My game was doing alright for my standereds as a rather new developer, however after the game started to not appear on searches my MAU for this month is 52. Which is absolutly disgraceful! I really want this to be fixed.
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After reading this thread, I decided to create a game with a simple core loop that could get some attention. It was also kind of an experiment to see which statistics really matter. A few days after I tested the game on my phone (where I have a different account) to see if everything worked (and tested updates, so I joined multiple times), impressions blew up from 32 to around 2700! I really didn’t expect that, but at least it shows that CVR really matters because the Experience Detail CVR was at 100%
After a few days, the impressions died again, but interestingly, after more days, they blew up again for some reason to 4800!! It might be because the CVR was higher with a smaller amount of impressions, although nobody actually bought anything, so I really don’t know how much monetization matters.
I decided to make this experiment because these “improvements” killed my previous game.
And one more thing…
We can’t let this thread be ignored. This needs to be fixed.
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I think the search algorithms number 1 thing that makes games appear higher on the search list is games with higher spending rates per player. I think this is one of the main reason bad quality cash grab games are seen so often. If this is true then this proves that Roblox does not care for it’s developers.
Bumping this up
Since 2011 I have also seen game discovery plummet to the lowest of lows, it is simply unbelievable that Roblox refuses to respond or even acknowledge extreme issues that plague the platform directly. They receive tremendous outcry from developers and the public about the significance of the issue and all they do is ignore and wait for it all to slowly fade away. They did this with the audio update (I have not given up), and they will continue to do the same with this time. I’m getting really tired of it. It’s such a shame to see so many developers who make a living off Roblox, who generate income for the platform, and who built nearly all the playable content on the platform, to be consistently blindsided by the company. There is no way they do not yet know these issues exist, they seemingly choose to ignore it and wait for it to blow over.
Do not ignore this issue
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They do know this issue exist, and they are doing it on purpose aswell, you know why? It’s because it will force more people to advertise their games and Roblox gets more money.
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School is back for most people, so having a lower CCU is expected right now.
… but not this massive of a drop in impressions. Specially compared to other games.
(Impressions)
(CCU / Player Count)
After the algorithm changes killed our game Site 006 Roleplay back in March / April, we have been relying on SCP: Roleplay to make a living and pay our employees.
On Monday, our Retention values took a big hit since our playerbase began school and couldn’t get on. This resolved itself in the following days, and is now back to a stable value close to what it was before Monday.
However, the algorithm has not reflected on this.
We’re taking a massive hit on the algorithm for no good reason. A lower CCU and retention is expected when people are going to school, but we shouldn’t be even more penalized because of that.
And here’s Flag Wars, a similar game in earnings, for comparison:
Note how in SCP: Roleplay’s graph the visits are continuously descending regardless of the date.
Roblox’s CCU as a whole is down this month, yes, but it does not justify such a drastic cut in impressions.
SCP: Roleplay’s impressions have decreased by 3x, a very dangerous drop in new player counts.
This is a game that has almost never hit below 2k in 3 years time, and is now for the first time having that happen to it, despite the metrics being the best they’ve ever been.
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Been keeping a close eye on this thread since it was first made. Roblox’s efforts to intentionally and utterly destroy game discovery and promotion are absolutely disgusting and disheartening. I love Roblox and everything that it has to offer. I don’t know where I would be today had I not found out about Roblox. I’ve been attempting to grow my experience since late February this year. With over 2M+ 
spent on User Ads and Sponsored Ads I’d expect to have a player-base by now, but nope! Is Roblox shadow-banning us? I can’t keep up anymore… Spent quite a bit on User Ads and Sponsored Ads last month especially, but no luck. Am I not spending enough? What is the point of creating experiences on Roblox if they won’t promote it.
Edited to fix image.
After my weekly updates failed, I was devastated like many other creators on the platform were at a similar time. I began to release updates less frequently. Now it seems like I need that initial kick again… The removal of the friends sort was absolutely detrimental to that. I cannot see my experience icon without having played it. I cannot see my experience at all unless a friend with joins on is actively playing it.
We need to remain constructive and positive through these challenging times. Roblox is changing, and it’s probably for the better. However, that gives them no excuse to leave us in the complete dark on this.
We need answers.
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Surprised relatively few people have noticed there was a change again a few weeks ago that has just been nuking my player counts and the CCUs of some other popular games I looked up.
I’m not talking about summer being over, yes that will depress CCU, but my CCU now are well over 75% down on my CCU in April and May when everyone was in school.
The collapse has been dramatic. In April the combined CCU of my games at peak time was about 2-3k. Now it’s 500. It could force me off the platform which is a kick in the teeth when in the last few weeks several very low quality games have been picking up serious algorithmic promotion. The entire website now is just a clickbait frenzy.
It’s relatively obvious that Roblox adjusted the algorithm before because it wanted to look good to investors; by spreading the players to more games they can claim there are more games that are hitting an arbitrary MAU or USD revenue. The problem is they’re not diverting CCU from top games that clearly have way too many players for their quality, but they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul - mid level devs are being wiped out just so little Timmy can have 100 MAU on his game.
I’m not sure what metrics Roblox are using to determine algorithm promotion. The ones earlier in this thread clearly aren’t the full picture. I make what I’d like to think are high quality obby games where we aren’t spamming gamepasses and are focussed on a good experience. This puts me in a unique position to look at how the algorithm affects 6 of them - they are all fundamentally obbies so it’s the metrics that make the difference… except the metrics of the ones with lower CCU are better. For example I have an obby that has higher stats in every single metric thats available to us and yet get 20% the CCU of ones with objectively worse metrics.
Devs that make games in different genres and with significantly different experiences/mechanics aren’t afforded this insight that I can get through like-for-like comparison with my own games. Maybe Roblox hasn’t had this insight either so if any staff member wants to reach out to discuss this in more detail, I would be happy to.
Whichever metrics it is using are clearly not helpful to the company which is reporting mounting financial losses. Maybe try to promote games that are beneficial to the company and not ones that are just clickbait. I hope they are factoring in the LTV of users who play cashgrabs all day - I’d hypothesise that these users are not very valuable because they eventually quit because they think there is nothing of value on Roblox - is the algorithm factoring this in?
When reward on Roblox is so detatched from effort, it is going to disillusion a huge chunk of the developers. Without major change most of the middle-classes of Roblox dev will be forced out. Little Timmy will always try and make something as will the predatory studios, but the middle-devs who have enjoyed relative success in their careers will be squeezed out, and that will be terrible for the future outlook of Roblox.
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YouTubers/off-ROBLOX social media are almost the only way to go about advertising, and being successful. The ROBLOX in-house advertising/sponsorship scheme has a horrible ROI, and even if didn’t it seems to be dominated by games who have big money behind them (think GameFam) that overtake the advertising system.
When my game reached its peak of 3,000 CCUs, it was just after a major Brazilian YouTuber made a video on it. I’ve been struggling to find a new YouTuber since, and spending 10-20k R$ a day over a weekend on sponsorships barely nudges the CCU count. It’s beyond frustrating.
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Because ROBLOX is a private company that needs revenue. Especially now, given that their earnings weren’t as high as predicted. An investor group called me about a month ago about if I was interested in doing a quick phone call about ROBLOX right before the earnings call came out. It came out, and that investor group called me the next day to tell me they were “moving in a different direction.”
Realistically speaking, cheap simple clickbait games get kids’ attention and get them to play these games. They then spend money on those games, more money than on other much more well made games. The Skibidi Toilet nonsense has pissed me off to no end, but from ROBLOX’s perspective, that is an easy way for kids to spend robux, which means they will make more.
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TBH this has been going on for a while. You saw this start in the early days of the pandemic.
You saw a huge influx of players on ROBLOX, which increased demand for new games. You saw A LOT of people of all different tiers of developing get into it. Hell, I was pretty active developing games like this one in the mid-2010’s, but by the time I was in college (late-2010’s), ROBLOX wasn’t in my interest as much anymore. When C*VID hit, I was bored, had a lot of free time, and needed some extra cash, so guess who got back into developing?
As C*VID winded down, so did the player counts. It now seems like the only games that do well are either super over-the-top games that push out ridiculous amounts of content (think pets etc.) and gameplay, or are games that are incredibly low-quality. If you’re somewhere in the middle, it seems like you’re at a disadvantage. ROBLOX definitely seems to prioritize success for games that are high(er) quality or games that are of low(er) quality.
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There is no way all this is relative to specifically Covid.
Roblox is hitting CCUs lower than it was back in April and that is very reflective of the overall experience of users on the platform.
SCP: Roleplay, a game in the top 100 by earnings on the platform, which I have referenced in this topic already, is currently at the best statistics that it has had since release. And yet, it now faces a loss of over 30% in new users and revenue. There is no way we’re at fault for this, considering the massive improvements in the metrics. There is a very clear date where this started happening (Monday September 4).
This is, by the way, a game that had previously been able to maintain its players for over half a year without updates, and is now suddenly struggling to even hit 3k CCU, when 4k CCU was the average throughout the day before.
I hate to say this, but @MasterDaniel is right in claiming this could cause a lot of developers to abandon the platform. We’ve been relying on our games to make a living and remain sustainable, and this is now being taken away without notice or care. At this rate, staying on Roblox will not be affordable and we will have to move to alternatives.
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Its nothing short of baffling that this has not been directly addressed. It’s extremely disrespectful to us developers and is the equivalent of getting flipped off by roblox. Discovery is at an all time low and it’s going to be a daunting task releasing the multiple games I have invested upwards of a thousands of dollars on.
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Agreed. Our game hit the algorithm in early September and was performing extremely well, monetization playtime, and retention was much higher than the benchmarks (and still is above benchmarks today despite our game being completely dropped from the algorithm and essentially starved of new users and impressions.) Our game went from almost 20 million impressions per day to a measly 2.8 million per day in a matter of 2 weeks, all the while our playtime, retention, and monetization stats were still way above the benchmark. It is beyond frustrating that developers are being punished for having well performing games. Does ROBLOX not want to make money??
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Adding onto this, they literally say this on the acquisition help page:
But our games stats meet all those requirements or exceed them.
Session time:
Retention:
CVR:
ARPPU:
Where’s the truth here, ROBLOX?
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No you’re wrong, I was checking sus games, 90% of them was never advertised, but Roblox for no reason boosted them with current players starting from 40 ending with 2k
Can confirm this is also happening to me. I use to get 1,800 CAU, and now it’s down to 100 over the past couple of months
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My Game BlockWars went from 50ccu to over 1kccu in just one week out of the blue! Roblox pushed the game like crazy… And one week later its back at around 150 ccu. The Algorithm picked the game up and pushed it for a week and then dropped it again. Truly bizarre. Would be interesting if Roblox changed the algorithm with the release of Roblox on the Playstation as the game started dropping again right after that Update. My Game isn’t Playstation compatible so the algorithm might favor Console-Optimized games right now to make the investors happy. Additional context is that I din’t do any marketing during the last 2 weeks all that happened so the player count fully reflects how much the algorithm pushed my game and game-stats have actually been increased during the last week so it isn’t due to bad updates.
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These frequent algorithm changes are starting to get on my nerves.
About two weeks ago it was changed and I saw a lot of people on twitter talking about how their games were spiking.
This weekend the algorithm changed again and judging by my feed I am not the only person who has had declining numbers since.
The real question for Roblox is this; are these manual changes and tweaks to the algorithm being made by some busybody who keeps unwittingly rocking the boat (developer livelihoods) or is the algorithm fundamentally flawed creating volatile and chaotic promotion of games that just so happens to be updated on a weekly basis.
Fundamentally: if my game has metrics strong enough to get to 1k ccu one week, why does it struggle to hit 300 the next week?
I’d love an answer on this but I won’t hold my breath.
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Just an update on this, yesterday our game dropped to its lowest number of impressions ever, a shockingly low 1.4 million. Our game is still in the top 200 earning games on the platform with great engagement and retention, and we are still being starved of impressions.