I understand if there’s some legal or external pressure that’s driving this change, but if there isn’t, and is solely a move by the corporation by their own volition, this is antithetical to the mission of “empowering” the imagination of Roblox developers.
Sponsorships, especially, are the vice that allow for smaller Roblox developers to be able to make their splash on the scene, and be able to showcase their creation to the community, who would otherwise be given an experiences page filled with the top experiences created by the top-earning developers. By preventing developers from being able to reach roughly half of the platform’s userbase, and by restricting discoverability to roughly half of the platform’s userbase through sponsored experiences, it’s a lose-lose situation for both sides.
The only difference that a sponsorship does is allow an experience that isn’t constantly in the Top 100 in earning revenue or having the most players to be able to be more clearly seen by the players. There is nothing inherently more dangerous and risky to anyone, let alone those under 13, in promoting sponsored experiences over the top ones, as long as moderation is doing its job, and the proper protocols are being followed.
For top-earning developers, this update won’t have much impact.
For the rest of us, it’s another example of discoverability being evermore flawed.
P.S: Again, if it is something due to the recent FTC guidelines or other regulatory matters, as suggested, I understand why the change is being made. It’s just unfortunate that this particular situation is going to do more harm than good for developers, particularly.
Extremely discouraging to any small developer to see Roblox, a platform with a discovery algorithm in desperate need of updates to make growing an audience possible ,just kick away one of the last few tools developers have to find any success for literally no provided reason. Really hoping this update is at least partially repealed or at the very LEAST explained in any way at all.
Roblox is actively trying to kill game discovery at this point.
This is so absolutely pathetic, like a fleck of dirt flying into the sun. Like a cat pawing at the door of an abandoned house. Like the videos I uploaded to YouTube when I was 8. Like the state of geopolitics.
When stupid, counterproductive bullspit like this keeps happening in what seems like an act to repress small developers or simply make making games more tedius it makes me want to find where that Godot launcher went. (because unity doesn’t have a built in script editor and visual studio is 2 scarey)
Gooblox stop swimming in sewage plz
(gonkhocks removed my last comment bc profanity so here it is fixed)
This is hard hitting news as someone who is literally making a game targeted to under 13s while reading this.
In terms of discoverability for that project, the implications of this would presume I’d need some external form of advertisement rather than actually advertising on site, which is very troubling. For experiences targeted mainly for a younger audience, I’d assume this is the new go to, and escalation of that would probably require you to pay an actual influencer, which I personally believe is much less effective and doesn’t promise any visitations at all, while a 10K sponsor previously (pretty much) guaranteed that.
If this is done for external regulations, I understand as most people. Not much that can be done. However, if this is being done because of poor moderation with experiences (ex. scam games having the potential of appearing), there are much more effective ways I can personally think of this being done. Maybe a manual review of the game for 1st time advertisers would be effective. (Although, this could take weeks or even months I presume as Roblox is a large platform, so maybe not.)
This change will inevitably hurt new developers, as well as current developers. Pouring 10K-20K robux (mind you, upwards of 100-200 usd) into a day sponsor just for a concurrent player base of 10-20 on newly created games with no traction yet at all really hurts the wallet, and I doubt anything that isn’t a cashgrab would effectively make that money back or break even without very, very, very intense priorities on monetization (not really something that I think most games should make there first priority, I’m a big believer in interactivity being the most relevant aspect to a game). In my opinion, if it wasn’t already, sponsoring games as well as advertising is now obsolete.
hey look, small games are shinned even more than they already have!
screw discoverability, nah man we only want those good, already popular, game devs churning out games to clutter the front page, who needs those small devs anyways
If my games are supposed to be family friendly and appealing to younger audiences, now theres no way i can get my game known to the audience its tailored to.
This only makes it harder for new developers as they cant get players and get some traction going and this results on not getting into the algorithm which would be the only way to reach their young audience.
Good intention but terrible execution on the change as theres no given alternative to reach that same audience.
I beg to differ. My daughter, who is home schooled, came to know of Roblox platform and the games on it through YouTube. This would mean Developers will need to rely on youtubers to support and advertise their games.
I am aware that some developers have not. This is the new norm today in many success businesses. Collab together to make a better safer branding, yet at the same time increase revenue for all parties.
the issue about that isnt necessarily the how, but youtubers simply dont do anything without a hefty sum beforehand. with sponsors and ads you had a fair chance to get a few players, this chance is now essentially being taken away, especially for players whose games target a younger audience
I truly believe that the top-level managers (NOT the engineers or devforum staff that we interact with on here) were that embarrassed over the material upgrade climbdown which they were forced into, that they’ve made it their goal to ship as many changes as possible as quietly as possible, with the deliberate intent of ignoring any feedback whatsoever so they can press ahead with their agenda.
I truly believe that Roblox is moving firmly in the direction of a two-tier system: big, well-funded development studios as one, and consumers as the other. Quite simply, they don’t want small developers on the platform any longer.
From personal experience, I have found advertisements to already be an unreliable way to garner new players; having to compete with other advertisers for impressions, the increasing amount of ad-blocking software, and overall lack of care for any sort of advertisement no matter how flashy and clickbaity it appears. Separating what is around half of Roblox’s playerbase from even seeing advertisements in the first place makes an already unreliable and unprofitable venture practically non-functional.
Of course, this change was likely in obedience to legal regulations, but as with many of Roblox’s more recent changes, this is a negative change with no alternative nor time to adapt. As already exhaustingly discussed in this thread, Experience Discovery is an already horribly flawed system that makes it incredibly difficult for any game that does not conform to the cash-grab low-poly standards of the Roblox front page to gain any traction just through Roblox. Creators were almost solely reliant on shoutouts from Youtubers or other popular games, making it harder to get impressions does not help. Older games that have a core community from word of mouth will struggle to grow their communities, while it is nigh impossible for any sole creator to publish a game and expect traction at all, regardless of what is done.
@darkmodeonn Alright we won’t advertise our games to children. How are they gonna find our experiences. I don’t know how you are gonna fix this issue but you will have to think of something because at the end of the day you are only hurting Roblox creators which make your platform possible.
If this change is being imposed due to legal pressure on Roblox regarding predatory advertising to <13 audiences, then why are official, sponsored experiences within Roblox allowed to be basically an ad-scape? I’m starting to think there are other reasons as to why this is being done…
Frankly, I find it a little ironic that a mere game icon and the title of the game, according to Roblox here, is more harmful to underage audiences than the very sponsors they host and garner kids up into. Isn’t there some kind of double standard here?
Your assuming that majority of ads and sponsors are by scammers which isn’t the case, The cons completely outweigh the pros on this update. Majority of small devs will not get a benefit on this.
Regarding the 13 years or older update, I see why this was changed, looking back at all the charges the YouTube company were facing before they implemented the same type of feature. But this really just makes developers, clothing designers etc. lose even more robux and ads not worth it at all. Sure, Roblox front page game developers can afford to waste thousands if not millions on ads every month, but looking at clothing designers who are trying to start out or who barely has any income, this decreases their chances to make even a slight profit to the minimum. I myself am a clothing designer, and even before this update I had NEVER made a profit on ads, and now ads are basically useless and a waste of robux for clothing designers (or others starting off small). The only thing you can really get out of ads at this point is group members. Roblox should either implement a new way for players to advertise/sponsor their items, games etc. or update the ad system as a whole.
Thats a bad excuse and reasoning, instead of literally removing it from under age 13, there should be more scrutiny on advertisements for ages <13, meaning roblox needs to review ads shown to <13 through a more rigorous process than it currently is if you want to provide security for children <13 and keep allowing devs to release ads for children <13.
