As a Roblox developer, it is currently impossible to keep your game from being remade and impersonated on the platform. This is because anyone on the platform is able to make games freely and publish them at any time without any verification to prove originality. This is done by games copying the icon and thumbnail of an existing game, releasing it and sometimes having it on paid access. Users that are unaware of it being a fake decide to buy these games in-order to play them or receive something for free and end up losing their robux.
Roblox could combat this by introducing an originality verification system to allow developers to verify that the game is original and is not a copy of someone elses game.
Roblox could also consider making thumbnails and icons harder to copy by putting transparent images over them, meaning users have to search through the pages HTML to find the images.
If Roblox is able to address this issue, it will improve my experience as a developer because players will be able to find the original games much easier, and I will have to spend less time searching out these fake games and getting them taken down / there won’t have to be a procedure to take these kind of games down.
Adding in a new system to avoid stolen logos and thumbnails could be problematic.
Since its a system that runs by itself, it most likely won’t be 100% accurate, and could wrongly moderate game thumbnails, especially if something looks like another thumbnail, but isn’t.
Usually if a game creator sees a game with stolen content he or she can report the game to Roblox.
This is pointless. It takes me two clicks and a tap of the delete key to remove any element on the page.
Verifying “originality” is also remarkably impossible without hamfisted techniques such as immense implausible brute force moderation, enforcing unique game names, and using image deduplication techniques that are prone to either false positives or incorrectly denying a developer the use of an image that may already be in use by their co-developer for example.
A better idea might be allowing a game to apply for Verification after some kind of milestone goal comprised of unbottable factors.
The solutions provided definitely are something that will never happen as a large part of Roblox’s mission and appeal is for ANYONE to create and instantly publish a game. Having a long approval process would definitely have a negative effect on the platform and attracting new developers.
