As a Roblox content creator and gamer interested in occassionally experiencing experiences alone, it is currently too hard for me to discover new, enjoyable single player experiences that I have never experienced before without having to externally research - which is a bit hard as there’s not a lot of resources showcasing the thousands of single player experiences out there right now.
As a result of this, I would suggest a new sort - titled: “Single Player”, to be introduced to the Roblox home page and/or the Roblox discover page. The suggestion is quite self-explanatory, but to regardlessly explain, it should just contain experiences that are single player.
As a content creator and gamer preferring to play quality single player experiences, I would prefer if the experiences in such a sort would have at least tens of thousands of visits and at least a 75 percent like ratio at all times, if possible. If the like ratio changes to be in insufficient to meet the condition overtime, then the experience shouldn’t be in the sort and another experience meeting the condition should replace its spot, if possible. Additionally, new experiences should appear in the sort after everytime I experience an experience from the sort (ex. if I discover experience A through the sort and experience experience A shortly afterwards, then the sort should update to make undiscovered experience B replace the spot of experience A). These algorythmic modifications to the sort would be the cherry on top of my suggestion and make my single player experience discovery experience a whole lot easier.
As someone that makes story games with a singleplayer focus, I would absolutely love a sort / category for this.
Game discovery heavily seems to favor retention, which makes sense, but this leaves out singleplayer due to how the genre works. Having dedicated singleplayer discovery support would make sure that singleplayer games are not left behind in the algorithm.
This shouldn’t be a sort of its own. It’s a niche of games that doesn’t have high retention or monetization value.
Instead, the discovery algorithm should be smart enough to realize that you as a user like a particular genre of games (singleplayer, or whatever it is) and keep recommending you experiences like that, since that is likely to match your tastes more than mainstream content.
Interesting that you mention this - this actually already appears to be somewhat of a thing on the home page; however, not explicitly for singleplayer AFAIK. There’s a few rare sub-genres which have a preference towards singleplayer.
The only problem with this is the sort system istelf. Specific sorts are constantly swapped out for a user, and due to the volatility of singleplayer game metrics, you’ll have incredibly variable discovery on a week to week basis. This is not sustainable for a living, and maybe it shouldn’t be, but I think it could be made a lot better. Personally, it feels unfair as a singleplayer-focused game to be held to similar metric standards as games with Premium AFK mechanics in order to be surfaced.
Fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense to make singleplayer games on Roblox currently if you are trying to do that for a living. There’s no dynamic % cut Roblox takes based on the services you use. If a platform is focused on its social graph, streaming, dynamic physics and synchronous multiplayer, making a singleplayer game means that you’re not using a majority of the tools that really make Roblox shine but you’re still indirectly paying for with the high % cut.
There’s not really a way to make singleplayer games viable given that other kinds of games have so much higher engagement/monetization potential and the fact that you can’t dynamically opt-out of Roblox services that your game doesn’t use to somehow increase your bottom line payment.
Exclusively singleplayer, yes, I would currently agree. However my point is more so discovery. It’s up to the developer to monetize. A singleplayer game with great monetization cannot stand up to a simulator with Premium AFK + lootbox mechanics metricswise.
Compare comparable games together in a personalized way. The introduction of some sort of singleplayer sort or tag would assist in better discovery. Increasing the metrics to climb that singleplayer sort would be up to the developer - whether they make an in-game shop, gamepasses, products, access fee, etc.
Obviously, all of this begs the question of if its worth it for Roblox to do this, and I don’t really have an answer to that. I enjoy making singleplayer games and would like to stand a chance at being discovered. It’s up to Roblox to decide if empowering this genre (?) for the sake of creativity is worth it.
Personalizing the discovery page dynamically based on tastes: yes.
I disagree, the singleplayer genre is a niche and you cannot turn it from niche into a mainstream with just better discovery. Multiplayer games have a step up because everything you do in the game has a side benefit of being able to share it with others, and you can more easily play with friends/family.
Players prefer spending time doing things they can share with others, especially with friends. Even if you put up multiplayer games and singleplayer games on the same game page constantly (just forcefully serve singleplayer games to players), you will see that the multiplayer games still outperform the singleplayer-focused games in terms of retention and monetization.
It’s fine for Roblox to personalize the game page based on each player’s individual tastes, but Roblox should not be pushing niche genres broadly to all players (with sort, tag, or otherwise) just because the developers of that niche want to get more exposure. There’s dozens of different genres that are more deserving of that (in terms of popularity with the community) before we get to the “singleplayer games”.
In the past I had replied in regard to previous topic replies but seemed to have deleted my reply some point in history for privacy reasons, so I will be reiterating my thoughts with you once again. Apologies for the time gap, I had this topic locked for a while and had it reopened at a time I was confident to begin foruming again.
Anyways,
I disagree that the algorithm should be modified this way. While I do enjoy single player experiences, it’s not all that I enjoy and do not wish to be recommended mostly/just single player experiences. It’s just not my only taste. I am aware that you disagree with me, but honestly, I believe it would be more convenient and time-efficient to just create the singleplayer experience sort rather than doing this.
Your other arguments revolve around the topic of monetization. And while singleplayer experiences aren’t the most engaging and profitable, I don’t think that should be a reason not to create a singleplayer experience sort. Monetization potential is not useful information to singleplayer experience seeking players. As a Roblox player, I really don’t care about how much a developer is making as I’m not the one earning and spending the money. I have honestly never recalled myself putting developer profit into consideration before deciding to experience an experience. If an experience title, thumbnail, description and rating seems appealing to me, I decide to experience it, dev profit has never been a contributing factor in my decision making. It’s important to remember that this suggestion is for players and not developers. I believe most developers are aware of the downsides of making singleplayer experiences and take it into consideration before creating any.
Ultimately, as you know by now, I am on the side of the debate that believes it is worth for Roblox to introduce this sort. There are hundreds of singleplayer experiences out there waiting to be experienced, and I believe there is a clear need to push them forward for better discovery. This would not only benefit singleplayer experience seekers such as myself but also singleplayer experience developers such as cloakedyoshi.