shooters?

PVP Shooter inlcude Deathmatch shooters, so deathmatch shooters should be replace with PVP shooters.

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Can I select more than one genre?

we need a primary genre.

Selecting multiple genres/subgenres at once would be really nice, but I understand how that might be difficult.
In my personal opinion, a good solution may be to allow one primary genre to be selected, while multiple (maybe up to 3 or 4) subgenres can be selected. I’ve created a little stinky mockup:

You can tell I’m not a UI designer because It definitely wouldn’t be functionally perfect this way; It wouldn’t solve all of the issues that would come about with a system like the one I described.

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Something more like a tag system might be better at that point, where creators can search for pre-existing relevant tags and create new ones if the ones they want don’t exist yet.

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I love the genres and subgenres coming back.
Would also love to see more like “themed subgenres”, such as sci-fi, western, comedy and some of the older ones which used to help user identify the theme of the game. This wouldn’t necessarily be needed but would be nice to see!

Overall it’s a good update and can’t wait to see how are genres going to work. My biggest disappointment, is horror not being a genre or subgenre with the release of this update, but we shall see how it goes in the future.

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These new genres are definitely worth the wait! Nice work, Roblox team!

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This is a great start, but we really need to be able to select multiple genres and we need more genres in general to truly make this system work well.

Otherwise, this is a great first step to improving discoverability. Well done!

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can users add their own subgenre like tags do?

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We agree that some experiences can fit into multiple genres, but to help users discover relevant content in each genre, we think it’s important to have a primary genre. For example, when a user is on the Charts tab and looks at experiences under genre x, they should see unique experiences compared to what they see in experiences under genre y. We’re exploring how to surface more dimensions like secondary genres, themes and aesthetics.

This is our first iteration and plan to update the genres over time. To help users easily discover genres and content within each, we are limiting the number of genres to ensure each represents a significant share of experiences on Roblox.

Thank you for the feedback, we appreciate it!

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Thank you for your feedback! We’ve created genres based on an experience’s core game or utility loop rather than themes or other dimensions of an experience. We plan to show themes (like horror and sci-fi) and other dimensions next year! We think this will give you more ways to describe your experience.

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We know a single genre cannot capture all aspects of an experience, and we’re exploring tags as a way to express multiple dimensions to complement genres. Thanks for your feedback!

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How can we determine the appropriate genre for our games if the available genres are not suitable? For instance, my Bus Simulator should ideally fall under Simulation > Vehicle Sim. However, ‘simulation’ games are currently flooded with idle clicking games. This is evident on the chart page, where my game and other driving games (car, railway, plane) are categorized under ‘Racing’ and recognized by players as ‘Racing’ games, not ‘Simulation’. I am concerned that selecting the ‘Simulation’ genre in the future might reduce the visibility and player base for my game.

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No, not really. the entire system was reworked I remember in early 2023 and before under 13 was removed as well as user ads games would get 350 average with ads. Now games get like +80 active with the same cost.

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I think DCOs (Difficulty chart hobbies) are just classic obbies where you go from one checkpoint to another, just that the stages in between them are ranked based on difficulty and the difficulty increases over time, like other obbies.

You could say the same thing for tower obbies like JTOH, but Tower Obbies focuses on vertical map design rather than horizontal map design, which is a big enough difference from classic obbies to warrant a separate subcategory.

this is my opinion though so idk lol :man_shrugging:

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