[Podcast] Unrated experiences hidden, "free models" becoming paid, and more — Beyond The Blox

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We got Roblox’s new Safety Snapshot — millions of unrated games hidden and huge amounts of violating UGC removed.

In addition to Guilded getting the axe, paid models in the toolbox and Regional Pricing for Dev Products…

Watch now on YouTube:

Watch or listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/1IhPKVfMBtykJ5sk8qJ7ys

Season 3 Episode 2

Hosted by:

Learn more about Beyond The Blox including links to other listening platforms:
https://lastlevel.co.uk/podcast

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I feel like the show has gone from conveying important or fun knowledge to new developers, to becoming a news podcast on the latest Roblox updates, which YouTubers like KreekCraft already do.

I think you’d have a greater audience if you delve into more nuanced topics that discuss development on Roblox and teach new developers how to design games or how to get into the development space. Your previous seasons had such great bites of knowledge that I learnt from, and I’d love to see it again.

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Thanks for the feedback! The previous format wasn’t sustainable of trying to get guests each time, which is why we switched to something that we can commit to producing every week, but we do still hope to be able to have guests from time to time either as part of the episode or as bonus episodes, as there were definitely some inspirational conversations!

In terms of it being useful for developers, we do want to report on new features and announcements as they do matter, at least for established developers, and we’ve had a few people say they weren’t aware of one of the new features until we covered it, which is great to hear.

I think we do have a slightly different angle to what some other news reporters do on Roblox news, in that all three of us are developers ourselves so we’re talking about ways we would use the feature and what we think other devs will do with it. I think episode 3 coming out in a few hours does that well.

What would you find more appealing:

  • Would you prefer that we went deeper and more technical into the new features and topics?
  • Or are you saying that we’re missing the “new developer” audience by covering news, and we actually need to be less technical and more inspiring like those past guest conversations?

We’ve got plenty of weeks ahead of us to evolve it based on feedback :grin:

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Thanks for the response, I’m glad you’re taking in feedback! I guess you do have a point in that a developer’s perspective on new features is useful for established developers, and I agree with that.

Trying to get guests every episode is also unsustainable, I agree, but I was more so focusing on the content that was extracted from the guests, which had some good insights on how to get into development and a bit of game design. With three experienced hosts, you have a fantastic opportunity to replicate that “knowledge-sharing” dynamic yourselves.

I agree with your angle, it is definitely insightful. I think a nice way to go about it would be to mix both development news and game design/development knowledge to create a knowledge dense podcast.

I’m not entirely sure who your target audience is, because if it is aimed at established developers like myself, deeper and more technical insights would be good, but that would totally block off new developers.

However, I think you can appeal to both new and established developers with a hybrid format.

  1. The News: Keep the first part of your show with latest news regarding Roblox, which would be valuable from your experienced developer perspective.
  2. Deep Dives: Have a second segment that is dedicated to a more analytical form, where you could bring back the knowledge that I personally found valuable. It would have game design analysis of popular games, or even more interestingly, why ‘quality’ games fail. Or, when you have guests, analysing the journey of a game dev and the decisions they made for success. Or focusing on a core problem that developers face such as monetisation (maybe how to reduce implementation of ‘predatory’ monetisation like lootboxes while still maintaining good income), player retention or playtime, discussing strategies to solve it.

I think this would appeal to a larger audience because you’re including all sorts of developers ranging from people who are getting started to people who have been on the platform for a while.

I think I’d really love the insights of experienced developers like yourself on the games of the platform, analysing why some succeed while others don’t. I think that’s the primary bottleneck that most developers need to solve.

This feedback comes from a place of deep appreciation. I regularly listened to your podcast on my weekly bike rides, and your show was a source of great insight.

Thank you again for the reply! :grin:

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