Great idea!
What about a Models?
I think it’s better with “buy” in Models ?
although i appreciate the idea (plugin creators work VERY hard at what they did, this is something that is kinda late honestly, wish it was there a long time ago like UGC but glad its out now) and I see how the benefits outweigh the cons, one thing comes up to my mind:
Poor developers: Time to add “Learn how to create really good plugins” to the list of things to do (because they can’t afford buying good ones in the future)
1 Like
His comment was about Models and Audio, not Plugins.
I love the way that you guys are expanding ways to have developer’s grow. This feature is great but, having plugins charged for Robux is kind of not my wroth of looking at. Maybe down the road I’ll look at this feature again in 2020.
Thank you for saving this feature! Now I don’t have to go to the manage plugin window
EDIT: I’ve seen some people saw the problems about the update, although this can save users from going to the Manage Plugins window, I felt pretty bad for broke devs when they saw robux for plugin as they tried to use some used free plugins (now paid).
There are already enough tools available to protect your plugin’s source code. I don’t see a need to protect their files with complicated mechanisms.
The parent of the plugin’s uploaded model has an asset ID in the format “Plugin_12345”. You can check whether its name matches and then crash the plugin if it doesn’t match.
To make it very difficult to work around this DRM, you can use an obfuscator like IronBrew to hide the source code, like it’s some kind of speghetti.
You can look at the error log from this picture to see what I mean:
I am not a big fan of obfuscated code though. I have a strict policy of not using anything in Roblox Studio with obfuscated code. This means I’m probably going to refrain from using paid plugins whenever I can replicate the same functionality myself.
I’m also not a big fan of this change overall. I suppose this means plugins are not free to modify and adapt in general, unlike other asset types in the Library.
3 Likes
I sincerely dislike this addition in its current form. There needs to be a way to try plugins before purchasing them - asking newer developers to invest in tools they don’t know will work is rather brutal. Many of the newer developers I know are younger and don’t have the income to support spending hundreds or thousands of robux on building plugins. At a minimum the ability to add video thumbnails needs to be added for plugins so that people can see what they’d be purchasing before doing it. The ability to try on items is a feature of the Catalog/Avatar Shop, and a similar feature needs to be implemented here. I appreciate that Roblox is trying to add more ways for developers to make money, but this I feel is a solution that wasn’t well thought out and pushed without consideration for the developer community.
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thank for the excuse for spending all my group fonds
seriously : im whaitng for this for models also having a marketplace
I really hope these new plugins are marketable enough to spark some super high quality new development tools. I would be very willing to spend a decent amount of Robux on a plugin that significantly helps my workflow, but I don’t see plugin developers making much of an income from this, especially from plugins with niche usage (probably 70% of the plugins I use) – unless they’re really expensive 
Im sorry but i do not agree with this feature, tools that help bolster developer creativity and productivity should never be placed behind a paypal, one of the main benefits of roblox’s developing tools is that theyre all free, taking this path feels like a step in the wrong direction.
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I feel grandfathered in since I had Quenty’s class changer before he added a price to it, as well as a few other decent plugins.
However, this will definitely put new developers at a severe disadvantage. I know because I was once a new developer myself, and I’ve been on the platform for years. With all the good stuff on the Library being free before, I explored and experimented and then I was able to make my own quality things.
With this change moving forward, new developers will have an increasingly harder time digging deeper into the platform and learning about all the awesome things it has to offer, as well as the useful but obscure APIs buried within the game engine.
Also, like others said, this will make plugin copying that much worse. Many kids would rather find free versions of cool-looking assets from the toolbox if they can find them, which puts themselves at more of a risk for getting backdoored and then later abused in their little worlds.
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It would be really nice if Roblox had a team that “endorses” popular plugins that have been vetted to be safe and optimized.
Now, I don’t see that as a very likely solution since Roblox already has so many dedicated teams checking assets and such already. So, maybe they could release a separate voting system for assets that allows premium users to rate security and/or optimization on a scale from 1 to 10 (or something similar).
Since there is the possibility of users copying plugins and publishing them for free, it would be fantastic if premium users could flag products that are “copies” and after a certain number of flags they could be automatically (or processed first) removed. Similar to flagging posts here on the forums.
Edit: Someone did mention reviews;
I definitely agree reviews would be a good thing (although it reminds me of the issue that used to be comments… This would definitely need to be addressed before reintroducing such a thing to assets/plugins)
Overall, I think that there needs to be some sort of standard for new users publishing assets, and a method to blacklist people from publishing them. This way it wouldn’t be so easy to create bots that copy assets hundreds if not thousands of times, and if users do post intentionally malicious assets then they can just have their permissions revoked altogether.
1 Like
So, as a small plugin developer, im a bit concerned with this. As alot of devs have said, if you make people pay for something that you can see the code for, people will reupload the plugin and make it free, and also the other way arround. Im worried people start reuploading free plugins and make people pay for them and at the same time maybe adding malicious code. We’ve all seen how some devs exploit how the sort by relevance works, to get their malicious clones to the front page.
Some other people have said that only trusted developers should be able to upload plugins. I think that this is a very bad idea. Whilst this may stop things like malicious plugins, this will also prevent legit devs to upload their plugins; and would also give alot of power to those authorized devs, because they’d have a whole “market” just for themselves.
Something im also worried about is how to stop people copying plugins. If we obfuscate the code or make it so people cant check the source, this would open the door to plugins becoming privatemodules 2.0. But if we dont hide them the possibility of people copying plugins will always be there.
Maybe a way to fix some of this things is having more options. As a developer I love having options. Roblox could make something where we could choose if to hide or not our code.
All this things are issues that, in my opinion, should be solved or atleast consulted with the developer community before introducing changes such as this.
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… Aaaand thats why the Catalog is a disaster.
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So, we’re moving towards Roblox Studio having it’s own UE4 Marketplace/Unity Asset store, starting off with having to pay for the simplest plugins?
What about people with no robux who are just starting off? I am 100% positive developers will (ab)use this and make ESSENTIAL plugins, such as GapFill, or F3X, (or name any other very useful plugin) paid. (No offense to the devs of those plugins, unless they’ll actually do this)
Or what if a plugin becomes deprecated/broken eventually and doesn’t receive a fix? Sure, the dev of that plugin can fix it, but what if they can’t/won’t? That would put pressure on them and virtually waste the people who bought the plugin’s robux.
This is a horrible idea.
8 Likes
Sign me up! I’ve got some awesome ideas that would be great for this.
I think this overlooks the original thought behind having free models, yes, I can appreciate that making a plugin isn’t the same and in almost every case, it involves significantly more time/effort. But, it just leaves the door open to what else is there to sell-off?
Unlike the thumbnail of a model, shirt, t-shirt, pants, what you see isn’t necessarily what you’ll be getting. However, the same can be said for paid access games.
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You make a paid plugin because it’s supposed to be only for people who pay for it…
I don’t see why Roblox shouldn’t “attempt” or at least “try” hiding the source / obfuscating it??
Why do we have to obfuscate our plugins sources if they’re supposed to be “paid” and “private” I don’t think this system is really that useful if we have to go out of our way to protect our sources just because Roblox doesn’t do so when they’re supposed to…
I’m strongly against monetizing development especially because plugins not only have to be regularly updated, but they’re also non-refundable and they come with no warranty or preview. Not only can the feature be abused later on, but I believe it can be very discouraging for new developers.
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Oh well. Maybe the development team will take my idea and do it automatically for paid plugins.
1 Like