It is too hard to purchase Roblox products in Türkiye

Feature Requests Website Features
#1

As a Roblox developer it is currently too hard for me to purchase Roblox products in Türkiye. Currently there is no vendor that sells Roblox gift cards and Roblox toys are rarely sold in toy shops as they are exported into Türkiye from other nations causing the final price of the toys to increase. Robux as well as Premium pricing is a bit high for the average Turk. Turks are met with the exact same pricing plan as the United States. This plan makes it harder for Turks to access Robux and Premium, here is why:

NOTE: Unlike the United States where minimum payment is decided by your location within the U.S. and is decided for an hourly basis, in Türkiye, minimum payment is decided for a monthly basis and applies to all locations within Türkiye. So, Turks won’t tell you how much they earn per hour but will instead tell you how much they earn per month.

515 USD is a number significantly lower than what a working American earns per month. The most expensive Roblox product for sale, the 22,500R$ for 200 USD is around 2/5th (40%) of 515 USD, and honestly speaking, I speculate that there are a lot less consumers in Türkiye who purchase this option compared to the United States. I doubt a person earning the monthly minimum salary has this much spare money in their pockets by the end of the month.

There’s more to this burden, however, which is that Türkiye is currently facing an economic crisis. Türkiye has been combating against hyperinflation for the past half decade. Not only that, but the local currency in Türkiye - the Turkish Lira, has been constantly depreciating for the past decade. So that 515 USD I mentioned earlier will become a smaller number as times goes on until the minimum monthly salary is raised once again by the Turkish government.

By the way, we don’t even pay for products in our own currency, we pay in USD. When we navigate to the buy Robux page, we see our options listed in USD. When we attempt to purchase an option via debit/credit card, the amount that must be paid is reflected in Turkish Lira, but according to the currency exchange rate of your bank (for ex. see, “döviz kurları” @here). For instance, if I’m interested in purchasing 400 R$ for around 5 USD, I do not pay the equivalent of 5 USD in Turkish Lira, I end up paying some cents more (ex. 5.10 USD translated into Turkish Lira), so I am paying a tiny bit more than an American in which part of what I pay is paid as commission to my bank for its currency exchanging service. While the loss is not so significant or serious, I’d rather pay in Turkish Lira to eliminate these losses.

Because of these combined reasons, I strongly believe that the Turkish pricing should not be the same as the American pricing.

Roblox, according to a graphic shared in the user base documentation, in Q2 2022, you had a significant playerbase in Türkiye, and in the past year a DET was established for Türkiye, and today Roblox is the top fourth game in the Turkish Google Play Store - there is clearly a large Turkish community on Roblox. Localizing your prices for Türkiye will undoubtedly yield more sales for you which originate from Türkiye.

If this issue were to be addressed, it would become more easier for me to access Roblox products as a Turk.

14 Likes
#2

Although on paper this sounds fair, sadly it just isn’t possible. People have found ways to open up foreign bank accounts to get things cheaper, and many of these people resell them back to Americans as well for a slightly reduced price. It basically just creates a cesspool of illegal/immoral black-market activity as well as destroys the Robux economy.

Some may make the argument that many games or services offer regional pricing, which is true, but we also need to recognize the nature of Robux compared to other in-game currencies. For example, Fortnite had this problem with V-Bucks for a long while, and although it did have an impact it generally wasn’t detrimental to the V-Bucks price because you cant trade V-Bucks or V-Buck items. You can gift skins, yes, but with the cooldown to gift and the prospect of skins being in shop for only a day, it really isn’t as much of an issue. Similarly, Discord offers regional pricing only on self-bought nitro purchases and not gifts. There is an obvious trend being shown here: that regional pricing is only good for non-transferrable goods. Sadly, Robux is the closest to a real-life currency in the sense that almost everything is exchangeable. (almost) Every purchase with Robux goes to another player, and with a delicate circulation like that it would be unadvisable to offer uneven pricing.

4 Likes
#3

Fair point, I well understand your arguement.

AFAIK, Steam experienced the issue you discussed in the past where users would purchase games for cheap from less wealthier country markets and then transfer the games they purchased to accounts based in countries where the games are more expensive by using Steam’s gift system. As a workaround, Steam crafted two policies. One is for Türkiye (as well as countries economically alike Türkiye) specifically:

  • If games are being transferred across two countries, the price difference of the game in the two countries must not exceed 10%

  • Games purchased in Türkiye must be added to the library of users based in Türkiye. So, from inside of Türkiye you can’t really gift a person living outside of Türkiye a game unless they enter Turkish borders - this policy effectively put an end to the exploitation of Türkiye’s economic circumstances on Steam.

If I were Roblox, I would aim to craft a similar policy to the second one and introduce an alternative, cheaper payment option in which the cheaper Robux can only be spent on assets (avatar items, gamepasses, developer products etc.) published for sale by Roblox and other Turkish users. The other option, which is the current payment option (the American pricing) could stay and be used to purchase anything on Roblox globally.

You can think of it as economic options - economic menu options have become popular in Türkiye in recent years because of the economic crisis I mentioned in the thread. While they don’t serve as much content as other menu items which are more expensive, they’re quite more affordable to Turks and purchased more often. If you would like a real-life example, the other day, I went to Burger King Türkiye. A Whopper menu costed 195 TL (5.93 USD). A chicken burger menu lower in serving (grams) costed me 80 TL (2.43 USD) as it was part of an economic menu. Although the chickenburger will be less filling to your stomach as its smaller in content, it’s more affordable and preferred in comparison to the iconic Whopper menu. If you’re still not full, get a 2nd one, it’ll still be cheaper than the single Whopper menu.

I don’t know, it’s Roblox job to craft solutions, not mine, I have just presented my pain point which is I’m struggling to afford the things for sale as a Turk. I hope a solution that is not disadvantageous for either side is implemented because right now, I feel the weight of Turkish inflation on my shoulders as a Roblox shopper, metaphorically speaking - the Turkish community is at a disadvantage. While Turkish & American pricing is the same, Turks cannot afford to purchase as much as Americans at the moment - this is the issue. I hope Roblox realizes this and improves my shopping experience.

4 Likes
#4

I don’t think throwing it out as “just not possible” is ever acceptable.
Roblox prides itself in being an international platform and needs to accommodate people internationally.

This is a pretty important issue.

4 Likes