Having read through the replies, I’m wondering if there will be any plans to have an upper limit on how many variations of the same item would be reasonable before a content creator’s items are rejected (or if there will be a cap on how many items with the same mesh can be uploaded by the same creator in a given amount of time).
For example, it’s perfectly acceptable to release the same custom hat in two or three colors — as it should be — but at what point would it cross a line? Creating 10+ redesigns of the same item wouldn’t be an issue if it’s done over the course of a few years (comparable to how recolors of the Sparkle Time Fedora have been rolled out), but what’s to stop a developer from releasing the same UGC hat in 10+ different hues in one week? The end result of both scenarios would be the same (a lot of versions of the same item), but the context is significantly different, and the latter would be a deliberate attempt at flooding the catalog to maximize profits and minimize the amount of effort required.
What would be the best way to stop low-effort, self-plagiarizing recolors from overwhelming the catalog without also restricting legitimate creators’ ability to create desirable variations of their best works?
There is no clear answer to that but I believe most of the community agrees that they should only change the price or go on sale during ROBLOX’s sales like the Midnight Sale or Black Friday. It would be better off that way anyway, so I’m sure they might make that clear to UGC Devs soon.
You could say that the value lost on the fedora was the value attributed to the fact that it was a fedora and not the value attached to the official classic Roblox Limited U branding. Looking at it this way, you could say that the value of the fedora was inflated all this time because no other similar generic fedora existed and is naturally returning to what its brand value actually is.
In addition, you mentioned that 104.4 million robux in value was lost collectively, but it’s also important to remember that there may be a significant number of people who never intend to resell their items. Loosely speaking, they agreed on a certain value of the exclusivity of a fedora at the time (because they bought it) with the sellers and any fluctuation that may occur in the value later on doesn’t concern them. This contrasts with traders who derive the value from the future risk associated with the item.
On the other hand, if the goal really is to keep the value of the Classic Fedora up, it’s basically saying that a black fedora on you avatar should be limited to users with a lot of robux to spend.
I understand that the value of an item and its reputation isn’t something we can completely control, and we shouldn’t expect them to stay constant. However, Classic Fedora, along with other iconic items like Valkyrie Helm and Clockwork Headphones, despite inflation, are worth what they are partially due to their reputation and more due to their rarity. As time progresses, less copies are available (in-circulation), increasing their rarity and price.
I get that some people pursue items just for looks, and many don’t intend to trade them. But how would you feel if something you owned devalued suddenly for no reason? Nobody likes losing money in investments, regardless of their intention for the investment. Whether they have the item purely for looks or have it for trading doesn’t matter. It still devalued. It became worth less. A massive drop in value can even impact an item’s image. If the item isn’t rare or exclusive anymore due to its cheaper price-tag, that can ruin the image of the item. Not saying Classic Fedora is ruined, its strong reputation stands sort of like a pillar, but the same can’t be said for other items since this sets such a precedent for User Generated Content.
I get that a generic black fedora shouldn’t be limited to only wealthy Robloxians, but openly bombarding the economy with cheap clones probably isn’t the solution here as many Robloxians have accepted the inflation in the economy and have worked hard to obtain the items they have.
Is this thread still up in arms about people’s creations? Give it a rest folks, the back and forth banter here about a virtual economy is getting fairly annoying and insulting towards the people who are spending time and effort on UGC items and it’s not like it even matters. In addition, a lot of games are moving to custom characters or selling these items as part of their custom character schema.
The only thing that genuinely concerns me right now about UGC hats is the potential for reuploading others’ creations without their permission, which begins a conflict about stolen content. We don’t want a repeat of Shirts/Pants/etc. Otherwise, I can’t see the problem that’s causing people to lash out so severely to the point where this nonsense is being prolonged for several days.
Could someone explain to me the relevance of the Roblox economy? What do you actually lose from this, other than potentially a means of completely elitist niche entertainment that others don’t find fun when being left out because of said niche? Why is it worth perpetuating an argument over a section of money with zero monetary value versus content creators looking to create for the community and actually gaining Robux with monetary value behind it?
Put down your pitchforks for once. The way I see it, these arguments are insulting to the staff and creators working tirelessly to see to UGC’s success.
understand your point, but I also understand the side of those who are angry at UGC, and yes, I love UGC items that I find creative, for example happy clown very scary and funny at the same time, but their question It’s not about, but about economics, how do you measure economics? For the simple reason that they are re-texturing limited items, for example, this item Downtown Denizen Fedora - Roblox, is a re-texturization of the classic fedora and there was a Fedora’s classic price drop recently because people were determined to buy downtown residents instead of the classic fedora, which is limited, so you hear a reduction in classic fedora prices at retailers, but does it affect me? no, why am I no longer from the retail community that paid dearly for the item now that there is another cheaper and more current one? this must be thought of! What I mean is that even UGC item creators, even without malice, can scare some people, especially if this item seems like a limited item!
It’s not a retexture. It has a remade mesh with it too… also, the prices of limiteds might drop but it’s a temporary thing. The limited fedoras have a limited quantity and are scarce here. Once people notice the uniqueness of them, the prices will jump back up again.
That’s what I’m saying, Limiteds hold no DevExable value and are completely useless. Only the top %1 of users can even afford 50,000 Robux hats so why do people care when the majority of the community just wants cheap stuff to throw onto their character.
I can’t really understand the anger for UGC if it doesn’t involve concerns with the program’s future against bad actors. I see two sides of the coin for displeasure in UGC: those who care about a zero-value “economy” and those who have legitimate concerns about UGC.
It doesn’t make much sense to be angry at UGC for disrupting the trading side of Roblox, whether there is any correlation or not. Trading is a small part of Roblox and lest you forget that Roblox is a developing platform, not an online stock simulator. Trading only makes up a small part of the community. If anything, trading is one of the most volatile features of the platform.
I’m tired of seeing “Downtown Denizen is a copied/retextured Classic Fedora”. No it’s not. They are two black fedoras that merely look alike. Go look on their catalog pages and compare them. Calling them the same is shortsighted and doesn’t actually look at them for what they are.
Using “price is dropping for Limiteds” is a poor excuse to condemn UGC and at the heart of the argument is rude towards the content creators currently involved in the program. Not only because these comments are disregarding the work people are doing to help UGC pull through, but also because it throws legitimate concerns out of the window in an attempt to satisfy a - I say again - elitist niche.
People should not have to pay hundreds of dollars in real life equivalent for a dream hat or to change their avatar’s look or be locked out from items simply because they were too late (see: items being sold for 999B+). At the end of the day, what makes it even worse is that investments in hats are completely devalued.
I completely understand the other side of UGC where people are displeased, but only when it comes to concerns involving any of the following:
Moderation
Program dynamics
QA testing
Access to the program during this trial (mind you, it’s been only around a month)
Future tidings (how the program will advance, up to developers being allowed to award items)
Anything that isn’t “our Limited prices are dropping”
I have seen a few legitimate complaints here in this thread and they resonate with me. That being said, this whole UGC vs Limiteds nonsense has been devolving into utter chaos and flagrant disrespect towards creators and indirectly the staff driving the program. It’s a non-concern that’s taken hold of this thread and the fact that there are still arguments about it makes it all the more unpleasant.
You could only get me to see the view of a trader if the Robux behind trading and such had any actual monetary value. It doesn’t. You lose absolutely nothing except worthless prestige by having items other users can’t get.
Definitely an ignorant, (or at the very least) limited view here. /\
UGC vs Limited Items is not simply nonsense, and the arguments people have regarding them extend beyond a specific case as small as “Downtown-Denizen-Fedora ruined CF”.
First I’ll extrapolate on that argument and how it holds more significance than you think…
What a lot people don’t realize is that the creator of that fedora was not naive to the fact that CF existed, rather it was a case of the opposite. He created the hat because he “saw a gap in the market where he could make a lot of money from people who wanted CF but could not afford it.” < (not a direct quote, but he did say something along these lines on twitter.
In my opinion this is a terrible way for the UGC program to begin because if the argument is that “they are just both fedoras, who cares” then what should stop another guy from coming along and making an even cheaper version because he sees “a gap in that market” as well.
If you see what I’m hinting at here, it’s that when UGC is opened to other creators it could just be a free for all where players try to make the cheapest possible version of something to outsell the other creators, even ripping off other peoples’ or ROBLOX’s designs to do so (if ROBLOX doesn’t put its foot down early enough).
You argued that the limited community is just a “small part of the community”. Yes and no. Only a small part of the community has massive wealth in it, but the idea of limiteds is a foundation of what the avatar customization side of ROBLOX has become and I guarantee you plenty of kids buy ROBLOX solely to obtain those sought after items. It’s definitely a very fun and interesting part of ROBLOX that sets it apart from other games, and I can tell you for a fact that just like some people only play ROBLOX for the games or to develop games, some people only play to collect and trade and that should be respected regardless of if you do or not.
You also argued that people criticizing the creators of these UGC items is rude, but I’d refute that it is rude for someone like WhoToTrus to abuse his special privilege of being one of the first UGC creators to make something so unoriginal when he literally has total creative freedom at his hands. It sets a terrible precedent when you see him not only make that hat, but also a bowler that looks even more similar to a ROBLOX created item for the same argument mentioned above.
Lastly, I’ll add that while you stated limiteds have “no real monetary value”, that’s a bit of a stretch as well. At the very least limiteds can be sold for robux on the catalog and that robux could be used to fund games and projects. Users like I have spent literally years collecting them, and that’s because ROBLOX set up the catalog and limited item system the genius way they did. It’s ROBLOX’s game and decisions in the end, but it’s a very fair argument if someone like me who has spent 1000s of hours collecting these items are concerned that a UGC creator is going to try and make a quick buck by slightly altering one of them and capitalizing off their popularity.
It’s best to call out these cases now while its so small scale before the UGC catalog entirely collapses the market when the person making the most money is the person who is selling a ‘sparkle time dominus’ for the minimum price (because literally this is what you will get without regulation, and a perfect example of this is the mess that is the shirts/pants/t-shirt section of the catalog).
Please note that I’m NOT AT ALL opposed to the UGC program (if it sounds like I am here), in-fact I believe it’s a brilliant idea for ROBLOX and its community, I just think that it could easily go down the drain if it’s not handled correctly as it expands over the coming months. You have creators making amazing, unique, and original items like Beeism, and others not doing so (as expressed above). I realize you pointed out that you do have concerns for the program and how it’s handled in the future too, but to just diss the entirety of the limited side of the argument is just plain ignorant.
Hopefully I made you aware of some factors you did not consider, and that people might be a little more critical of how people treat uploads in this program in the early stages!
Preface note since it happened before I posted: I don’t think the flag for Linkmon was appropriate. He is free to discuss this topic. Whether we don’t see eye to eye or not, there really wasn’t anything wrong with his post.
I had a feeling someone this would spin up eventually.
My response isn’t ignorant; if anything, it’s asking for peace and waiting for this program to progress. It’s been less than a month and a whole lot of you are complaining without giving time for things to be assessed. UGC is in closed access for a reason and that’s to test the waters, see where the shortcomings are produced, modify the programs accordingly and roll out (if I recall correctly, there has been a new wave of UGC creators accepted to submit).
I’m glad you explained the situation to me regarding UGC vs Limiteds, but that doesn’t change the fact that the arguments between it are still nonsense and I’m not simply talking about the similarities between hats either. I don’t think you realise that it doesn’t matter either way. Market trends work this way: someone sees something that’s successful, they take inspiration from it. It works that way with games and the idea with UGC is no different. The difference is that the hat sales go directly to the owner and the Robux of that is not devalued, unlike Limiteds where the Robux surrounding it must be revalued (which I will explain later, considering you mentioned this).
A lot of hats on Roblox, clothing, games, assets in general are spawned from an idea and a trend, as are products in general. When something does well, what’s one of your inclinations as a content creator? You see something that has potential. Without directly reproducing the item in question, you make your own edition of something and push it out. Yes, Classic Fedora exists. Does that stop other fedoras from being made? No. There’s literally a whole page of fedoras out on the catalog, both Limited and non-Limited. Look at those before going after UGC creators.
In my opinion, this is an excellent way for the UGC program to begin. UGC is still but in infancy stages and there is an enormous amount of room for the program to make changes during this time. Imagine now with a limited amount of users granted access to create hats versus a global release right on announcement. Can you imagine how many EXACT, DIRECT COPIES of hats would go up on sale? By allowing the trial run with a somewhat loose-fit of rules, the staff driving the program can take the time to analyse the community reactions and redevelop policies in order to combat bad actors. What can be thousands of similar rehashed items can be relegated to one item (which, for whatever reason, people have a problem with that I still can’t understand - they are two very different items).
I like that you used the wording you did for the following, because it gives me a chance to directly address the woe you have. I might be rehashing something I said above when I address it, bear that in mind. Here’s what you said:
That’s right. They are just both fedoras and no one should care about the fact that they are. If you have a legitimate complaint about fedoras, then first actually address the existing ones. The only difference is who’s running the sales: there is otherwise no difference between constant fedora reuploads.
In addition to this, remember that community responses and the program are being evaluated on a fairly constant basis. Putting “economy” aside, Roblox can look into this and further determine how they should move with a program’s policies. Loose fit for determining what’s appropriate for the catalog, QA testing guidelines, so on and so forth.
UGC hats do have a price floor and in my opinion I see absolutely nothing wrong with anyone selling cheaper or more expensive fedoras. The catalog has been known to host a plethora of such items in the past and people are looking to deck out their avatars. So why the complaint? UGC creators are essentially selling what they would in a game on the catalog, as well as their own creations. People will buy what they think looks good on them or what’s cheap.
If I were a UGC creator, I would feel pretty heavily insulted to spend a long time creating a fedora of my own that looks different from the others, sell it for a low price and get slammed for doing so. Why should you care? Why should I care? The only thing that would be of concern to me are the UGC rules and if I did a good enough job because people are going to be wearing those hats later and I don’t want them wearing something I didn’t do a good enough job on.
Moving onto another subject, revisiting the fact that you called me ignorant for my reply. The program began with rules in place to guarantee that copied designs will be combatted and part of the trial run is figuring out how to do so during public rollout. No one is going to be able to just sell cheaper versions of hats because they want to. Not only is that against the rules, but that’s theft of IP which is a nice ride to a ban waiting for you. To say that this can happen ignores the effort staff are going through to prevent the same mess that happened to the current UGC (Shirts, Pants, T-Shirts, …) from happening to this UGC. In fact, by saying this, it makes me feel unwelcome to try to get into the UGC program or even push content out for it. What’s to say I won’t get absolutely lambasted for making an awesome set of antlers or horns with completely different appearances, all because Roblox created a set as well?
The limited community is a small part of the community and it’s an elitist niche. I don’t even have to demonstrate this, scrolling up is enough to find those people. Some from the limited community have put forth amazing arguments and concerns about UGC which I can stand behind, but what I cannot stand behind is flagrant disrepsect to the current content creators for what’s nothing more than unfair complaints for what, exactly? Dropping hat values? Loss of prestige and fame for owning a hat that literally no one else is able to obtain? Yes, that is the case with lots of limited-time cosmetics (hence the term Limited) but just as I posted, I will state again that Roblox is a developing platform, not a trade simulator. Trading makes up only a small part of Roblox and is a side feature, if anything, that’s becoming less prominent as games move to custom(isable) characters. Trading, again, is also a very volatile part of the community that has led to many incidents: MANY circumstances of bans, RWTs, scams and a countless strew of incidents I probably don’t have to explain to you.
I’m not going to harp on those who want to enjoy specific aspects of Roblox, but trading is not a primary aspect of Roblox. Collect items, go ahead. Spend your money if you want to get some cosmetics, feel free, I’m no one to complain about how you spend your money and I fully respect that. You’ll notice that not a single part of my response complains explicitly about this group of people that play Roblox. What gets my gears grinding is the fact that this community is so invested on their items that they’re willing to shutdown and be mad at UGC for what’s quite literally an early trial period where things can change very easily and quickly given appropriate response. I will concede to a potential loss of money, but your Robux is devalued the moment you put it on a Limited, so it doesn’t matter either way.
“WhoToTrus is abusing his special privilege.” I didn’t read anything else. This is by far one of the most ill-mannered comments I’ve read on this thread out of the ones that I did read. This entire argument relegates to “WhoToTrus is being rude for creating an item”. You can reply by telling me to read the rest of the paragraph and not to cherry pick but I read it and that’s exactly what it amounts to. Someone does not abuse their privilege because they create hats and he’s been very good at what he’s doing with the program. I quite like his hats.
A black fedora is not unoriginal because it looks like another existing black fedora. Stop with this mindset. There are several black fedoras on the site and you can expect more to be on the way. There are black fedoras in-game. Black fedoras are for sale off Roblox. Are they suddenly unoriginal too? No. To be pedantic about it, any fedora on Roblox is unoriginal because it’s based off of a real life hat. That’s an objectively true fact.
I will concede to the fact that Limiteds have no monetary value, however only at the mention of selling these hats. The Robux put towards Limiteds don’t have monetary value whatsoever. This is not until the hats are sold and spent on games, to which creators earn the revenue from product sales. This is not part of my original argument but it does stretch a bit and as such I’ll rest my case on monetary value.
It’s not a fair argument at all to bring up about collecting versus sales. If you’ve collected an item for a while, then great job I guess. You’re a collector that collects items while another chunk of the community is wanting to buy those items but can’t. That’s a walled off argument that doesn’t have any place here. This thread is about User Generated Content, not about who collects items and how long they’ve done so for. Developers have a right to create, regardless of whether you’ve spent hours collecting or not, so long as it adheres by the set guidelines and doesn’t directly infringe upon either the rules, existing items or the items of others.
WhoToTrus’ creations are not “slightly modified” Roblox hats. Why do you think they passed moderation and QA testing? This argument calls the majority of the UGC catalog “copied, slightly modified Roblox items” when they have been proven not to be. They are completely different. There was an analysis posted to this thread some time ago which looks at them from a fundamental level. To call them the same and disregard the objective fact that they are different is strongly disagreeable.
Yes, yes indeed now is the time to raise any potential concerns with the program provided you have strong cases to back them. What isn’t okay is to condemn current creators of their creations that are nothing alike to existing items and are completely appropriate and acceptable for the catalog. If WhoToTrus wants to create a cool mafia looking black fedora, I don’t see why not. The Classic Fedora still exists. If you can’t afford that, then just buy Downtown Denizen. If you can’t afford that, just buy one of those free International Fedoras. I still fail to see the logic behind this argument.
While the program is still small, it’s a great place to provide feedback so staff can look at the community responses and take that into account for how they should move forward, but they aren’t obligated to read any of the responses or make them a chief factor in their decisions moving forward either. A lot of said legitimate feedback is drowned out by relatively silly complaints and a lack of acknowledgement to the attendant factors when raising discussion. Remember that part of UGC’s trial period is discussing moderation policies and QA testing. In case it’s not apparent, let me remind: these hats are thoroughly tested and reviewed before they’re placed on the market. Arguing about the aftermath is illogical because we don’t know how the aftermath will play out. When UGC faces public rollout, it will require automation and scaling en masse. There really is no argument between a heavily moderated program and a program that will be completely open as the end goal.
My responses are not comprised of actively attempting to “diss the Limited side of the argument”. It’s that I don’t see the logic in the argument at all. I’ve looked at the side of Limiteds for a while and I thought very carefully before I replied so as not to come off as blatantly tearing into the Limited community. A lot of responses from said community on this thread are based upon complaints that Limiteds are losing value or that people are now given alternative and extra choices to buy from. That is what I can’t stand from said community.
@colbert2677 I agree with you and I don’t think WhoToTrus is doing something wrong this is what I tried to say the problem I saw was the nasty comments like “CF Copy” CF in the serious case the classic fedora and really you’re right has already been confirmed that classic fedora and downtown denizen fedora is not a copy of classic fedora actually as you said downtown denizen fedora is an expiration of classic fedora and there are plenty of fedora items and really the idea of fedora was never roblox originally the fedora were inspired by a real life hat! one thing i thought i would agree with but unfortunately i will not agree with @linkmon99 and i will agree with you and his relationship saying that WhoToTrus is taking advantage of the privilege, this is how i can say … a sarcastic comment! and I see WhoToTrus only makes quality items and I noticed that whether or not the community community wants not all more people are being toxic and exempt in their arguments! I really agree with the criticism is that they keep criticizing the items because the items were really made for community and really the community has to give their feedback!
Regarding the anger towards UGC for disrupting the trading side of Roblox, trading is a small side of Roblox, relatively, but that doesn’t mean it should be dismissed. Sure, the robux earned from trading limiteds (namely selling them on the catalog) is not eligible for DevEx, but that doesn’t mean it holds no monetary value.
The vast majority of developers aren’t swimming in money. Robux matters, in any quantity, to a large majority of the community. If you have 100k RAP in limiteds, you could sell it and use the ~70k robux for ads and sponsors. That robux, despite being ineligible to cash-out, is still useful and important. It can be used for on-site purposes such as advertisement of groups or games, buying gamepasses on other games, or even simple things like uploading music to the Roblox library. It might not be something that can turn into USD but there are still various uses for it on the platform and robux doesn’t grow on trees for most people.
You must have skimmed over some of the comments made earlier in the thread. Following the advice you posted and comparing the two hats side-by-side, you would see this:
They are functionally, almost-identical. Especially from the standard observation distance of 10-20 studs. You wouldn’t be able to notice the band or the tiny black square underneath any hairs or additional hats and probably wouldn’t notice them in an area with shade (or low-light). Yes they’re different meshes but when they’re that similar it doesn’t matter. It sets a precedent for how UGC creators can make their meshes in relation to existing items. Existing items being ones made by Roblox or even other UGC creators.
The “price is dropping for Limiteds” isn’t the only excuse to condemn UGC. As you said yourself, there are quite a lot of developers who have raised concerns about other aspects of the program, such as moderation and the rules regarding re-uploading existing creations, and access to the program. My primary concern is the potential for theft and intellectual property wars, with creators either deriving hats from each other and undermining each other’s work or doing it to Roblox-made items.
I wouldn’t say the debate regarding to limiteds is an attack on UGC creators, nor is it disrespectful. It’s questioning the way the system is designed. Current design raises questions about access to the program. I get that releasing it to everybody would be a trial by fire, and it wouldn’t be efficient or appropriate at this time. However, many developers are wondering what the criteria will be for the selection of future creators. The content currently posted on the catalog also raises questions about re-uploads and that earlier topic of stolen content. Limited prices, and the concerns brought up by traders are just connected to the previous points, re-uploads and stolen content. The Downtown Denizen vs. Classic Fedora argument is just a focused example of the above.
Except, traders do lose more than “absolutely nothing”. Limiteds maybe weren’t intended to be used as financial investments like stock, but that’s just how the economy evolved. It might not be right or best for everyone, but that doesn’t mean those items don’t hold value. From a selling standpoint, you can do quite a lot on Roblox if you sell valuable limiteds and use the robux for projects and such. So I’d argue that they do indeed hold value, rather potential value, not reputation value. You’d be surprised how many people would choose RAP over looks. Not everyone is in it to collect.
Regardless of being in a sense of disrespectful or patronizing, I feel like this thread has been going on around in circles and it would be wise to split it to a topic focused on discussing eventual or real implementation problems and solutions.
Personally, I believe UGCs are an incredible addition to the Player-Developer side of Roblox, allowing us to create our own items and improving even further our games immersion. On this note, I am aware I am just a little late here, so please forgive me if my reply isn’t pertinent to the current discussion…
We have always been aware that moderating UGCs is absolutely difficult and the solutions are usually nonviable. And that won’t change now.
Remember that WhoToTrus and other developers have obtained this “privilege” to help Roblox test this feature and prevent any future crisis. Such developers are skilled with 3D modelling and proved to be trustworthy by previously working side by side with Roblox, which is why I am on their side when it comes to picking a small first wave.
This takes me to my next point. Yes, items are “unoriginal” and even “cheap copies” of other materials, some of which can even be found as official Roblox items. But honestly, should we care?
No. And also yes.
No, because there is no principle that perfectly outlines “originality”. Since “having an idea before someone else” is sincerely a childish argument and cannot be proved, the only way to actually prevent this would be to take legal actions, which the majority of our community does not have or hold the capacity to.
My point is that no matter how much you want to argue, as long as similarities are unintended or based of pure inspiration, there should be no limitations to what one can create, even when it comes to extreme cases.
However, yes, we should care. As a developer I am aware of how upsetting it is to be blatantly copied or be the inspiration of another similar project. We need to personally define a limit to what is “copying” and what is mere “inspiration”. But it goes beyond that; it touches the trading system of Roblox. Trading is a small aspect of the platform, but a quite vital one to keep the community engaged with micro-robux-transactions, which encourages actual Roblox sales.
My conclusion is that, as everything, this has both positive and negative aspects, but clearly there isn’t enough preparation for a massive launch of UGC to other developers.
I would like to point out that I do not have any suggestions on how to fix the problems pointed out, however I am glad this is being discussed so vividly. This said, I genuinely would appreciate if this discussion was taken to a separate topic before this escalates into plain toxicity.
Trading itself is a small activity regardless and I’m not suggesting its dismissal. My posts are vastly different with various bones to pick in regards to the arguments that are being raised about them.
Limiteds earned from the stock systems of Roblox (trading, selling, so on so forth) are not eligible for DevEx, therefore they hold no monetary value. Putting them towards site functions doesn’t revalue that Robux either. Robux you earn from advertisements and the like are a completely separate holding of Robux. The Robux you get from reselling limiteds may give you Robux to use for site features but that doesn’t mean the Robux you got from using the trade functions has monetary value at all. The Robux you earn from usage of site features with the Limited-gained Robux has real world value. It’s valid to call the Robux important if you’re looking for side cash but it’s incorrect to say it has monetary value. If the explicit topic being discussed here is world-to-Robux value, I concede and change my wording to real world value, which is the main point I’m driving home about this debacle.
I read the points about Classic Fedora and Downtown Denizen Fedora, this entire thread is basically about those two items since it’s what started most of the complaints to begin with and is a common point of analysis. The two hats being similar does not matter at all. It’s simply a matter of perception that you (or others) choose to believe that the two are identical to the point of being the same or copied.
A lot of those against the Downtown Denizen Fedora keep using this phrase “sets a precedent” (even as far as including the word dangerous, for whatever reason). It really doesn’t. As I’ve mentioned in my responses, UGC is still at very early stages and policies are bound for change at any given moment. If this is the approach we take to UGC, pretty much any kind of hat would be outlawed to begin with because most of them have already been done on Roblox before. I think that’s an unfortunate and unfair reason to criticise the program and/or the content that creators are pushing. Roblox has already taken the necessary steps in the pre-game to prevent copying of existing assets and the definition of what’s acceptable can change at any time. It’s not possible for UGC creators to copy each other at this stage, as mentioned in the OP. Taking away the freedom to create simply because of similarities defeats a good lot of the the purpose of user generated content. This logic is like allowing me to call:
Simply because they look the same, despite the fact that they aren’t. Don’t tell me that there’s a significant difference between these two and Classic Fedora/Downtown Denizen Fedora, it’s the same comparison by concept. It doesn’t even matter if they’re similar anyway: they aren’t the same. That’s what matters.
Limited price dropping is not a sole reason to condemn UGC and I said so myself, I agree there. When it comes face to face with legitimate issues, I completely understand. I myself have some things I want to raise about UGC but they’ve already been expressed and I’m waiting for the program to progress. Until then, I’m getting jumpy about a program bound for constant change. Moderation and IP are definitely huge concerns to raise and I stand by that, especially when UGC faces global roll out. I especially stand by this knowing that the moderation team isn’t massive enough to add yet another large section of assets to their approval queue, meaning UGC will demand automation and scaling at large. Such moderation techniques have been known to be disagreeable (case in point: Shirts, Pants, T-Shirts).
With this all aside though, you’ve raised some good points in your thread and I can see where you’re coming from, so I concede on some of the things I may previously have not had knowledge on due to not being a part of the trading community. The one that I don’t like seeing on this thread is senseless condemning of creators or the program and I’d hope that there could be actual reasoning as to why trade concerns are enough to take up a huge portion of the thread’s replies.
A lot of the content I’d like to say is mostly contained within my previous responses. I don’t want to repeat anything, so I’ll leave it at that.
First of all no idea why I got flagged, obviously not your fault but I definitely didn’t say anything that deserved that xD
Anywho, I feel like you agreed with some, if not most of what I said, in my post in your own. We both agree that UGC needs restrictions to succeed (as I’ll explain soon). The only place we seem to differ is that you think limited items should crash and burn in favor of UGC (if I’m wrong about this sorry, but that’s the vibe I’m getting so heavily and if it’s not true then not sure why we are arguing here at all).
Such a view, regardless of if that is yours or not (because it is some peoples’), is utterly unfair to all of us who own limiteds, and that’s the problem here (to me).
I’ll quickly break it down again:
I think we can agree the main thing we have to be worried about with UGC is it being too unrestrictive, right? There’s no debate that if anyone can upload and don’t have strict standards, you will have 1000s of black fedoras priced at 10 robux because they all want to compete for sales. Again, look at the clothing catalog… that’s what happens when you can upload unlimited virtual assets with no regulation because unlike real life, there’s nothing called a price of production (other than that upload fee lol).
Sure that’s all find and dandy to the consumer I guess (yay everyone gets their 10 robux dominus), but it’s not going to encourage quality uploads, people to spend lots of money on robux (since they can get everything they want for like 100), or a market of different valued items (since everything will be on the price floor like shirts/pants). It’s all a matter of how ROBLOX wants to treat its economy. Do they want exclusivity or not? I say don’t fix what’s not broken, ROBLOX has created a very cool virtual economy where items (though virtual) seem to have some significance to them. Unregulated UGC kills this significance, and I just don’t see how anyone is going to make money (ROBLOX or the creators) if this happens. I rather have quality > quantity, originality > cash grabs.
From what I can tell, and what ROBLOX has said already, they DON’T want this to happen, which is great; BUT it clearly already is happening with some of the items that have been released and it has already had an effect on the pricing of some related limiteds (which is also a fact if you literally check their price decline.)
I feel like we already agree on this point, so (correct me if I’m wrong) but you seem to differ in the thought that it just shouldn’t matter if someone makes an item that looks like a limited. You think good, let it be a free market. I mean sure ROBLOX can allow people to go this route, and make whatever they want… I just don’t see anything positive to come from it. (Many) People are greedy, it’s just what happens in capitalism. People are going to try and make knock off items of things that are already successful if it’s unregulated, because that’s what people do. The ROBLOX market can’t be compared to real life because unlike real life where the difference between real gucci and fake gucci is material and brand, on ROBLOX there’s no supply costs like I said. If someone makes a cheaper domino crown, the originals are going to suffer in demand (and thus lose value)… there are plenty of case studies for this so no room for opinions.
So I’ll get to the point of my argument since I feel like I’m straying: ROBLOX set up a system of original items where they tried their best to make each one exclusive and unique. This has been going for years, and people have spent years and lots of money collecting them. It’s totally unfair to take that away from people. Yeah, it CAN happen if that’s what ROBLOX wants, it’s their call (I think of ROBLOX like the government in that sense lol), but it’s still unfair to the collectors obviously because it devaules everything they did.
It’s unfair to me, and anyone else that spent that time trying to get let’s say a Dominus Frigidus (spent 1000s of hours) and then some kid makes a knockoff in 2 hours and destroys the significance of it.
If I knew that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have wasted my time (nor would anyone else). These items currently have value even if you don’t see it, I sold some of mine which gave me several million robux to launch a dev studio. I took time to earn those items, and thus that robux, so it’s not really cool to destroy that. I know you see my as an elitist, but this will hurt everyone just on smaller scales.
I just think you’re seeing this from the view of someone who never spent time trying to earn these things. It’s just a really odd unique market ROBLOX has setup and this threatens it greatly.
Going off that, do you agree with these points?
Personally, I think UGC will succeed the best if:
-the people who can make items are severely limited in number, and only the highest quality can be accepted
-The amount of items that can be released stay very regulated
-The items cannot copy other peoples items or current items that have high value (since that’s basically manipulating the market)
-The prices set on the items are well thought out and approved
I think UGC will fail if:
-anyone can make items
-anyone can make any items
-anyone can set any price
The question is, how do we draw the line between these two sides. What can be accepted and what cannot? That is the difficult part, and I think it will take a lot of effort and lots of testing. I do think we should be vocal if someone is doing something that’s pushing the line, which is how we ended up with the controversial WhoToTrus case (WHICH I think is where are argument stems from, where you think what he did is fine and I have major issue with it).
Specifically: In the WhoToTrus case, I said when he made that fedora and Elegant Bowler he admitted he looked for a gap in the market. I just think this is a negative way to treat the program right now. He was given the chance to be one of the first uploaders and express his creativity, but instead capitalized off the success of two memorable hats instead. There’s no point arguing “but it’s different”, because yeah it is slightly, but he made that hat FULLY intending to profit from the fact that people like the CF that costs 60K and knows he will make a ton from pricing it at 1K or whatever. If what he did is OK, do you think making a dominus for 1K is fine as well? What about if someone makes a dominus for 500 now, virtually the same?
WhoToTrus changed his tone with his recent uploads, they have been more creative and didn’t cause dispute with well known items. I think UGC should be fine if it’s kept pretty strict like it is, and that’s my take on it.
Not sure where we still disagree so you can enlighten me, but I just don’t want to see what happened to CF happen to every single item on ROBLOX, because if we aren’t careful it certainly will. This is obviously a really complex argument that we can write essays about, but we are talking about the future of ROBLOX and something that matters a lot more than people think.
I think so too that we probably see the same in some regards though in others, not so much. Apologies if I may have come off as slightly passive aggressive in my reply. Your reply has helped me with seeing the trading side of things though and the reply is greatly appreciated.
Broken down, here are some of my initial complaints which flared me up for replying here:
Shallow view of potential problems with UGC. There are in fact some replies within this thread and users over Twitter who have expressed nothing but distaste towards UGC solely because of the impact they have on Limiteds.
A common argument is UGC affecting Limited sales. There have been a lot of complaints about UGC affecting Limited sales but I wouldn’t say that’s the case. Stock markets are constantly fluctuating and Roblox’s Limited market is no different.
Because of UGC, some Limited owners feel that they may lose Robux due to an alternative being available, thus the rush to sell to make as much Robux as they can before its selling price drops low. This drop would not be the fault of UGC then and saying so would just be an excuse to witch hunt the program.
Aggressiveness towards current content creators. I do agree that there needs to be an acceptable ground for uploads to prevent any kind of misuse of the program, but there needs to be an understanding that this is a trial period. These creators exist, as someone mentioned in a reply earlier, to prevent future problems. I find it unfair to be criticising the program about similar hats and the like when that problem could be far worse in the future.
Hat similarities and uploads of an existing category are one of the more major complaints throughout the thread. However, there is also the fact that these creators have to actually spend time to make hats to be able to publish them. To me, arguments with little basis come off as disregarding the effort staff and creators are putting forth to make the program successful. The current content creators exist to simulate what UGC will be like during public roll out and they get a head start.
These are essentially the two points I want to drive home and want to call for the thread to chill out a little, since it’s been dragged around in many different circles. I mean, that’s pretty much how it began at first: somewhat of an aggressive view to trading but generally calling for relaxation. From there, people replied and it just went from there.
I don’t want my replies to come off as “trading is irrelevant and all of your opinions are bad just because you trade so stop posting”. I want to address the debacle currently going on regarding UGC complaints and their supposed effect on Limiteds. It’s also worth nothing that realistically, it’s actually the owners of the hats who control that market and thus whatever effects it has is on them for the most part.
UGC is restrictive yet unrestrictive but I find that to be okay. There needs to be a start point for Roblox to go with and a place to work up from. It so happens that at the time, there was just enough leeway for another black fedora to be made given that one exists (three or more, precisely). Obviously there will be issues when it starts coming down to thousands of them when we start bordering more serious issues such as theft, Intellectual Property infringements and the like. This one fedora doesn’t deserve that same argument though.
Is this where the whole precedent thing comes from though? I’d understand it if it were that way, but then my response to that is that UGC is still in trialling and the policies for what’s acceptable for the catalog are still ever-changing, so it doesn’t make much sense early in to say that it is causing a set precedent. It could cause one and that’s valid feedback to provide for this thread, such as the standing rules around uploading or why these uploads cause a disturbance. With this being said, there is something that is majorly overlooked when attempting to argue similar hats and the like. OP addressed this concern over and the thread was even locked for a long time so people would read before posting. Take a look:
Staff are very much aware that a reupload/copying/similarity/etc precedent exist, but it’s a difficult problem to solve. That’s why I don’t think it’s particularly fair to push the instance so much. When UGC faces public roll out, scalability is very important to accommodate for the potential thousands of content creators ready to publish. Side note: I’d personally prefer if UGC stayed closed access permanently. It’d still be UGC but vetted.
As for the current content which supposedly looks similar, that’s a different story. Like I mentioned above, Downtown Denizen Fedora didn’t actually cause any price drops, WhoToTrus just uploaded a black fedora. What really happened is the stock owners worried that their items would be devalued and thus sold it to hold onto their money. See where I’m coming from? UGC doesn’t necessarily affect trade. That’s one foundation for me when I reply to Limiteds; perhaps I didn’t make that clear early on.
I concede my point regarding trading and limiteds and their values. To me though, I see a lot of statistics on Limiteds as highly subjective. What’s valuable is the ability to sell those Limiteds and earn Robux which you can put towards things you’d like to buy or use that to earn Robux which actually has monetary value (discussion available in my previous reply around the top). So from the viewpoint of a developer and earning Robux, I’m able to yield to the ability to salvage Robux for Limiteds. Ultimately though that’s dependent on the market. UGC certainly isn’t a chief factor to stock market drops, hardly one at all. That’s up to who owns stocks in an item.
Personally, yes, my view on items is that you shouldn’t care if an item looks like another one. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it and move on. In Roblox today where a lot of games use customisable characters and your aesthetics hold up to your profile and games that don’t force a character style or allow for customisation, then yeah you can show off your cool hats or whatever. I just don’t find the reason behind wanting to go after hats for being similar or of the same category. Better example to use for an argument: the antlers on-sale that look vastly different from the existing ones. They were recently taken down and deleted, but using the model is fine enough to compare.
The first set do exist and various retextures of them do, so hooray for the people who want antlers. But there will always be that twinge of difference for the more iconic mesh which bends outward of your head and is skinnier without rounded corners. Don’t have enough to buy those? Wait them out with a cheaper and more affordable set. If you prefer to wait or don’t like those, don’t buy them.
The points around here start to differ from my original frustrations and I can agree with a lot of what you raised. There isn’t really a problem in similar hats and it’s bound to happen, but it’s completely valid to condemn subsections of similarities that could potentially spin up during UGC’s span (which, to my knowledge, are accounted for). Retextures, reuploads (theft actually), exploiting loopholes to earn quickly and generally deceptive practices that don’t belong up to low quality content. That’s not okay.
I’m very fency when it comes to Limited collectors and how UGC will affect them. Like, I can see that your collection paid off in how you were able to salvage some of those to start some activities and that’s totally okay. For those who are only interested in the trading though, they need to understand that stocks fluctuate even without the influence of UGC and self-delusions and not everything will be rosy when it comes to UGC. Who knows, someone may create a hat that looks far cooler than a Dominus and not sell it for a high price (no one will do that, that’s an easy money machine waiting, I’m speaking hypothetically) or not make it Limited should we get the ability to create them. I fully understand from the Robux gaining side of things though and have nothing to retort with. I rest this case due to the reply below. Not too sure what I was trying to counter here, much less what I was talking about.
Anyway, from here I’m probably just going to hop off. Pretty sure I lost track of what I’m trying to convey at this point too. All I came here to do really was to tell people to relax some with the arguments and whatnot. I didn’t really intend to spend a long time discussing UGC and there are story-length arguments you can write for certain points. I just care that the program sees success and that legitimate concerns are addressed first. Limiteds are a highly subjective and touchy topic and I don’t want to see content creators feeling unwelcomed or insulted because of the “disruption” that it’s supposedly caused traders.
Open to hearing back if there’s anything extra to share.
Edit: A ton of revisions. A lot was culled from my post. Also, nice response below.
I feel like I jumped around too much in my previous response so apologies for that too.
I can resonate with most of your recent post and I agree that some results of UGC will just be inevitable and must be accepted if we want the program to flourish, and other regulations need to happen if we want to flourish as well.
I’ll just string together my final thoughts on the whole UGC system for anyone who cares, mostly because I just really care about its future in a positive way:
there’s no way everyone is going to agree on the rules of UGC because it will change one of the most fundamental aspects of ROBLOX that has existed since 2007. That is, an economy with an exclusive item market.
I think the exclusivity is completely a positive for the platform, as it it encourages quality items and people to spend more money on ROBUX than they would if everything was on the price floor. Others will disagree, but from a business point of view it makes sense to be somewhat restrictive than not at all for ROBLOX. The system being restrictive makes sense for the creators themselves too, since they want the assurance that their item that they spent a lot of time making will sell well because it is unique and not threatened by copies.
If ROBLOX was setup differently in 2007 than this argument wouldn’t be so divided, because literally nothing as we know it (regarding items) would exist.
Yet, this is how it has been since 2007 and big changes are coming. ROBLOX can take many paths in the way they lay the rules for UGC, but every path taken will have a totally different impact (wether good or bad) which is why I believe they needs to proceed with caution and be careful about precedents that are set.
For instance, regardless of if people think limiteds have value right now or not, as one of the largest holders of them on the site I can tell you they certainly do (ROBUX > ads, ROBUX > fund creations, limiteds have a community following which allows content creation (like my youtube channel), they inspire people to spend more $ on ROBUX which is good for ROBLOX’s business, and exclusivity of items is good for UGC creators and their quality of uploads) so clearly they are more significant than people think. The demand of these items is what gives them their value, nothing more (thus why a 10k stock CF actually has more value than items with under 100 in existence).
These changes matter to people, especially for the people who spent time or money obtaining an item (heck even people who now are making UGC items and expect that their work will remain protected) so they should not be made lightly. I think there should be a respect for the time, money, and effort people have put forth for their collections and even the current unique UGC items that were created.
I truly hope that SOME DECENT restrictions remain intact, because if you were me you’d be sitting here considering if you should hold your items or sell every last one to a poor fool before the market collapses. It’s the uncertainty that kills us all here, and I just think ROBLOX shouldn’t make any decisions that are too radical.
At the end of the day, no matter what you, I, or some other dude thinks is probably not going to make a difference in ROBLOX’s decision, but if I gave some people a new perspective they didn’t consider than I’m glad I took the time to write this.
My best wishes go out to the people in charge of the UGC system (and the current creators) and if anyone ever needs advice or opinions I would love to give it since I’m so passionate about this game and the economy it created. I think it’s incredibly cool and unique, and literally item trading was a major part of my childhood which is why I feel so deeply about this all. I really hope to see trading and item uniqueness persist into the future and that ROBLOX makes the best calls to allow UGC to succeed. That’s all folks !
