As a Roblox player, it is currently too hard to rely on the Roblox UGC marketplace economy to be stable! Roblox recently released UGC limiteds, a way for UGC creators to create and profit from sellable limited items! They even posted this nice little article on the fees:
Amazing, right? WRONG! The major problem is seen in the reseller tax section:
According to this, resellers only get 50% of an item’s resale price, this is exactly how you introduce massive hyper-inflation into the economy, in order to break-even on my item I have to sell for double the price, that’s a 100% inflation rate per-sale as long as everyone doesn’t care about profit and just wishes to break-even. In this case since the UGC creator and game-developer are only getting 10%, Roblox will likely have to take less of a cut to decrease this massive inflation rate as all the other parties are already gaining very little. The fact that this isn’t even flagged to users clearly, is concerning…
And there is another issue! Roblox-made LimitedU accessories, while looking almost the exact same as UGC limiteds, only have a 30% tax and a much more reasonable inflation-rate. However, due to not having a different tag they look almost identical to the 50% taxed limiteds, to the average Robloxian. To make it clear, some Roblox LimitedU items are deemed ‘UGC limiteds’ so checking the creator is not always definitive.
If this issue is addressed, it would improve my development experience because I could better rely on the UGC marketplace to not have super-inflated prices!
Robux have a static price point, so the value of Robux cannot inflate. It pins the entire economy. This steep 50% breakdown for resellers is definitely going to make the market incredibly stagnant. To be fair, I already thought this was true with the 70% resale cut for classic limiteds. I hope that as this feature rolls out and as Roblox gets more comfortable with it, they can bring the overall reseller value to 90%. The more liquid the market, the better if you ask me.
Yes, the value of Robux themselves cannot inflate however the prices of these items (after resale) certainly can, that is what this feature-request is trying to address. Hence ‘it’s economy’
The asset values are still subject to demand. They can’t really inflate any more than they normally would by the limited quantity and their demand. (Bar some subtle crowd psychological phenomenon)
Due to heavy tax-rates, supply is greatly reduced at lower prices (hardly any users would be willing to sell for a loss), so according to supply and demand, the price will increase
To claim that it introduces massive hyper-inflation is a pretty big claim. Indeed, to make break-even, players would have to resell for double the price. If this would be the case for basic stuff (like food irl), it will cause hyper-inflation. However, that will not be the case here:
There is not really a reason to resell limiteds other than trying to make money out of it. The limited itself is worthless, the only value is given by the ones who want the limiteds. It might create a bubble, but not more than that.
There is an endless stream of limiteds. There are no physical constraints on the amount of limiteds, only the limit that is set. Therefore, when the price is too high, you might just choose another limited item that is cheaper
Even when it causes hyper-inflation on a certain product/limited, it will not expand to other products (like gamepasses). No new Robux is created, it is only transferred from owners (and to Roblox). When a lot of limiteds are resold, Roblox is getting a lot of tax, and all players who desire it can’t afford the limited anymore. Having a bubble on limiteds will never affect prices of gamepasses, since 1. most players are F2P players who only spend low amount of Robux and 2. even when players sell for high amount of Robux, they will either cash out or respend on the platform - which will not cause hyperinflation at all.
UGC items being available for resale is bad for it own reasons (in what I said above: players might lose money on reselling - especially young kids who do not have any idea in what they are doing), but hyperinflation is not one of them.
There is no constant supply pressure. The static supply, and the nature that there is a sea of other limiteds being created all the time leads me to believe that the market for each limited will go stagnant. They will be terrible investment items, but will still continue to have buyers who want them for the community aspect of the creator or for the actual asset to wear.
My question is what would trigger this first person to take a loss, false-judgement? With Roblox limited items, taking a loss can make a bit more sense since in many cases you are trading it for another limited rather than selling it for a fixed value of Robux.
I never argued it would cross over to Robux or other asset types, if you read over my post, I was directly referring to ‘it’s economy’, IE: the UGC limited marketplace economy and it’s prices, the price of each limited (assuming each player does not miscalculate value massively) will inflate massively between resales
But then, why is hyper-inflation a problem? You say:
As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to rely on the Roblox UGC marketplace economy to be stable!
But I do not see at all why you want to rely on a stable UGC marketplace, especially since an unstable market means more profit for the UGC creator - and it does not have any effect on other developers.
50% cut for resellers is going to really just kill the market. I’d say something closer to 80-90% would really be more effective and would have the potential to actually increase Roblox and the item creators revenue as sales will become way more common. Roblox’s taxation is honestly just absurd at this point and will probably only hurt the potential of the UGC market.
Roblox’s static price will be inflated now that at the end of this month, Roblox will change how their Robux prices are.
This is what people get in their inboxes now.
And this also means people will use VPNs to be in the cheapest country to buy Robux so that they get x more Robux on their account to spend.
For me 1$ = 10,32 kroner (NOK)
Meaning for me 1 Robux will be 9,32kr cheaper than it was before.
Meaning for me it is better to buy with my local currency than with $
But that can change depending on global currency inflation.
Thus why this is a bad idea by Roblox.
100$ = 1 031,99KR, meaning I get 1 031,99robux, but then again.
It will be really expensive.
Making purchases for Robux harder on the clients.
And earning Roblox more money, on innocent people that don’t know how to calculate correctly and or use VPN to get the best prices.
Hello! This is a reminder that starting the week of April 24, 2023, Gift Cards purchased in local currency will provide an equivalent amount of Roblox Credit based on your own currency (the currency will no longer be US dollars). This means that 1 kroner is redeemed for 1 kroner in Roblox credit. This credit will be redeemable for Robux or Robux Premium subscriptions based on the price of these in local currency at the time of redemption (current pricing can be found at https://www.roblox.com/upgrades/robux). Roblox Credit in your account will simultaneously be converted from US dollars to the equivalent value in your local currency based on current exchange rates. Note that the availability and price of Robux and Premium subscriptions are subject to change. We also want to let you know that as part of the change to the redemption process, you will only be able to receive gift cards that are in the currency of the country where your Roblox account is registered.
Since a lot of people seem to have gotten confused on this feature-request, this is commenting specifically on the massive inflation of UGC limiteds between resales.
In order to break-even, I must sell my UGC limited for double the price and since there is not yet trading for UGC limiteds, there is no other-way for users to off-load such limiteds hence making it a poor decision in most cases to sell for a loss.
