Hi Creators,
In hearing your feedback from our recent announcement of Limiteds for the UGC Program and the first installment of the Creator Roadmap, we want to share our long-term vision for Marketplace, how we are iterating towards this vision, and announce new Limited features coming next week.
Our Vision
Long-term, we are building an economy where anyone can create, sell and earn on our platform. In 2022 alone, 1.8 billion total avatar items were sold on the platform making the Marketplace a critical part of the Roblox economy and how creators earn.
We want to continue to create the right economic systems for our Marketplace that empower creators of all sizes to build sustainable businesses while promoting healthy market dynamics between all stakeholders.
We ground our vision in a few principles:
Our economic systems should mirror the real-world
A lot of the decisions we make are based on economic theory, and over time, when possible, our economy should reflect real-world economies that are able to sustain growth and create optimal opportunities for people to earn and benefit. The introduction of scarcity is an example of this, where giving creators more control over the supply of their items enables innovation and can drive more demand.
Everyone in the community should be able to participate in our economy
By the end of the year, anyone on our platform will be able to create items, including personalized avatar bodies and heads, and publish them to Marketplace. For years, the UGC Program has served as the backbone of the community and as we open up the ability to create to everyone, we are committed to being extremely thoughtful in our approach. For example, we will be opening up creation only to creators that we can verify and are in good standing. Policy violations will be tied to verified accounts, creating accountability and deterring creators from releasing content that doesn’t align with our Community Standards. We are also looking into ways to disincentivize duplicative content surfacing on Marketplace.
We build the systems, but place as many controls as possible in the hands of the community
We will strive to let the community have control over the systems we create while balancing incentives that promote a healthy marketplace. We believe giving more controls allows creators to innovate and earn in ways that work for them. For example, just like in the real world where creators and sellers can control the location and quantity of items purchased per person, we are giving creators more control with the addition of the in-experience only sales location for Limiteds and controls to set the quantity and limit the original copies purchased per user.
Our economic systems will be dynamic and actively respond to market conditions
With supply and demand being dynamic on our platform, the systems we build need to be dynamic as well. Just like the real world, we expect our systems will be constantly optimizing for healthy marketplace dynamics that allow more people to create, earn and sell. By regularly changing incentives, such as publishing fees or price floors, we can be more responsive to market conditions and help balance supply and demand.
Iterating towards the long-term
With the vision and principles in mind, each new feature is a step towards the long-term. We intentionally leave room for iteration so we can listen to the community’s feedback. We also know that sometimes this means sharing a product early with the community, even if all the features are not available yet.
New Limited features!
We are excited by the early traction we’ve seen with UGC Limiteds. In less than 30 days, ~50% of all Limiteds on the platform are from the community and 60% of people who have purchased Limiteds have never owned Limiteds before. We want to continue to build on this momentum, and as a first step, we wanted to share some new Limited features that will launch on Tuesday, May 30th. These recent updates are based on the feedback we’ve heard to date:
New In-Experience Only Sales Location:
- We are adding a new Sale Location option for UGC Limiteds to give you more control. Creators will now be able to set their items to be acquirable in-experience only for the original stock. Since these transactions are happening in-experience, the experience Developer will receive a 40% share of the purchase.
Creator controls how many original copies people can purchase:
- As we continue to build our systems, giving creators more control is central to our development. We’ve heard from the community that they want more control over how many copies of an item someone can buy. We are introducing a new creator-facing setting to control how many copies of your original stock you want your users to be able to acquire.
Removing price ceilings for Limiteds
- We are removing price ceilings for Limiteds to give our creators the ability to price their Limiteds at what they believe is the current market value.
Group publishing
- Rolling out the ability for groups to publish Limiteds, just like they can for non-limiteds.
Additional features we have already released:
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The ability for users to buy UGC Limiteds from a developer’s experience, either through the Avatar Inspect Menu or the MarketplaceService API), to help give experience developers another way to earn from affiliate sales.
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Bringing sales history charts to UGC Limiteds to close feature parity with other Limiteds.
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Giving buyers more options, just like in the real world, to buy an item from the original creator or from a reseller regardless of which seller provides the lowest price.
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A little over a month ago, we shared how we are Taking Action on Copies of Roblox-Created Limiteds. Since then, we’ve seen a 99% drop in reported copies of Roblox-created Limiteds.
What’s next
Over the past 10 years, we’ve been regularly making Roblox-created Limiteds. With the announcement of opening up Limiteds to the community, we no longer plan to publish Roblox-created Limited items on a regular basis as we always strive to be a platform that serves the community; this means creators will not have to compete with new Roblox-created Limiteds and more earnings go to the community.
As Manuel and Dan mentioned when announcing the new Roblox Creator Roadmap, product development is complicated, and we may shift our strategies or direction from time to time.
Going forward, we will strive to give the community as much notice as possible before rolling out new features. Later this year, we plan to share more details on how we plan to open up the Marketplace to everyone in a way that maintains our values and respects the community.
Building the economic systems that give more people the ability to create and earn is a tall order, but we are energized by this challenge and truly believe that we can continue to help creators build sustainable businesses on the platform.
Thank you and please continue to share your feedback.
