Last week, we announced through a banner that we planned to sunset user-to-user communication within Inbox Messaging on October 7th. We acknowledge that we failed to provide context and enough notice, and apologize for this. Below, we’ll share updated timing and explain more.
We want to clarify the following:
We are now moving the sunset to October 29th, extending the timeline to allow three more weeks before the change occurs. We’re posting today to provide more clarity on the change.
Inbox Messaging will still be used for Roblox to send system messages to users, including information about updated policy and platform changes. Prior user messages will still be accessible as Read-Only.
Messaging between friends will remain available via other communication features; read below for more details.
Inbox hasn’t had significant updates in the last five years, due to low usage. Additionally, there are several issues with Inbox, including spam, performance and safety. We understand many creators see value in direct messaging with users to get feedback on what’s working, bugs and much more. We are exploring additional ways for users to provide quality feedback to creators and will share more on these efforts when we have a scalable solution.
Why We’re Sunsetting
Here are the top reasons why we are sunsetting user-to-user communication within Inbox Messaging:
Low Usage, Engagement and Quality: We recognize that Inbox has been an available channel to communicate with other users for a long while. However, when we looked at recent data, we observed a low number of messages per day being sent on the platform and even lower replies to messages. In addition, a significant portion of those messages were identified as spam.
New Ways to Connect With Your Community: We understand that some creators may use Inbox Messaging as a way to directly communicate with users to provide updates and receive feedback and customer support requests. Last month at RDC, we announced that Roblox Groups will be known as Communities. We intend for Communities to be the destination for creators to build relationships with and gain valuable feedback from their loyal user base. We have also started providing tools for creators to communicate with their community, such as Announcements, and we’re actively working on the upcoming launch of Forums, which will allow users to provide feedback and report issues.
Safety: We are continuously looking for ways to ensure safety on the Roblox platform. The ability to message any user using Inbox messaging could pose safety risks, especially for our youngest users. To keep our users safe, private messaging through chat requires you to first add them to your friends list. This change will ensure that moving forward, direct messaging within the Chat tab is with people you expect to hear from and also help reduce messages identified as spam.
Streamlining Messaging Entry Points: In the coming months, we will introduce more settings and user controls for different ages to give people control over who can message them. At the moment, there are a number of user communication features (Inbox, Chat tab, Experience chat, Communities/Groups) on Roblox. We believe it is a better user experience to have a streamlined set of communication features, rather than multiple entry points.
We want to assure you that we will keep you informed of any changes tied to this sunset.
Thank you.
FAQ
Will past messages be saved in Inbox and carry over into messages in the Chat tab?
Prior messages will still be accessible in Inbox. However, users will not be able to reply back to others on these messages, and these messages will not carry over into the Chat tab.
How can users message others on Roblox?
Users can continue to message others on their friend list on Roblox via our other communications channels. Users can navigate to the “Chat” tab on both mobile and desktop to continue to communicate with others via text (and soon voice!). You can learn more about how to chat with others here.
We also intend for Communities to be the destination for creators to build relationships and gain valuable feedback from their loyal user base. We have started providing tools for creators to communicate with their community, such as Announcements, and we’re actively working on the upcoming launch of Forums, which will allow users to provide feedback and report issues. We are also exploring additional ways for users to provide quality feedback to creators and will share more when we have a scalable solution.
This is still a bad idea (for now) and I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. Even if there’s “low” messaging rates why not just leave it the way it is? I’m not saying engineering is cheap but come on. You still need to add people to messages them, the window is tiny, messages don’t go away, and the filter is insanely annoying.
Even if communities are coming “soon” I have no trust in Roblox as we’ve been left in the dark way too many times before for this to be a reasonable excuse. Not leaving the feature in until “communities” are done is a bad idea and I wish this would be pushed back until further notice. Even with the “platform safety” concerns this is just a poor and lazy solution. Fix the bots issue and you won’t have to deal with that, but instead we just get it removed for everybody.
The future with communities and forums is cool but until then we should be left with our messages… otherwise the chat needs a lot of changes in order to be a reasonable method of communication. After communities and forums launch this would be fine but until then I’m nervous it’s going to be removed and we’ll get silence for the next 3 years until some news is given or like 1% of users are put into an AB test and it takes 12 decades to get to everybody else.
You can tell that most users are strongly opposed to this which is why I believe the sunset was set to a later date. I firmly believe that the majority of people replying here will not be happy. I hope this decision can be reversed.
I get the reasoning but the sunset should be delayed until forums/communities are released. Effectively cutting of a way that a lot of creators get feedback without a proper replacement yet is not good.
A feature this old that has been superseded by every other feature in every different way. Emails can sort of already deal with the messaging like this. Notifications superseded the notifications about friends, games, etc. Other platforms that can host communication can do all this. The replacements are already there.
Just because you don’t use them doesn’t mean that there aren’t an immense amount of others who do, like the other people replying to this post or this one.
Would you consider message requests? There isn’t a really good way to have a 1 to 1 conversation with someone other than adding them. Messages were still useful for communicating with someone without adding them.
Every social media and even the talent hub has a Message request feature, and I think it is necessary as I would not want to go off-platform to message someone, and I don’t think I would use the community feature to get in-contact with someone as they are likely not going to check since there are no notifications.
To prevent scams, you could add a different section for potential scam messages, still viewable but put on the side.
The design sentiment was surrounded around that idea, actually. Currently, other communication forms are sort of more or less popular than this? It’s just an example, not an encouragement.
Should we not allow communication to our audience if they are too young to access certain platforms or softwares? ROBLOX has a very young audience.
Most people will not want their socials to be flooded with replies when this can be handled on the website directly.
I understand that there are alternatives but they aren’t offered by ROBLOX directly which is the root problem, these alternatives more than often come with more cons than pros.
What is the ETA for this, because from October 29th to whenever this goes live (next year), there will be no way for non-friends to contact developers or community managers. Guilded is mentioned, but Guilded is 13+. Same for Discord, and good luck getting parents to be ok with other platforms like Twitter. Please don’t sunset this until the replacement is out.
Intention is great… but you intended for announcements to be great and got a lot of criticism when they were released…
Let’s just hope the new replacements aren’t a disappointment like announcements
As for sunsetting, as others have said- it’s a good choice considering the multiple reasons but it is a bad choice to do it so early… we all know the new promised features are gonna take years (if not, it’ll be half baked), have problems, and probably be delayed
Edit: seriously- before it’s started, don’t tie it into Guilded like you did with announcements…
While I’m not opposed to sunsetting user-to-user inbox messaging, I am against doing so before an alternative way for creators to interact with users is available. Delaying this change until after communities are released would be better than going with October 29th.
I find it very awkward to use, especially if there’s a filter blocking out content(that is false positives). I don’t see no reason to maintain it as it is. You still communicate between brief chats in many different communication channels. The point isn’t about removing communication as a whole, but finding contingency by adapting to whatever might be the resultant.
