Make the Games search better and the search term autocorrect more intelligent

Feature Requests Website Features
#1

Improve the Games search function (or at least provide more transparency as to how it works)

Hey everyone!

I’m a game developer on the platform & I recently released a game titled GUESTY. The game has been out for almost 3 weeks now & has hit the front page of Popular a few times within that span of time (with the help of content updates, advertisements, and content creators).

The issue I’m having is that when anyone tries to look up Guesty, it autocorrects to guest and the actual game doesn’t even show up on the front page; but not only that, it shows completely irrelevant games to the term “guest.”

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As you can see in this screenshot, aside from the game Guest World, 3 of the top 4 games in this sort are completely unrelated to the term “guest”; let alone the game I was actually looking for. There’s a little option in the top left that says, “Search instead for guesty” but I have an issue with that for a couple reasons:

  • It’s hard to see and easy to miss. A quick glance at a page with rows and rows of unique game icons makes it easy to overlook the tiny correction in the top left.
  • At a certain point, a game that has had a decent amount of players for a while should be able to be searched up without autocorrecting to a different term.

I’m sure it’s not exclusive to this case. There are probably lots of games that have this issue, and the problem rises where people have heard of a game but can’t even find what they’re looking for. From the perspective of a game developer and from the perspective of a game player, it’s important that players are able to have quick & easy access to the game they’re looking for.

I propose that Roblox recognizes new games at a quicker rate (perhaps if they reach a certain threshold on the Popular sort) that allows the term to be whitelisted when searched up so as not to be autocorrected. Additionally, it’d be nice if there was some transparency provided to better explain how the algorithm works and how situations like this can be overcome in the future.

Thank you!

EDIT: I’m also aware that tags are usually the cause of this but I found something interesting. The games that show up when the term is autocorrected to “guest” don’t even have tags whatsoever, as seen in this screenshot:

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This leads me to believe that games that even ONCE possessed the term “guest” in the name or description are still able to be found if you search up the term. This further allows these types of games to exploit the system as they continue to change the name and description of the game.

25 Likes
#2

The reason why you see those unrelated games is because the “developer” just copy pastes hundreds of tags to make their game show up.

4 Likes
#3

As it has already been stated, these developers use “tags”. They add random words in the descriptions of their games. The solution for all this is just to make devs remove them and these games shouldn’t pop up in the search results.

4 Likes
#4

I’m aware of that; it’s the same issue the clothing search has in the catalog. However, in this case it feels even worse because I know there are a lot of cases like this one where a game that took time & effort is drowned out by games that can simply put tags in the description and somehow continue to remain at the top of the sort.

That’s why I’m suggesting better regulations for this type of thing. :slightly_smiling_face:

6 Likes
#5

At the time of my writing this, it’s seemingly changed a little bit?

Now, when I look up my game’s title, it no longer autocorrects, as seen here:
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As for the term “guest,” it’s seemingly been updated as well, as seen in this screenshot:
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After these 4 main games that include the term “guest” in the title, there are still a lot of games on the front page of the search that are very irrelevant to the term but it’s a start!! :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes