I’m glad Roblox is improving bot detection with automated action against abnormal activity and hardening their internal systems. But I don’t think the enhanced developer toolkit will help with this because why would Roblox developers actively go out of their way to do something that reduces their player counts and revenue if the algorithm is promoting it.
I think instead, Roblox should focus on improving their algorithm to promote better content on their platform and punishing games where players aren’t even actually playing the game. If they’ve been fighting a war against exploiters and bots for this long it shouldn’t be a bigger problem now than it was before which is why I feel like this announcement isn’t super promising or comforting. I also think exploiters and bots will always just find new ways around it.
The Solution
If Roblox wants to be a platform where creativity flourishes and competition fuels play. Here is a suggestion that would improve the reputation of the platform and the quality of the games to match that description. It would also lead to more worldwide recognition and growth.
All ID-verified users get a “Golden Buzzer” it’s kind of like leaving a like on a game, except they can only do it once each year. Due to that limitation, users would only hit the golden buzzer on a game that is exceptionally good.
Games would be promoted/demoted based on the amount of Golden Buzzer hits they get (with respect to their player counts) This feature would certainly promote better games in the algorithm.
I also think it would help Roblox to start having games that are recognized worldwide. Have you noticed how you can walk up to practically any person on the planet and ask them if they know who Mario from Nintendo is, or who Spongebob is, or what FNAF stands for, or more currently what squid game is and they’ll always knows the answer? There has never been a Roblox game to ever reach that level of recognition, and if there was we would know about it because it would be the only thing the world talks about for a month.
This feature is different from the normal like/dislike for 3 reasons.
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It is very limited in terms of how often it can be used.
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Ratings as a measurement are impacted significantly by dislikes from rage quits.
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Games get inflated ratings by incentivizing players to leave a like. Which brings me to one of the most important features of this:
Developers should have no way of knowing whether someone hit the golden buzzer on their game, and it should be against the Roblox TOS for devs to in any way incentivize or ask users hit the golden buzzer in their game.
Admittedly I’m proposing this a little bit out of bias as someone that creates narrative experiences on the platform which are more focused on evoking emotions rather than harvesting dopamine, and maybe I’m wrong and Roblox (especially it’s younger audience) actually prefer those games and I just don’t understand it.
Even though I think this is better than the current algorithm I think it could also be good if at the very least it was used alongside the current algorithm as a 7th benchmark.
Currently, Roblox already makes some efforts to promote better games through the rating system, like by having a Top Rated section on the Charts page. I think this new feature would be much better and that it should be incorporated directly into the benchmarks.
I really think that something like this would motivate developers to start creating super engaging games that people really love and feel blown away by.
What do you guys think?