Introducing Today’s Picks - A New Curated Sort on Home [Pilot]

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:

  • To connect every user with the best content and community for them.

  • To connect every creation with the most relevant audience.

  • 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.
252 Likes

This topic was automatically opened after 10 minutes.

AI art makes me feel like I’m insane.

194 Likes

Interesting update. Why are experiences selected by humans? Wouldn’t it be more sustainable to have an algorithm do it? Haven’t we seen in the past that categories that show human-selected games are not a long-term solution?


How will we be notified? I would think via devforum, but not all accounts have a devforum account.

26 Likes

This is a great update that is sure to improve discoverability, sort of like a “hot list” :+1:
Interestingly, we can nominate other games

Is there a certain number of nominations for a game to be picked?

Lets ignore those cursed ai thumbnails

32 Likes

I would suspect because it’s too easy to game or cheat the computer selection if you figure out how the algorithm works. :wink:

21 Likes

Interesting. I wonder how this will go.

15 Likes

This is awesome! I just filled out for the form for my game, MovieWorld :crossed_fingers:

Having the new 16:9 thumbnail format is perfect, as it means I can show the update in the picture!

15 Likes

Okay! Not so bad i guess! I like it :slight_smile:

I would like to know though, is the sign up sheet a temporary thing that will be removed later or will it stay?

11 Likes

Developers would probably be notified via roblox messaging :joy:

12 Likes

I noticed that the form to nominate can be used for other experiences that are not your own. Any concerns you won’t be flooded with bot nominations for the same one to artificially make it look like it is in demand? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

10 Likes

What does someone’s skin color, gender, religion, ethnicity, disability or country of origin have to do with the substance of a game or experience? These are completely unrelated and should not be asked for as they have no bearing on anything except Roblox using people for free PR.


EDIT : Roblox has removed this question, but it’s still general marketing policy to use this type of information, meaning this incident is a symptom of a broader issue.

147 Likes

Are there any plans for an in-between of automated and human curation - namely in the form of revitalizing genres + tags and allowing users to apply them in their searches?

15 Likes

I did not get that question. Did you select yes or not sure to the Partnership question? Still an odd one…

11 Likes

Well, I don’t feel it is irrelevant.

Plus, it’s optional, and because of fear of discrimination, most minorities aren’t even going to disclose that their marginalized status. They are afraid of being punished for it later on if they disclose.

11 Likes

I mean, I kinda feel like this will turn out like UGC, where it’ll give opportunity for a small bit, and then by the time I am ready, it’ll be over with.

6 Likes

Why should a Roblox game be pushed due to any of these unrelated stats? This is completely unrelated to game quality, and it’s incredibly disrespectful to people who aren’t classified as a minority.

18 Likes

what’s with the ai art ???

15 Likes

Agreed, any game developer can create an amazing game, regardless of gender or race. If a black person creates a great game, awesome! if a white person creates a great game, also awesome! It’s equal because it doesn’t matter what race a person is. :slight_smile:

16 Likes

I mean we already know hacky ways to get our games popular.

5 Likes