I launched a pictionary-esque game a few weeks ago and whilst my metrics weren’t good, ive noticed a massive issue with what players do within the game. The tutorial is insanely simple - arrow points towards area where UI then pops up and you guess what image appears.
I notice my metrics doing not the best, so I go into game and watch the players to see what issues they come into. The result? they walk to the area and just… don’t guess? sit AFK for a few mins and then leave.
I’ve checked mobile UI, no bugs / errors in game console, i tried talking to the “players” and get no responses, played through with multiple testers (irl friends) and no issues anywhere, so Im 99% sure it can’t be any issues my side. A large majority wear the same default clothing, and have generated-looking names (im probably looking into it too far but yk.)
I genuinely believe these are bots - whether they come from roblox themselves or its someone botting the ads network, idk. just looking for either some kinda solution or atleast if others are having this issue:(
tysm for reading!
I’m not sure about this, as I’m not a game developer at all, but I do read a lot in the DevForum. I found this post by someone, which sounds similar, where bots just join your game and do nothing (even in private servers).
thanks for looking around - the usernames aren’t the same as that post though. theyre “human looking” but not like an actual person. like an xbox gamertag is the only way i can describe it. ive done some snooping as well and there’s other forums posts going back to 2025 (from what i can see.) im just getting annoyed because it’s draining my bank account & feels like a massive scam lol
Hola, a mí también me está pasando. He realizado más de tres campañas de anuncios para mis juegos y parece que la mayoría de los jugadores que llegan son bots. Se unen durante unos 3 segundos y después abandonan el juego, dejando incluso un dislike.
También probé a invitar a mis amigos para comprobar si el problema era la experiencia en sí, pero el juego funcionaba correctamente. Incluso con un sistema de tutorial, los jugadores parecen no entender la mecánica.
Además, he notado que muchas de las cuentas que llegan tienen nombres aparentemente generados automáticamente, como «NombreNombre_67pro» o «Nombre_123456789».
This looks very likely, these bots could be the AI moderation scanning the game for TOS violations
Because a game of mine that had a very linear map design with over 2000 outfit models, recently got banned due to three modelsnear the spawn point.
What’s more interesting though is when I cotacted support, they mentioned the outfits were located inside of game.Workspace.Outfits, but they were actually inside of game.ReplicatedStorage.Outfits and they only get transferred to the workspace once a player joins the game and walks near them.
This definitely confirms the AI moderation was client-sided.
I’ve frequently brought this up. Roblox Sponsored Ads players are like bots, and they often ruin the analytics of a game. Just a month ago, two other developers and I released what is possibly the simplest game to understand and fast-forward, and we noticed Sponsored Ads players not understanding it, so we added a tutorial that works the same way (just arrows). This actually made our metrics worse.
Either these are bots or the quality of sponsored ads players is awful (both are equally believable, and neither is acceptable for a service we’re spending money on)
100%, I literally just noticed this cause it seems to be way worse today for some reason. Something like 30-50% of players at a given time from my ads seem to be bots or play super weirdly.
nothing specific - i haven’t pumped a ton of money into it because i was aware something was up before i started ads so i dont have a ton of data yet. it just seems like what i’d consider to be standard statistics. UK & US main demographic, with tablet and mobile being the main platform which is typical. but because of this garbage traffic, my metrics are in the bin & i have had 0 home recs! my D1 is looking abysmal, D7 & 28 non existent, 80% bounce rate, 0 purchases outside of my friends and it feels like its entirely out of my control i hope roblox at least address this - the odds feel extremely against small devs, but when haven’t they? lol
entirely right. it makes me think that it’s something we’re doing wrong, but its illogical for it to be that. how are we supposed to iterate upon the game if the traffic we get is atypical to actual players who will engage with the game? and they wonder why there’s no “breakout games” atm…
Check out the Charts on the Roblox homepage. All the top games are crawling with bots. Is it really not clear that Roblox itself breeds these bots in order to hide the outflow of players from the platform and deceive investors? It’s the same in the case of advertising.When you pay for advertising, you want to see the result in more visits to the game. But there are no real players and they don’t come to you, then Roblox launches bots. When the advertisement ends, visits to your game will stop and you will remain in the same place where you were.
In this case you’re referencing Murder Mystery 2. 99% of those are exploiting farming account selling bots. They farm coins, farm a bunch of knifes, and once they gain enough dough of items they sell the account on black markets.
You can join the bot servers rarely and see them teleporting to coins.
But I wouldn’t doubt Roblox would actually do this.
Are you serious?? There are hundreds of thousands of bots, where and to whom to sell thousands of accounts? Besides, it’s not just Murder Mystery 2, it’s almost ALL the games on the Roblox homepage. Come in and see for yourself.
well if this is the case, how do other devs actually launch within this bot-ridden environment?
this is a screenshot of the number 1 game right now - it doesnt seem super botted like your other screenshot which I assume, like the other reply, is MM2 which has a massive botting problem.
i’ve started a second campaign as a test, using engagement priority instead of plays. i’ve seen that i’m getting MUCH less players overall (only on day 1 so not saying this is be-all end-all) but the quality seems to be somewhat better. before i had 90% of people not doing anything, now theyre attempting it but still acting weird. an example being a player joining, not attempting at the core mechanic but then favoriting the game after… strange & seems to be a bot to inflate my non-important metrics lol.
considering making a write-up on it and then posting because this seems to be an issue that alot of devs like me face.
my point is that this botted ccu is actively harming the metrics which make a game spread (platime, QPTR, retention, ARPPU etc.) using this as your demographic to promote games just ends up hurting more than anything
i hope roblox at least address this - the odds feel extremely against small devs, but when haven’t they? lol
