New Sponsored Items and Updated Ad Audiences

[Vikinglaw]

If your game is targeting under 13 players, you are indeed screwed. You won’t have a chance at getting traction unless you partner up with content creators and have them consistently post updates on your game on all their socials. You can expect no less than $850-3000 per video from some of the larger (1-2M subs) channels.

However if your game is intended towards an older audience, hit me up. I have found a reasonable strategy that, although not as efficient as in the old system, it works. You can get around 10,000 clicks per 20,000 R$ spent. Not great, but it’s the best we can hope for now.

Those that are struggling but have games intended towards older audiences can reach out and I will give you some points to follow. I am not going to entirely reveal what works best because I don’t want it to get saturated, but I can help you not lose all your Robux in the process of trying to advertise your game.

[RuizuKun_Dev (Kitsune)]

thanks for ruining my game discoverability and my sponsor experience
truly powering insanity

for a 20k Sponsor the results i’m getting is very unacceptable

this is a questionable decision, if i make games for kids i need to advertise it to teens and adults?

[Local_LettuceGiver (Lettuce)]

Great! Now, I can have approximately 0 players at any given moment when I try to advertise a new game.

[DevCafe_Protector (PoweringCode)]

Wasn’t that the game called Admin Abuse?

[iluzyan (Zyan)]

I strongly agree, and as I mentioned this topic:
About Changes in Sponsor Age

“[…] until then I don’t intend to risk sponsoring my game”

[iluzyan (Zyan)]

I was told that this is a new Digital Services Act, but strangely it was only given in Europe, WHY ROBLOX IMPLEMENTED FOR EVERYONE THEN?!

EUR-Lex - 52020PC0825 - PT - EUR-Lex

[TiltedTexan]

This is a very disappointing change that was made without any prior warning. We released our newest game just a week after this change and it’s been impossible to use advertising to get enough players to recoup the cost of the ads and earn a profit. We make games because we’re passionate about development and it feels amazing knowing that so many people are enjoying our games, but without being able to earn enough money, the development will have to be taken elsewhere because it’s just not viable anymore. I know that Roblox won’t be reversing this, but I do hope they take into consideration some factors that could ease the pain brought on by this change. Maybe consider allotting developers a certain amount of free advertising each week and reduce the tax taken on each purchase made within their games.

[Avtixe]

What is going on? For the past week I cannot see any ads on Roblox. My account is 13+.

And no I don’t have an adblocker. I tried creating another account, and I can see ads from that, but not from my main?

[SubtotalAnt8185]

Other users have tried this:

• Set user account to <13 but one day before 13.
• Wait one day
• Change the age back to normal.

[https_KingPie]

That figure also comes from 2020 and is 2+ years out of date. Over 50% of the platform
is 13+ as of September 2022 (cited WashPo interview in September + RDC comments).

Sorry for the late reply on that, but it’s important that correct information is out there.

[SeekMini (picpic)]

this is extremely stupid, please revert back.

[SeekMini (picpic)]

“Child safety” please tell me you’re joking. There is ZERO harm being done to children by showing them an advertisement to a roblox game which is just an image.

[iluzyan (Zyan)]

But even if this is real data, the -13 community is one of the most important on the platform! They are the easiest players to attract through sponsors, and not a teenager/adult who will probably only play trending games or that some youtuber is recording!

[https_KingPie]

No one is saying that the <13 community isn’t important. Also, are you sure about that last claim? That seems like an empirical claim, which may or may not be true, but you aren’t currently pointing to anything that actually supports that (beyond your own experiences).

The reason that ad audiences have changed is because the writing is on the wall with this kind of stuff. It’s better for Roblox to pull the plug on their own terms vice waiting for external regulation or arbitration to force the platform in another direction (ex: take a look at the huge PR disaster that generated from Facebook’s whistleblower in late 2021 and the surrounding context of many governing bodies deliberating on to what extent new regulations will be placed).

This update was not as simple as ‘let’s remove ads because the <13 community isn’t important/isn’t worth the attention/developers don’t need to reach them’.

[nakata1609]

This hurts my game since over 50% of my players are under 13… I have a feeling this update is also messing with the discovery algorithm as well. There was a direct drop in my game for new visitors and daily active players right after October 24 that lasted until now, even though I didn’t do ads. The game should not be affected. [🎃CODES] Digimon Masters - Roblox

[iluzyan (Zyan)]

First, using what you said at the beginning, I also didn’t say that this was a simple update and just because “-13 is not important”, much so that I quoted the law what influenced roblox to do this Reply 259 - And I say it again, why do we all have to take the blame for a law that was applied only in Europe?!

And answering your statement, NO, this was not based on my “own experiences”, but rather obvious facts and things, plus older players like to keep their robux more than spend it on just one experience like younger player!

And man, what does Facebook have in commom with Roblox? Roblox is a gaming platform and not a social media, BRUH…

[Sleazel (Malcolm)]

I like this change. I think the real problem is that we do not get any real alternative.

Less scamming

Most of the ads are scams or ads for low effort predatory games, that are designed to earn bucks quickly for the so called “devs”. Besides, once you click, or even worse, play such game, you are bombarded with even more ads and game pass purchase pop up each minute.

I am really happy that those obviously scammy ads are gone for minors, even if it hurts legit devs a bit. This change will hopefully act against that first click that takes kids into predatory game rabbit hole.

It’s not the end of the world

Website ads were not showing on mobile, what majority of younger audience was on. So this will not have as big of an impact as some people claim here.

Besides advertising can be anything, flashy game icon, game thumbnails and promo videos, game description. You can advertise game passes and products on the game website and within the game. You can also advertise in other games and outside of the platform.

If your game is good, you only need to advertise during the launch period. If your game depends on constant ad support, maybe its time to go back to the drawing board or start a new project? I stopped buying ads ages ago.

Alternative?

I would really like if Roblox main page algorithm threw some underdog games now and then. Playing it safe with already established titles hurts not only new devs but is also against competition, that is the driving force behind happy customers. No competition - no improvements to the old, rusty titles.

I think redesigned sponsored section, with some kind of approval system would be nice. I am, for one, ready to pay more for such thing.

[1billybob1]

My MAU is beginning to suffer significantly after this:

Notice the massive decline beginning after October 24th (note the blue line).

We’re almost a month in after this announced update and our analytics are beginning to visualize the effects.

The simple fact is that this absolute shutdown of developers reaching a younger audience that their experience was catered to is killing games.

I would much rather prefer locking <13 accounts from purchasing dev products/gamepasses above a certain robux amount than stripping away the only tools a developer has to reach out to a potential audience.

You’re going to see a LOT of established games over the next few months be discontinued due to lack of growth (decline actually)/retention rates/etc.

Is it even worth making games for a younger audience if there is literally zero way to show it to them? Am I going to have to use a middleman content creator role simply to show users my experience I made for them?

This change makes little logical sense to me and I believe there are better ways to tackle it from a moral standpoint. Again, I’d be fine with <13 being unable to purchase any form of microtransaction. That’s fine! But to completely strip my ability to advertise my game to my intended audience is going to kill so many games, put many developers’ time and money to waste, and have an overall negative effect on the platform.

[Mr_Wiggles]

My MAU has shown similar results. You can see the massive drop-off starting at 10/24

[1billybob1]

The effects of this are enormous. Within a month my experience went from 428k MAU to 199k. That’s a 229K drop! That’s a 53% decrease in MAU in a month.

EDIT 2: 11/19/2022, it’s now dropped from 428k MAU to 179k MAU, a 58.2% decrease…

This is so worrying to me.

I didn’t expect a month ago that I’d be having to make the decision to cut losses and move onto developing a new experience catered to an audience I can actually promote to.

Has the loss in players even bottomed out yet? I just can’t fathom that Roblox considers this such a small change added at the latter-half of this post yet it puts thousands of developers who rely on Roblox at risk with their job.

If this was a change based on morality against promoting to kids - there were other ways to approach this. Prevent children from purchasing dev-products/gamepasses. Removing non-personalized ads to block half the player base from developers doesn’t do anything but hurt developers. As someone stated before, what is the difference between seeing a standard game icon and a sponsored one, both generated through the algorithm?

I agree 100% that children need to be protected from exploitation. I find that ‘exploitation’ factor to be more prevalent in micro-transactions and gambling functionalities rather than non-personalized ads from a solo developer/small team that is trying to ship their first game and wants an audience.

Utilizing content creators should be an option, not the intended way to do things. From a financial standpoint, why should I, a solo developer, now have to take more money out of my wallet to pay a content creator to cover my game when said income of mine is now likely to be halved due to an immediate & unexpected change from Roblox, which has also been the precedent since the creation of advertisements on Roblox?

We need solutions or alternatives from Roblox - fast. Not: “experiment and see if things work out. If not, sorry.”

Games & studios will not survive in the coming months if no further change is made. Job security for many are at risk with this.