Hi Creators,
We are excited to announce that from April 8 to May 3, we will test a pilot of Today’s Picks, a brand new sort on Home for English-language users located in the US. It will be displayed across our iOS, Android, PC, and Mac apps, as well as on roblox.com. We would like to learn and optimize before we open it up to more regions and languages, so you may see several different configurations of Home during the pilot. Stay tuned for updates in the future.
Below is an example of a Today’s Picks curated sort with experience subtitle descriptors. The sort utilizes the new 16:9 experience thumbnail format.
As we outlined in our Discovery vision post earlier this year, our mission for Discovery is:
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To connect every user with the best content and community for them.
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To connect every creation with the most relevant audience.
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To keep the platform fresh, vibrant, and exciting with new content and updates.
We acknowledge that growing your initial audience is hard, particularly for new and unique types of experiences. This pilot is a first step in awarding initial impressions to new and recently updated experiences so that we can better match them with the right audience. We’re also aware that retaining these newly acquired users is another challenge in itself. To help address this need, we recently launched the Notification Permission Prompt API which will help you retain new users via notifications.
Your amazing creations are what makes Roblox special, and we are thrilled to feature more of them on Home, providing you with additional exposure on our platform.
Our team will be working hard to curate and highlight up-and-coming creations, updated experiences, new genres, and more. More specifically, we will be including “All Ages”, “Ages 9+”, and “Ages 13+” content in this sort.
Please note: If a user is under the age of 13, Today’s Picks will contain experiences rated for “All Ages”.
Since Today’s Picks is a new placement type that will be positioned within the first few rows on Home, there will be implications for what users typically see. We will be testing and iterating on the best position for all the various content types on Home, such as Friends, Continue, Recommended For You, Sponsored Experiences, and People You May Know. During this pilot, we will test placing Sponsored Experiences in higher rows on Home to potentially drive more impressions and visits to experiences providing you with more chances to showcase your creations and build an audience.
This pilot is one of the many efforts we see to make our mission for Discovery a reality. We believe it will ensure that more amazing creations find an audience, as well as help users discover a zeitgeist of experiences that they may have never considered before.
How can I request to be featured?
We would like to hear from you if your experience is in an up-and-coming genre, recently updated, or notable for another reason. If you wish to nominate your experience to be featured for Today’s Picks, please complete the Today’s Picks Nomination Survey. If selected, you will be notified by someone on our team. Today’s Picks will be updated daily and each featured experience can be featured more than once.
Our approach to curation is evolving, and we will share more details in the coming months. We hope you are as excited about this as we are!
Stay tuned for more updates and let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you!
FAQ
Click here to view the FAQ!
What’s the difference between what is currently available on Roblox and Today’s Picks?
- Recommendations on Home are currently automatically personalized to each user, based on signals like engagement, monetization, and what their friends have visited. Since Roblox is home to a wide breadth of content, some creations and updates may not reach users in time because they are too new for our algorithm. The new Today’s Picks sort on Home brings fresh, new content from our editors, so users don’t miss out!
Where will “Today’s Picks” be shown?
- It will be shown on Home to English-language users located in the US, across our iOS, Android, PC, and Mac apps, as well as on roblox.com.
Will all users see the same content or is it tailored?
- Users under the age of 13 might see different experiences from those who are aged 13 and up.
How often does this sort refresh?
- Featured experiences will be updated daily and can be featured more than once.
Will this be an ongoing thing?
- We’re starting with this curation sort pilot and will have a lot of learnings at the end of the 26-day pilot. We’re always looking for ways to feature more on Roblox, so you can expect to see ongoing optimizations to this sort in the coming months.
Is my experience eligible if it is not on all platforms?
- For the time being, your experiences must be playable on Desktop, Mobile, and Tablet to be eligible to be featured.
Is my experience eligible if it is not rated “All Ages”?
- “Ages 13+” experiences, “Ages 9+” experiences, and “All Ages” experiences will be eligible.
