The lengths developers had to go to — even before this update — just to verify that a gamepass purchase was legitimate were already extreme. It required complex code and multiple calls to Roblox’s API, all to make sure a purchase wasn’t spoofed before awarding in-game stats. Developers have worked hard to maintain the integrity of their games’ data, yet it’s clear that the engineers behind these systems are unaware of these ongoing struggles.
This problem has become so widespread that some developers were offering to sell “patches” to prevent these exploits — for thousands of dollars. Yes, thousands — just to get accurate pricing information that Roblox should be providing through engine methods already.
The latest update has completely broken the security of the purchase validation systems that many developers spent months building and refining. There are dozens of possible solutions — some as simple as limiting Regional Pricing to only work within the experience the gamepasses are tied to (although even that could be bypassed), and others that require more time but would offer long-term benefits. For example, including the actual purchase price as a parameter in the MarketplaceService.PromptGamePassPurchaseFinished event. But Roblox either refuses to make meaningful changes here, or simply doesn’t prioritize it. Developers have been asking for this kind of transparency in purchase data for years, and it should not be this difficult.
The core issues are:
- Engineers don’t understand how hard it is to verify that a purchase actually happened and determine how much was paid, due to how limited the current engine’s purchase confirmation functions are.
- There are not enough resources being allocated to fixing this. The core engine methods for validating purchases haven’t been updated in years, all while engineers push out new platform features that seriously affect pricing (like Regional Pricing) without considering how certain games will be affected. If this were taken seriously, a proper solution could be shipped in a matter of days. But clearly, this has been sitting on the backburner for far too long.
And then engineers have the nerve to block even small fixes in the name of backwards compatibility…?
These are among the most creative and popular games on the platform. If Roblox doesn’t take action soon, this update will have single-handedly ruined the economies of these games — and thousands of others in the same genre. It seems like the majority of users who have turned this feature on are those trying to EXPLOIT it to fake donations, rather than developers looking to implement it with good intent.
This whole situation is incredibly disappointing.