Summary of the Creator AMA (Economy) - with Antoni and Enrico [May 22, 2024]

[MightyDantheman (Fate)]

Continued Asked & Answered

Q:

@Emrillion

Does Roblox have plans to provide support for subscription-based paid plugins?

A:

@Tone

Great question. We have considered subscription support for plugins, but the Creator Store team’s immediate priority is opening commerce for new asset types like models. We’ll keep this request in mind for the future though.

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Q:

@Crazedbrick1

When will we be allowed to sell models for Robux/money?

A:

@Tone

We are actively working on improvements that will enable Models to be sold on Creator Store. Please stay tuned for a formal announcement.

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Q:

@Rockerite

Roblox recently released an amazing analytics page for avatar items. While this is incredibly useful, it can be difficult to view the analytics of individual avatar items. Are there any plans to introduce individual analytics for avatar items?

A:

@Tone

Thank you for the question, as that is a very reasonable request. The analytics team is currently focused on improving analytics for experiences and ensuring that UGC analytics remain stable now that the marketplace is available to more creators.

We will add this to our list for consideration and can share an update in our creator roadmap when we have a more final UGC analytics roadmap in place.

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Q:

@Blizzei

are there any plans to adding more features to the analytics page such as live analytics for UGC items? currently they only update once per day, and having it so it updates by real time would be very nice

A:

@Tone

We do have real time analytics for experiences, so this is a great suggestion. What specific UGC metrics would you like to see update in real time? We can’t commit to any timelines right now, but we can add it to our UGC analytics roadmap for future consideration.

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Q:

@Rockerite

Roblox has done a great job at increasing creator earnings across experiences and the creator store. However, this initiative has not been reflected when it comes to the marketplace. The introduction of premium requirements and additional publishing costs has made it more expensive to upload UGC accessories. It is becoming more difficult for new creators to profit from selling UGC items in the marketplace. The marketplace has the lowest revenue split on the platform, which has remained unchanged since the UGC program released. Are there any plans to adjust the revenue splits from selling UGC accessories in the marketplace?

A:

@rester951

In the near-term we are not planning changes on these revenue shares, but we are always evaluating ways we can make them better for all members of the community and exploring new ways for creators to monetize.

For virtual item revenue shares, the split between affiliates and creators encourages the marketing and distribution of items beyond the Marketplace, which in turn attracts more buyers to your items. Today, generally speaking, there is more effort and investment involved to grow and retain an audience for an experience than creating an item. We see a major opportunity for avatar item creators to build their own experiences to drive item sales, capturing both the revenue share from the original item (30%) and from being the affiliate (40%).

As a way of comparison an experience selling developer products gets 70%, but the developer 1) creates the dev product 2) creates and markets the experience. Comparing the 30% to the 70% is not apples to apples because there is a lot more involved in creating experiences and developer products and marketing the creations (which carries — in many cases — monetary investments).

As an aside, we allow resales of community-created Limiteds which is another way for creators of items to earn more into perpetuity through a 10% cut on every resale transaction. UGC Creators are the only group on the platform who has access to this revenue stream.

When it comes to Marketplace publishing advances, our goal is to ensure that the value creators get from publishing items remains high. We set publishing advances so that the number of items in the Marketplace does not grow faster than user demand, and to incentivize creators to only publish items they believe will sell. Since opening up creation, we’ve seen significant growth in the number of virtual items being created each day.

We are always looking for new ways to deliver more earnings to the creator community. Our goal is to drive as much money to creators as possible while maintaining reasonable margins for our company to develop, maintain, and improve the tools and technology that support our community.

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Q:

@younite

The malicious DMA/DMCA trend is getting out of control. When can creators feel that their items will not be content deleted unfairly by bad actors? When can we expect to know how Roblox is planning on tackling false DMCA takedowns? (overwriting model with creators mesh / uploading screenshot of creators item that they posted early, sending DMCA claiming it is your work).

Also, when can we expect to have immunity for said assets that do not break any rules? I do not need my solid black 256x texture to be deleted again.

A:

@rester951

Please see our answer here.

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Q:

@Melecody

Do you guys plan to Lower the Limited Fees for Regular Limited UGC items or add a rebate to Limiteds of some sort that have high stock and are not selling out?
(Example)
Creator Pays 10,000 robux up to publish a Regular Limited UGC (189 dollars through buying robux) puts stock at 3000, All of these copies will not sell out, meaning the publishing rebates are pretty useless, as the creator wont earn back all of the revenue, as there is no way for a creator to promote these items and sell them out fast, Will there be a feature that will help creators that publish these limited items with high stock get their money back considering the hefty price of publishing a limited item accessory.

A:

@rester951

Refer to our answer here.

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Q:

@Reverse_Polarity

Hi Antoni / Enrico!

My question relates to moderation, specifically with the very different ways moderation is handling Avatar Bodies vs all other UGC items uploaded.

Currently the process for Avatar Bodies is clearly under strict manual review for every upload.

Other UGC items seem to be handled much more loosely. I can’t be sure but it looks like the only thing that occurs is a check of the mesh for clearly inappropriate stuff, where as Avatar Bodies are being checked meticulously for all of the rules listed here.

The issue is that avatar bodies are being over punished for, while hundreds of inappropriate items spill onto the catalog that are much more of an issue than an avatar body having antenna, or something.

So my question is: Why is moderation not being more reactive to inappropriate items on the catalog, but being very proactive when it comes to Avatar Bodies? Why is this process not being handled the same way by either having a very strict review process for both Bodies and regular UGC, or having a reactive moderation policy that after goes after malicious items first?

Seems that the latter would be best.

Cheers!
-Jacob, Reverse_Polarity

A:

@rester951

Due to the technical complexity of a full body versus an accessory, there are many more checks done for Avatar Body submissions. Regardless of asset type, we do not tolerate content that violates our Community Standards, and we have both moderators and automated systems to proactively review all assets — including images, videos, 3D models, Avatar Accessories, and Avatar Bodies — before that content is posted on the platform. We are confident that our moderation systems and teams are prepared to handle the growth we’re expecting, but we can’t guarantee that we will catch every violation on the first try.

For 3D accessories you see that may violate Roblox’s Community Standards, please use the Report Abuse feature available on an item’s catalog page or submit a report via www.roblox.com/support.

For Avatar Bodies, we continue to keep an open dialogue with our creator community around the unique requirements that come with this content type. Since the launch of Avatar Bodies, we have seen a consistent increase in the approval rates for Bodies going through our proactive review system.

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Q:

@EuropoorSimulator

What is the current status of allowing 2D, or “static”, faces on the UGC catalog? Back when UGC first released, we were told it was planned, but I haven’t seen any progress on that front.

A:

@rester951

We are always evaluating categories to add to the UGC catalog, but we don’t currently have updates at this time.

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Q:

@xyrafrost

We are able to archive certain asset types. Archiving is an important feature as it is the only way to effectively “remove” an asset from the platform, and helps with inventory organization.

Currently, we can only archive Decals, MeshParts, Audio, and Video.
Are there any plans to let us archive more asset types, most importantly avatar items (classic clothing, 3D accessories/clothing, bodies/heads)?

The fact that there is no easy way for creators to remove avatar items is currently a big problem, especially with moderation. You could’ve uploaded something years ago which is now:

• Against the rules due to TOS changes
• Copyright-infringing, but you didn’t know at the time
• Just not something you’d want public anymore

and you have no easy way to remove the item from Roblox, all you can do is wait for moderation to impact you.

A:

@Tone

We recognized this pain point earlier this year and have made progress on some options. In the coming days, we’ll be setting up a support flow to request archiving an avatar item you no longer want available. Stay tuned.

We’re also actively working to design a Marketplace self-serve archive option. The timeline for this is still in flux, but we’re aiming for something by the end of 2024.

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Q:

@DuckXander

I’m loving the analytics system, but there’s no way for creators to look at their all time sales or to go back in analytics more than a year. Will we be seeing more advanced analytics for avatar items in the future? I feel like UGC Tracker (the game) had these useful features like (Sales individual items, Sales growth etc.) but after Roblox privated the sales API we can’t really track our sales that good anymore.

A:

@Tone

Unfortunately, it will be difficult to go back on UGC analytics further than July 2023. We are currently focused on improving analytics for experiences and ensuring that UGC analytics remain stable now that the marketplace is available to more creators. Please keep the feedback coming — it’ll definitely help with our analytics roadmap prioritization.

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Q:

@GaelPaws

Will there be harsher moderation on accounts uploading exact replicas of Roblox-made items? Currently, an user who is moderated for uploading a copy of a Roblox item only gets a warning or a 1 day ban, and their perms are revoked for 14 days. They can just go back to uploading after those 14 days. I think punishments should be way harsher.

A:

@Tone

We track behavior of repeat violators over time and may escalate the consequences they receive for subsequent violations. Pervasive, continued violation of Community Standards connected to Spam uploads to Marketplace can lead to permanent revocation of access to UGC creation and even permanent account suspension. That said, initial punishments are aimed to discourage this behavior for new creators rather than completely ban a new user from the platform on their first offense.

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Q:

@Bulldo344

Is extending webhooks functionality to support audit log creation, so that way we don’t have to make 1000s of API requests to post a new audit log event and outside of audit log events, but more customization that way we can do custom events (roblox server → webhook), we currently have messagingservice but thats only external server to game, but not reverse?

A:

@Tone

For communicating from game server → external server, you could look at using HTTPService. This otherwise looks like a feature request, and we’re happy to learn more. Can we have someone from the team reach out to you?

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Q:

@Bam_Sori

Are there any plans to allow developers to set different Robux distribution rates for each place, game pass, and developer product?

In a single group, there can be multiple fragmented or branched places or products.

For example:

Group owner (A) might hire an outsourcer (B) to create a seasonal effect game pass.
Instead of giving a fixed payment upfront, they agree to split the game pass sales revenue by percentage.

The reason for this is that the effect game pass requires continuous updates.
B has to update the effect every time a new season starts, so both A and B find splitting the revenue more reasonable

However, the group owner has to check the game pass revenue each time and pass it on to B, and B cannot be sure that the group owner isn’t manipulating the revenue screenshots to cheat him

To solve this issue, different percentages should be applicable to each place (premium payout) and product (game pass, developer product).
I think Roblox might already be aware of this, but I am curious if there are any plans for it :D

A:

@Tone

Yes - we are working on improvements to group payouts now. You’ll soon be able to define more granular percentage splits for experiences and game passes, rather than setting revenue share rates exclusively at the group level. Stay tuned!

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Q:

@idelww

Hey there, I got 2 questions related to Creator Store & Marketplace. I’m going to put them into 2 parts. and give some explaination of some ideas I had related to these questions, which the Roblox platform would benefit from.

1. Right now all avatar items are permanently uploaded into the catalog. Are there any plans on letting us refund people in the future & having these permanently deleted off the catalog? Or, another option, would be allowing us to permanently take these items off sale, make them hidden in the catalog, and only have a visible page to users who purchased them prior to the removal & also make sure this won’t have any bad impact upon those trying to get rid of Copyrighted Material they uploaded years ago.

A:

@rester951

The current plan is to give creators tools to essentially archive and disable sales for such items. However, we are not planning to have the functionality that revokes those assets from users inventories and issues refunds.

Removing items and issuing refunds are only for fully moderated items which is executed solely by Roblox moderation. We will still fully moderate infringing content when notified by rights holders who submit a valid DMCA report.

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Q:

@shadowflame63

At the moment developer product purchase history isn’t tracked for experiences by default as stated here on the Creator Hub Documentation:

Having a built-in service or API to access developer product history for products owned by that experience would prevent the need to set up DataStores for tracking this, and be incredibly useful for providing support for cases where the purchase fails or the player isn’t happy with their purchase. Also potentially adding metadata to product receipts at the time of purchase would be useful for providing extra information about that purchase. Would such a thing ever be added?

Another tool recently added that is similar to this is the banning API, which removes the needs for developers to set up DataStores to track banned players and retrieve info about why and how long they were banned for.

A:

@Tone

This is great feedback. We are in the process of rethinking how devs interact with in-experience items. We’ll take this feedback into account when we think through the future of game passes and dev products. Can’t announce anything yet, but more to come here. We are planning on in-experience items and purchasing to get a lot more love in the future.

On top of that, we are committed to move all eligible APIs onto Open Cloud, which will continue in parallel.

Thanks!

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Q:

@BenereV2

1. Questions: Will UGC Bundles / Dynamic Head moderation become more lenient in terms of banning?
   Bans: Several UGC creators have been receiving bans daily over bundle/head moderation. Unlike other areas of UGC such as accessories and layered clothing, when bundles/dynamic heads are uploaded and rejected, creators are punished with a 1–3-day ban. Bundle/head moderation has stayed like this for months on end and objectively getting worse. As a result, many bundle/head creators who actually put in the work such as implementing all 52 FACs poses only for it to be rejected, including myself, are deviating from this area of UGC altogether.

A:

@rester951

I’d like to question the premise that there are different standards for bodies/ heads versus other assets. Bodies are more complex objects with multiple parts, hence more prone to mistakes or abuse. For UGC Bundles and Dynamic, we continue to keep an open dialogue with our creator community around the unique requirements that come with this content type and what we should do when something does not comply with those requirements. We should have more details to share about this in the near future.

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Q:

@WhoseTrade

I made a feature request regarding the affiliate fees and how it only benefits experiences last year Link based affiliate commission for marketplace products

to create a summary of this feature request – I’m a content creator who has created videos about my and other creator’s UGC, in accumulation these videos have gathered over 100 million views between 2020-2023

I’ve stopped making these videos because ultimately I was driving unmeasurable amount sales to these items and as the video creator, I had no way to reap any rewards from this.

I would love to hear your thoughts adding a link based affiliate system for the Roblox marketplace (similar to online shopping platforms such as Amazon) where the 40% avatar commission can be received by influencers and creators who are driving sales through their own channels.

A:

@Tone

Thanks for the great suggestion. We are always looking into more ways for influencers and content creators to better monetize on Roblox. I think your point to treat on-platform affiliates the same as off-platform affiliates (e.g. YouTube creators) from a rev share perspective is reasonable. We are actively thinking about how to enable better avenues like this for content creators and influencers, and we will consider this for a future release.

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Q:

@Zlosu

My question is:

• What is the update regarding the .pbr surface appearance update for accessories on the catalog?

I recall this being stated to be in its final testing stages, but that was months ago near the start of this year. We are nearly through half of 2024 with no actual update on when we can start utilizing extra textures on our hats. Thanks and appreciate the reply!

A:

@Tone

Thank you for your interest and question. We are still actively working through introducing PBR textures on UGC Accessories since our last update. Our challenge from here is to ensure we can enable this for UGC Creators at scale since enabling these extra textures could impact overall performance on our platform. Stay tuned for further updates here!

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Q:

@OneEDM

How does Roblox justify making extreme unannounced changes to the economy? For example free limited UGC went from 10 robux per copy to 100 robux copy for face accessories. That is a 10x increase overnight without warning and has crippled the supply of free UGC. This is just one of a multitude of examples.

A:

@rester951

We understand that the price increase caused some frustration within the community.

The rationale was to put all creators on equal footing - if we had pre-announced the change, existing creators would have benefited disproportionately by creating a multitude of items at the lower cost, thus putting new creators at a disadvantage.

In general, we see the fact that the supply of free UGC is under control as a positive - consider that an overabundant supply in the long term means free limiteds lose their value, which means they will become less effective as a promotion tool. Our job in Economy is to think about long term impacts of our systems - sometimes this means that our decisions cause some pain in the short term.

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Q:

@younite

The lack of communication between UGC staff and creators is abysmal in comparison to communication between other developer roles and staff. When can we expect this to improve and have more of a direct channel to directly discuss issues with moderation, false takedowns, bugs, etc.?

Can we also expect to see a private ‘Top’ UGC creator Guilded where top earners and experienced creators can have a safe environment to talk about issues with UGC that reflect the opinions of the community, set up monthly office hours, etc.? This is the treatment that other developers have and as Roblox is pushing hard with regards to UGC For All, it is unfortunate that us creators do not also have equal treatment to talk about matters that need to be addressed, especially if Roblox wishes to see this now-public program flourish.

A:

@rester951

We are working hard behind the scenes to incorporate more UGC Creators into existing developer programs where that may be beneficial. We have added UGC Creators to our Community Feedback Program which is leveraged for product feedback and focus groups. We also encourage Creators from all backgrounds to participate in our Creator Events whether as participants or applying to host events on specific topics. We have experimented with direct channels for our UGC Creators, but this needs to be further optimized. We can’t confirm our plans quite yet, but we hear you and understand the need.

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Q:

@Life_Blox

Is a DevEx rate increase still something you are considering for the future?

A:

@Tone

We are always looking for new ways to deliver more earnings to the creator community. Our success as a business is directly tied to the success of our community. As such, at every opportunity, we look to expand our virtual economy, broaden the appeal of the platform, and grow the pie available to the community.

Recent examples of this include our revised subscription platform fees and changes to Creator Store to use real-world currency that allows plug-in creators to take home 100% of net proceeds from their sales. While there are no near-term plans to change DevEx rates, we are always evaluating ways we can continue to invest in making the platform better for all members of the community.

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Q:

@matdonutGG

What are the current plans on allowing users that have access to UGC creation create accesories/clothing/bodies or heads that have particles, PBR effects, etc?

A:

@Tone

Thank you for your interest and question. We are excited for this feature too! We are still actively working through introducing PBR textures and particle effects for UGC Accessories since our last update. Our challenge from here is to ensure we can enable this for UGC Creators at scale, since enabling these extra textures could impact overall performance on our platform. Stay tuned for further updates here!

Sorry if anyone gets pinged from this edit, I realized that my script made quotes incorrectly and I’m having to correct all of my topic summaries that were done incorrectly.