Not necessarily: Nonimmigrant and tourist visas | USAGov
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Their policy is strict but that’s only on criminals. Additionally, you don’t necessarily need a VISA as you are not staying in the country for a very long time. If you are in one of 38 countries part of the Visa Waiver program, the process of getting into the country is far more simpler, and instead of a VISA per say, you use an ESTA. Going to RDC is going to quaify as a pleasure event.
The pricing of the whole event is very over-exaggerated, so in simple terms, I’ll put it like this.
It will cost you a lot if it takes too long to get invites out, but Roblox are not monsters. You’d think that an event that is aimed at developers is gonna be run by staff that have dev’s interests at the best of heart, and in the past, they’ve subsidised a lot of the hotel costs associated with the trip. The only variable in the cost of travel is the time it takes for invites to get out, and there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from reserving a plane ticket early. Also, lets not forget that they aren’t monsters. yes. they are not monsters. I have full faith they’ll try and get tickets out swiftly so we know for the near future.
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I’m happy for clarification, but i don’t think this is a good decision still. For me personally, I would not be able to go to America, I don’t have an income big enough to save up to that (The plane tickets costs allost as much as I earn during a year since I can’t work due to school and health reassons). This RDC concept has made me lose the chance to network, rather than letting me meet new developers. The only reasson to why i could attend RDC EU 2018 was because I could get there by car.
It’s a nice thought, but it collides with reality.
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I can totally relate. It would be too expensive for me to attend, and I don’t have the income neccesary to save up. It’s pointless for me to make RDC plans anymore if they are just going to host it in America.
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So, I decided to make a somewhat price list of what it would cost for a european developer to go to RDC
Taking a flight from Berlin (Which is in the center of Europe ish) would cost between 9 904 SEK to 12 986 SEK
1 SEK = 0.10 USD
This gives us the price of the flight to be 1 012 to 1 327 USD per person
Considering that a young developer goes with his parents, and they don’t want to take the cheapest flight (Maybe they got a bd reputation or something etc), Let’s make that into 1 027 USD × 3 = 3 081 USD for a family to go.
After that, we have to calculate a Taxi to the hotel (Let’s make it ~45 USD) Then we reach a total cost of 3 126.
Then we have hotel fees and the RDC fee. Let’s make that 400 USD (I’m not entirely sure about the pricing, so could be higher).
That would be landing on 3 526 USD for a 3 day event.
Does this look sane to Roblox? That teenagers should just get that ammount out of the sky?
I have been on Roblox for about 7 years, and habe never been able to DevEx. It’s hard to get to that point where you can earn money from your games.
We would need heavily lowered prices to even consider it.
(Plane prices from Berlin to San Francisco)
Please consider bringing back RDC EU.
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Flying from Oslo (Norway) to Oakland (Oakland is what @coefficients suggested as a cheaper alternative) now in February would have cost around 300$, flying same route in July would cost 950$ alone in transport. And that’s me alone, I need one of my parents to follow along. Having good time doesn’t seem to make such a difference in price, I remember checking prices last year when we had a shorter notice but I still have the economical dilemma, the fact it’s summer holidays all over the world makes it way too expensive to travel across the continents.
I also believe having RDC EU and RDC EU doesn’t split the community nor double standard the globalization. There are limited of spaces in the US and you’re making an entire world fight over it. The events in 2018 occured on different weekends, I even met some who went to both RDCs. Rather than including as many developers as possible on different locations you kind of end up with fewer space, less locations and less international developers. Hopefully three time’s the charm and 2021 will finally welcome Europe again.
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come to San Francisco for the conference
Despite trying to give info out advanced people; its still VERY expensive to travel from eastern parts of the world. 500-1k+ and that can be flights alone. Ive done the math and for me to go alone and booking a flight now would cost me around 1.4k. Disappointing considering roblox said they want to branch out yet this seems like a step backward.
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Your explanation was great, I’m so glad that you said this. Thank you for informing the Developers.
One RDC is definitely the best solution for everyone, and Instead of pushing for roblox to split up this event, I would recommend our EU and Global comrades to push for local events separate from RDC to connect with developers in their area.
RDC being centralized in one place offers so much more in terms of the assurance that we can connect with the entire global community in one place, and it will always be expensive to attend such a significant event like that.
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Omg! I would love to come to the event! How do I get invited?
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Assuming Roblox sticks to their usual way, they send out 3-4 waves of invites. After these waves, they release a form for all developers to fill out for a chance to get an invite. For the form, you are asked to submit portfolio with various creations of yours, or some games that you have created, as well as a couple of other general things.
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I think the stance on having no European RDC is fair, but there needs to be some information put out that talks about any discounts for hotels, ticket prices, etc. These things add up when I already would have to spend around $600 CAD + tax to get a round trip flight from Toronto, Canada to San Francisco or a nearby airport.
Looking at the hotel, rooms aren’t cheap, but I’ve heard that Roblox has offered discounts in the past. Is there any information on this yet?
Yes, but you see there are things called flight tickets. Those cost a lot of money, and a flight within Europe would cost less than a flight from Europe to N.A. If you are going to cancel in Europe, then you should pay for or even just give discounts on flights.
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I can somewhat understand their reasoning and I certainly appreciate Roblox Developer Relationships and roblox in general but this feels somewhat like the Developer Exchange reply. Understandable, polite and reasonable but as soon as you think through it you kind of have a “Yeah but No” sense as while bringing everyone under one roof sounds great it’s little more than a nice sentiment; It’s just not feasible for several reasons most notably Space/strain (Capacity and ratio for invited devs) and Cost (Travel).
While RDC’s ideals may be to have all the developers from all nationalities under one roof, you’ve got to put logic first, it just wouldn’t be feasible. The obvious solution would be multiple RDC’s or move its location year to year.
I don’t like to point fingers as I love roblox and the amazing team at roblox but having these PR type reasons/excuses is just down heartening. I think, and I may be wrong but common sense leads me here.
It’s just too expensive, too much work and too complicated for them to bother/find it worthwhile from their point of view. Now I’m not cross or angry at roblox as they don’t even need to hold RDC’s but it is down heartening.
@Pavalineox @LowPolys I understand you have different views and would love here to here your thoughts on my take.
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To be fair, like it or not, RDC is not meant for hobby developers. It is meant for developers making money from the platform. This harms me, as I’m at a point where I am in no way rich, but I’ve made a couple thousand dollars and plan to keep developing. Going to RDC would be a huge expense for me that at the time I can’t afford, like many developers.
I think that having a US and EU RDC harmed the EU one specifically in the past, as top developers in the EU had no issue paying for RDC US anyways, knowing more people will be there, more staff will be there, etc.
Sure, I would love an RDC in Toronto, I could drive for an hour and be there, but there are significantly more top developers in the USA than Canada, same goes for Europe.
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mhm, I’m in exactly the same boat, I’m not at the point where I have a successful game on the platform so using what funds I have would be a big investment, I also agree that the number of developers in europe is around the same or less as that of the US and that’s with europe comprising of 44 countries.
I would disagree that it is not made for hobby developers though as RDC has always held itself as a place for developers big and small, short and tall.
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I live in the province of Quebec in Canada. Perhaps, being closer from the us than my europeans peers, I shall say North America is quite a large place. I live 3h of drive from the nearest international airport and the flight from here to California is a minimum of around 8h. + let’s say you need to get to the airport at least 2h before the departure, it gives a total of 13h.
I’m not actually complaining, I’m just giving some facts here.
But obviously, all that to say, I wish we had some Hyperloops transportation. 
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I would disagree that it is not made for hobby developers though as RDC has always held itself as a place for developers big and small, short and tall.
I think it’s fair to say that RDC is open to everyone, but who it’s FOR? It’s a networking event. Sure, you’re definitely capable of networking at RDC even if you’re a hobbyist, but we’re now at the point where Roblox game studios are paying people upwards of $100,000 a year. RDC is the premiere method of finding the highest caliber Roblox developers and making a connection with them face to face.
I’m in the US so I can’t necessarily speak for European developers, but I’ll say this. If RDC were hosted in Europe, I would still be going. Yeah, it’d be expensive but for me, as a “serious” developer, it’s a worthwhile investment to form bonds with other developers. Honestly I’d probably be excited to be traveling overseas since I don’t otherwise have a reason to do that.
Yes, it really really sucks if traveling to RDC is super expensive for someone, but I think considering the principles the DevRel team is approaching it from, those expenses either justify the means, or they don’t. Something you have to decide for yourself.
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Flying to san francisco takes 11 hours for me and it is a very stressful flight + i also have to get used to the timezone.
I really hope there will be a RDC in europe again soon, i really want to meet people from europe as it is easier to stay in contact and i dont want to be tired before rdc even starts.
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Why don’t you make RDC more in the middle of the world (so everyone wont have to travel such long distances if they are from another side of the world)
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