I understand why this update was implemented and I see its positive impact on newer and smaller developers praying their Roblox experience will explode someday, but as a user part of the opposition, I’d like to mention that I wish there was a Roblox setting closed by default, which players can enable to display player count. Personally, I never used player count as an indicator that pre-determined whether the gaming experience will be good or bad (i.e. a 5K concurrent playered experience never necessarily meant to me that it would be worse than a 20K concurrent playered experience), I used player count as an indicator to determine whether or not the experience and/or Roblox is broken. If the player count is 0 or around 0, I just don’t play it. Perhaps, rather than implementing what I’m just suggesting as it could result in negative impact, something else can be done to fulfill my need of knowing whether an experience works or not. Of course, joining the experience is the easiest method to find out but that’s time and resource consuming to me, I’d rather save minutes and battery life when searching for an interesting experience to play. Hope you find my feedback useful.
I am a small creator and a member of a team of a game that is a sequel to a ancient game that used to be popular a decade ago alongside with a original creator. When I shared this news to the team, they all flipped knowing this will not help us. You see, we rely on number of active players a lot because they’re one of many useful statistics to tell us how fun and enjoyable our game is.
What study are you referring to? Judging by these recent updates to the website on desktop, they clearly did not study enough. You can tell that they are very invested in the mobile versions which is why desktop version still look like/uses mobile design.
Regarding the copy, our game already got stolen multiple time and I had to file DMCA takedown multiple times. The size doesn’t matter; it’s all about how good your game is. If your game look so awesome, they will steal it and get more people playing than your original game! This remains a biggest threat for every small creators and none of them are immune to that.
Personally I think it’s unnecessary and stupid to brush valid complaints from a number of developers and players under the rug and claim that they aren’t “contributing” to anything, but maybe that’s just me ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I usually defend Roblox on these kinds of changes and try not to jump on the “hate train” but I don’t see a reason for this change at all. All this does is make our experience worse, because now you have to maintain the icon AND thumbnail equally, concentrating on the CTR of both of them (As icons are still shown in sponsors!!).
Not only that, not seeing CCU but seeing who played the game on my friends list is such a horrible trade-off… Hoping this gets reverted.
Some of us even have completely messed up home screens 
I liked the idea, but the implementation enrages me.
I was optimistic about the new tiles feature at first. I voted for the “I prefer not to see the view count” feature in that one poll because I agree that the current structure of the games page creates a systemic bias in favor of the games that are already at the top of the top and this makes it harder for smaller creators to compete.
But now that they’re out, I really strongly dislike them. Not even because of the tiles themselves. 90% of the reason why I’m upset is because they ruined the homepage. Like… what is this?? I have to scroll through 2 rows of “Recommended for you” followed by a row of “today’s picks” followed by paid sponsored ads before seeing my online friends?
Friends should always be at the top of the home page as they have been for as long as Roblox has been using this site layout. I just feel like I’m being bombarded with advertisements in places where they don’t belong… because I am.
I can tolerate having games below my friends. Roblox can put as many games as they want down there, I won’t mind. I’ll scroll through them and check them out. But something about burying my friends below 3 rows of ads makes me irrationally angry.
People hate being advertised to when they feel like the ads are being shoved down their throat and interfering with their expected experience. My expected experience on the homepage is to see my buddies at the top and some games to play below. I won’t be upset or angry when I see sponsored games below because that’s normal and feels natural. It’s not interfering with anything. But this is obstructive. When I scroll down from my friends list to look at games, I’m looking for games on purpose and I’m happy to check them out. But when I’m scrolling past games to see my friends, I’m doing the equivalent of skipping an ad on YouTube. This is an exceptionally bad design decision.
As mentioned in the post, you will still be able to see the player count in the details page
The one that is on the post. Did you read it?
I thought you meant people making misleading replica’s of games. But in your case, people will make copies of whatever they can get their hands on. I still don’t see how this update would make it easier for knockoff games to get players as there will still be a dislike ratio displayed. Copied games also sometimes have a higher player count so I feel this could actually help at times.
The majority do not dislike this update, they dislike the malformed home page where you gotta scroll 3 pages down of stupid simulator games to see ur recently played and friends list
The majority of what? Who cares about seeing that stuff if you are a developer?
It matters because some people don’t scroll down to continue playing the same game
I am saying this is a good update for developers. Not being able to scroll down to contiue playing the game doesn’t negatively affect game developers.
I said it harms some games where it pretty much is a come back and replay type of game, There is no reason for “Today’s pick” and “Recommended for you” to be on top over the “Continue” tab.
To me, removing player count is a big win. I’m surprised by all the hate it’s getting. Devs are constantly asking for Roblox to do something for smaller creators, well here it is.
Reminder that Roblox has actual data to suggest this will help smaller creators:
But this leaves many questioning how actual this data is. Plenty of people are reporting a huge loss in player count right after this released, but that might not be related
It’s not related to this update specifically, it’s related to the fact that the continue tab is 2-3 pages down now.
They haven’t released the data. For all we know it’s been made up, and even if it wasn’t there’s other factors to take into account such as the fact that the testing period that Roblox made use of could’ve been during a US holiday season, thus skewing the results.
Alternatively, make a game worth playing. Players will leave a like on your game if you give them an experience they enjoy. A reminder to like the game always helps but if you’re begging then the issue is likely that people do not like your game enough to care. Don’t beg. Make players care. Read my previous reply in this thread if you’d like to learn about why I feel ratings shouldn’t be your primary metric in the first place.
“I don’t think this data is accurate because I have seen people say it isn’t.” When speaking on the validity of a study it is good to provide accurate counter-data in order to support your point. Otherwise you’re just sharing an opinion that will convince people who aren’t savvy in the topic at hand. This is detrimental to them and leads to more uninformed decisions. Personally, I trust Roblox to carry out their due diligence in making sure their studies are accurate more than I trust hearsay. Not to say that Roblox’s studies are correct, just more convincing.
Anyways, to anyone from Roblox reading this; What’s up with the homepage layout changes? I was on-board with the thumbnails and hiding player count but moving the Continue and Friends sections down the page is a poor idea if that was intended. I don’t experience this change personally despite having the thumbnails so I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour.
my dead game increased x10 times players count from this update thanks roblox
The same way you completely dismissed this person’s opinion because you assumed they aren’t a developer and therefore everything they said should be brushed under the rug?
From your bio; “I speak on behalf of those who can’t in relation to poor decision-making that negatively affects developers by Roblox.” If you truly want to benefit the developers who cannot articulate their thoughts on a change, do not state your opinions as fact. Nobody can perfectly express what they mean all of the time but if you’re going to claim to champion developers and stand up for what’s good for them, you need to put in the effort to actually understand what is and isn’t good. Otherwise you’re just misleading people who choose to put their trust in your opinions.
That being said, I’d like to stay on topic by addressing some of your points directly;
In this reply you show that as you understand it, this isn’t typical and hasn’t occurred in the past. This does not mean your claim cannot be true however would it not be more reasonable to ask why the post is unlisted, rather than assuming they deliberately unlisted the post and attempting a confrontation? In my experience with the platform, lots of teams are at work with lots of different things. To assume someone specific is directly responsible with malicious intent, call them out publicly then claim “I’m not saying someone specific is directly responsible with malicious intent” is irresponsible.
Very little of the feedback in this thread is constructive. It is still valuable to hear these opinions from all different kinds of users (not just developers!) but the majority of the replies to this thread do not suggest ways to build on or improve this feature, only to say that it is bad.
Here’s a link to my previous reply in this thread that gives more context about this point.
I’d recommend reading the whole thing if you haven’t already. I’d be interested to see which points you do and don’t agree with and why.
I agree with this point. Accessibility and low barrier to entry are some of Roblox’s strongest selling points that make the platform very valuable to me personally. That being said, “this is a bad suggestion and you’re crazy” is not a constructive reply. In my opinion, the verified badge system or showing the creator of an experience under the thumbnail (or, ideally, both) would be a more appropriate solution to the problem. I don’t think the fake games issue is so prevalent and detrimental right now that it would warrant reverting the change. However, Roblox does seriously need to make changes to other aspects of discovery on the platform such as the terrible search algorithm and lack of search filters. I think searching for a game directly by name and having clones show up before the actual game is more of an issue than the chance of being recommended a clone on your home page (which is where the 16:9 tiles display.) With personalized demographic thumbnails, this will be even less of an issue.
If you honestly believe they’re just straight faced lying to us about the figures, then I think there’s a much more serious issue at hand here. Please show evidence of these claims as they have wide-reaching implications for the entire platform. That aside, you state Roblox hasn’t released the study (which they haven’t, afaik) but then immediately assume their methodology is flawed. To me, this shows that you don’t actually care about the methods they used, only that the absence of information can be filled with your own assumption to support your viewpoint. If or when the study is released then we can check their methodology. Until then, this point is moot.
On the topic of other factors to take into account, when making this argument you should consider that not every experience on roblox was created with intent. Just because there are millions of experiences does not mean there are millions of experiences vying to be one of the top. For example, there are hundreds of millions of default places on the platform considering one was created for every account and there are over a billion users. Also, intentionally or not, you’ve completely misrepresented the argument the person you’re replying to was making:
The point they’re making is specifically about the comparison. Taking the first half and replying to that as if it was the full statement just makes it so you’re replying to nothing. Because nobody was arguing for the thing you’re trying to refute. The metric they used was chosen deliberately to make a comparison, trying to invalidate it without addressing the comparison being made is missing the point.
I would genuinely like the discussion about this topic to be constructive, which is why I have addressed your points directly. I don’t expect anyone to do hours of research just for a reply to a forum post yet there is a standard of effort expected if you are claiming to represent developers without a voice. I’d love to hear from you about these points and I will reserve judgement as I believe it’s important to have a discussion in good faith in order for it to be constructive. Cheers.
glad we can all agree that the home page layout sucks now