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#862

Hmm… Yeah, as I said, I was prepared to be proven wrong, and I think to an extent I have been. However, 26k was still significantly more than the Denizen, from my own understanding (yes, my full knowledge of trading non-existent hats has come from reading through this thread so there’s a good chance I’m wrong). So, though my initial thought that this was purely on the veblen affect might be wrong, if I’ve got it right that the denizen was much less, I think it shows that to a degree, demand for the fedora is there because of it’s crazy price.

On a separate note, I’m curious about why there was another larger dip in that graph later, do you have a hypothesis for it/ is there a way I can find those graphs?

Edit: If large dips like these are often, it shows we have a correlation, not causation between the value of expensive hats and this announcement, meaning I will stick to my original thesis of it being a Veblen good.

6 Likes
#863

Now hold on, if you’re gonna drag me into this thread I’d ask you don’t jump to conclusions. As far as I’ve seen, just because you get a fair amount of support from those in the program doesn’t mean it’s an easy path to getting in. I’ve gotten a fair amount of support sent my way, and here I am still not able to upload UGC.

You also seem to exclude my mention of the #RobloxUGC tag, which implies to people in this thread that the system is solely based on nominations. As far as I know this is more setup to gather info on people who have the skills to create good items, rather than one founded upon connections. It’s a system which needs work to let us come to Roblox via applications rather than vice versa, but I don’t see anything which would leave me to believe it’s rigged.

4 Likes
#864

So there is nothing off about the nominations process being mentioned only three times on twitter and never brought up again?

I dunno man
I feel like that information was left buried for a reason.
The fact that there is virtual radio silence about that topic really says something.
That and the fact that Artoru mentioned in the other thread that they are bound by NDA to not mention specific things.

Put two and two together
what do you think is the forbidden knowledge

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#866

I just think that there is something morally wrong with the fact that this information was essentially kept hidden from the public since it was only referenced like what 3 times on twitter.

All three tweets were super obscure so no one realistically would have caught wind of it.

Not sure how you think a closed community nominations couldn’t possibly be rigged, cause it can easily be manipulated in many ways.

1.People will obviously vote in their friends first.
This ends up forming a voting bloc that heavily dictates who gets in or not. As more people from one friend group are added, they become a larger part of the voting pool and can easily turn the tide in a nomination

2.You basically need to be on good terms with the UGC devs
Soured up a relation with a UGC dev in the pass and they still hate you for it?
Don’t think for a second that they won’t try to veto your nomination.

3.Market Control
Say for instance your niche as a UGC developer is churning out items that pander to the otaku fandom. Would you like more competition appearing on the market and drawing away your customers/occupying ideas?

A smart entrepreneur would obviously veto any candidate who could threaten their market for maximum profit.

But hey hey hey
people would never do that right?

It makes 0 sense why roblox would refuse to do a contest for UGC like what they’ve done for chinese roblox.

Instead, we gotta go through this nomination process

Also, your little #twitter hashtag statement can also be heavily rigged.
Thanks to the twitter algorithm, smaller developers are once again handicapped in this regards.

Your tweets will be pushed to the top of a hashtag based on how many people interact with your tweets.

If you are a new developer, or don’t bot likes/retweets, or don’t have anyone endorse your tweets.

Your #UGC tweets will be buried and virtually unseen.

9 Likes
#867

I just don’t feel it’d be best to assume. Are the nominations a system where the popularity of a specific user is what determines if they get in, or if it’s just information on someone which is added alongside whoever Roblox finds?

If you’re sorting by popularity, sure, but there are other ways to dig through tweets tagged #RobloxUGC. You can sort by the latest and see every tweet in sequential order, or use a third party client which can gather all of the tweets. Roblox has had contests on Twitter in the past where they needed to gather all the entries replying to a tweet, and mixed in was a fair amount of “wacky entries” replying with images unrelated to the contest.

Not denying that things could be better, just not sure I can agree unless there’s something more concrete for me to trust.

5 Likes
#868

Just saw this on the most recent UGC thread, which seems to be gaining more attention than this thread currently

This right here is exactly what I feared. ROBLOX basically signing these creators to NDAs so that they can control what they can/cant say about the program.

This seems to be a reoccurring trend when it comes to ROBLOX releasing just about anything nowadays, they put out minimal information and when under criticism, they just shelter in and act like everything is perfectly fine when it clearly isn’t.

Want an example of this not pertaining to UGC? Take a look at the mess that’s currently the first building contest in years in which people have asked very legitimate questions and have gotten zero answers.

I mean heck, they didn’t even care to reply to the most recent topic pertaining to UGC, in which members that have worked with UGC creators, Community Sages, and UGC creators themselves have all replied with some sort of criticism.

It’s honestly a complete joke at this point. I’ve come to expect nothing from a company that I once dreamed of working for, and I find that extremely sad. I really hope they realize they are driving away more users than they are bringing in by doing this.

6 Likes
#869

It just makes 0 sense why they won’t do an open ended contest like what they did for Chinese Roblox.

They clearly don’t lack the resources since they are currently hosting a new studio only build contest.

But nah, instead we gotta use the alternative method which only benefits
1.people with connections
2.popular people

If what you say is true and that they rely on twitter hashtags in addition to a nomination, then popularity and connections definitely plays a huge part in boosting your content to the top.

This is honestly just a replay of the dev forum nominations which ended up with guys nominating their friends and blocking off guys they didn’t like/thought were competition.

The evidence is pretty concrete already imo.
Developers have mentioned a nominations process and the existence of a nominations channel on some discord server.

This is further backed up by the scarce amount of information that exists and the fact that guys in the program are saying they are bound by NDA to not give out further details. Notice how there is a virtual radio silence on the topic of nominations and how only select people knew about it?

Put 2 and 2 together and you’ll realize they are specifically referring to a nomination process.

4 Likes
#870

Before you panic too much, the reason we signed an NDA is because the program is constantly changing, so anything we could say that’s definitive one week could be changed the next week. It’s still a beta program. Confusing, contradictory, and inconsistent information is worse than a “wait for us to provide more info” as far as Roblox is concerned.

Just wanted to provide some nuance. I still want more devs in the UGC program, as I stated in that post.

12 Likes
#871

This was probably the most depressing turn of events but to essentially recap what we managed to unearth today, we found out that admission into the UGC program is absurdly biased towards less famous developers with minimal connections. (I will elaborate more on this later in the flaws section).

Admission Process

1.Nominations from a secret channel on their private discord server

2.You #UGC twitter posts.

Nominations

As seen in this tweet, UGC Dev “DieSoft” tweets out that they are looking for candidates for the private UGC nomination channel on their exclusive discord.

DieSoft further confirms the existence of a nomination channel.

Trus also mentions the existence of a nomination process

What I find funny is the fact that this information for a nomination process was never publicly announced, but rather directed at certain users. Twitter works in a away where tweets to replies rarely show up on a person’s timeline unless they are heavily interacted with, as opposed to normal tweets which show up normally on the timeline.

Twitter Hashtags

Again from the same post, DieSoft states that they are monitoring the hashtags related to roblox UGC.

And now, onto the inherent flaws with the design of this admission process

Flaws

You’d think that Roblox would have learned about the flaws of a closed community nomination process from their previous dev forum nominations but I digress.

Room for Bias

It is pretty obvious that pre-existing UGC members are going to nominate their friends first. Don’t think this won’t happen? Look at the newest UGC devs like Capone and John, they are close friends with 1st wave UGC members. Voting in your friends was quite common place back when the Dev forum had the nomination process.

There is more evidence beyond simple friend list coincidences.
Every tweet that references the nomination process was a “reply” instead of a normal tweet.

Reply tweets are scarcely ever displayed on a person’s profile or another person’s timeline due to how twitter works unless they are heavily interacted with. This greatly limited the exposure of this information. Anyone who didn’t religiously stalk the developers would have never known of this process.

Notice how no developer has publicly announced the nomination process?
They’ve purposefully tried to keep it on the down low and have only informed select individuals whom they are friends with via reply tweets or discord dms. This was of course done to give these select people a better chance as they wouldn’t have to compete with a deluge of applicants

This eventually forms a voting blocc made up of your close friends which can easily turn the tide in a vote for nominating new members in. This can easily be weaponized to block off other users or fast track people in due to sheer weight in numbers.

Market Control

Say for instance your niche as a UGC developer is churning out items that pander to the otaku fandom. Would you like more competition appearing on the market and drawing away your customers/occupying ideas?

A smart entrepreneur would obviously veto any candidate who could threaten their market for maximum profit.

But hey hey hey
people would never do that right?

Emphasis on Connections over Talent

In order to be put onto the nomination list/channel, you need to have your tweets be seen and have connections with the right kind of people who are willing to put your name and portfolio onto the nominations channel.

Due to how Twitter’s algorithm works, if you have a small or non-existent follower-base on twitter, your tweets will be buried at the bottom and never be seen. You can increase your odds of having your tweet be seen by

1.Having some big twitter user retweet you
2.Botting for likes and dislikes
3.Promoting tweets using cash on twitter

If you don’t have a large fanbase, have someone endorse you, or spend real world money on twitter, you are out of luck for being seen. This is a severe handicap to newer developers who haven’t built up a fanbase or networked with any of the big wigs.

You basically need to be on good terms with the UGC devs

Soured up a relation with a UGC dev in the pass and they still hate you for it?
Don’t think for a second that they won’t try to veto your nomination.

tl;dr

You basically need to either be super popular on twitter in order to have your tweets be seen at the top of the ugc hashtag, or essentially brown nose your way into having someone in the program endorse and nominate you.

It was rigged from the start against smaller developers
A lot of developers in the program preach about wanting to be inclusive and all that jazz to appear amicable and that they are standing with us in solidarity.

But I’m gonna be real with you.
The fact that the information of the nomination process was essentially only given to a select few people really speaks volumes into how much these developers really care about “inclusion”.

23 Likes
#872

This still doesn’t change the fact that Roblox hasn’t said a single thing publicly about the program (at least, in English from what I can now see) since announcing it’s existence at RDC last year.

This is an awful strategy for creating a public image for the program, not much more I can say. Not to mention you are still calling this a ‘Beta Program’ when users from other countries (Particularly China) have received emails basically pandering to the fact that users can make ‘hundreds of thousands off a single virtual item!’. It’s rather clear Roblox is attempting to grab as much cash from the program that they can rather than releasing to the public.

It’s one thing for the members of the program to be signed to NDAs, it’s another when those users signed to NDAs are still giving out more information about the program than Roblox itself. Something fundamentally has to be changed about the way Roblox addresses its vast majority of users, because the current way of not saying anything at all (not just in this instance either, as I already stated in my last post) clearly isn’t working.

7 Likes
#873

Yeah, the only information that was let out about the program is through literally 3 obscure tweets that reference a nominations process

mind you these tweets were virtually hidden since they were “reply” tweets.

All that talk about being inclusive and wanting to promote developers is essentially null after they pull this kind of stunt.

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#876

https://www.roblox.com/catalog/4619894887/Penguin-Hood
https://www.roblox.com/catalog/24112667/Telamons-Chicken-Suit
Cmon man, this just isn’t right.
(The hat at the top is UGC, and one on the bottom was made by ROBLOX.)
tbh, there are a lot of copies of different hats on ROBLOX that UGC made, it feels like some of these hats are lowering the limited’s (or the originial version of the hat) price/value down tremendously.

10 Likes
#878

I think this should be fine, because it is not an exact replica. If this is not allowed, then everyone will lose more and more freedom, because everyone makes new things. In my opinion it should be encouraged to use people’s ideas to create new original content.

You could compare this example with spacex’s rocket. Just because nasa also has rockets does not mean spacex is not allowed to create their own rocket. That would be a disaster if you ask me.

10 Likes
#880

I know this Has 0 Creativity but The Point Of It Is At Least He Made The Model & Texture I Know The Base Idea Belongs To Roblox But The Penguin One Is Different It’s Not Exactly like The Chicken One

7 Likes
#881

I understand roblox’s wish to keep the UGC catalog to a small group of users, but why isn’t anyone else getting a chance to make UGC content? The first round was with users roblox had worked with before, but some other users have been added, but a lot of content on the UGC catalog is lazy, uncreative, and just retextures of other accessories. If roblox wants to add a few new members every now and then, then why not open up applications and select a few users from there? This would give a chance to talented 3d modelers who haven’t had a chance in the spotlight but clearly deserve it.

10 Likes
#882

Exactly.

The current UGC program is literally just a close group of friends voting in their friends. They don’t care about “promoting” developers, it is all about giving their friends access.

The fact that they tried to hide the nomination process really speaks volumes about their double standards for wanting to help the community grow.

Like cammon now, how can members of the UGC program continue to use the blatant excuse that they are bound to a NDA agreement to not elaborate on the admission process while at least three members of the program have admitted to the public on twitter.com that there is a nomination system in reply tweets.

Is this supposed to be public knowledge that there is a closed community nomination system or not?
If it is, how come no one has publicly made a tweet about it?
Or do they just not care about NDA violations and only bring up this agreement whenever convenient.

The double standards are very real.

16 Likes
#884

Do I need to begin mentioning how much R$ (that was devex’d ofc) was made from these items just because they can do it with no competition?

Screw it, let's begin

Shadowed Head - aka “I took the default head model and put a gradient over it :clap:” 387,166 Sales, R$13,550,810 or USD$47,427.84

Cartoony Bunny Ears - wait I have seen this before 282,039 Sales, strong textR$9,871,365 or USD$34,549.78

Doodle Devil Wings & Doodle Angel Wings - “yea, i’ll just modify the roblox model and take the guts out of it to create it, sure” - Collectively made R$9,581,740 or USD$33,536.1

This just shows us how lack of competition makes this unfair to the modelers who have worked their asses off and still, are not friends with Developer Relations (saying this the guy who is trying to get their attention for a few months with no success, sad) can not get into the UGC programme where they can possibly earn hunderds of thousands of USD.

I will update this post every day with 1 more example of how messed up this system is…

23 Likes
#885

It was always rigged against us from the start. Sure, it made sense that they’d only allow in people who had previously worked with Roblox since these were trusted community members. But it is quite clear that they’ve move past the first wave recruitment stage and are now essentially making decisions based on blatant favoritism and selectivism.

Notice how only select individuals were informed of the supposed “nomination” process by UGC developers and how UGC developers are unwilling to openly divulge information about said admission process in the public?

Any time you openly ask a UGC developer about how admission works, they give you the cookie cutter excuse that “the program is in beta” “we got a NDA agreement” so they can’t say anything about it, despite there being hard evidence of them essentially letting their friends in on it all before the general public. If they’ve already done it on twitter, what makes you think that they have’t privately dm’d their friends on discord about it.

Either they lack the the professional ability to abide by a NDA agreement, or they purposefully withheld this information from the public and only chose to help their friends out. Either answer is not exactly a good one. It either shows that these developers are unprofessional or that they really have no intentions on helping the community grow and only want to help their friends make some money. The very fact that they tried to sneak out this information in obscure reply tweets is already damning enough evidence that something ain’t right.

15 Likes
#886

You indeed are right, I expect this comment to be removed out of the sheer embarrassment of the staff/TC who are reading this, but…

This happens in so many other cases where the front-page guys basically control Roblox. For example, the promotion to Regular system… It is so flawed I can not even imagine, I have made countless of enemies for going against them and since they are the ones who “control” Roblox, I and many other people are left out.

THIS IS NOT THE ONLY CASE, THERE ARE MANY MORE THAT I JUST CAN’T BEGIN TO EXPLAIN, We are talking about a massive scale issue in here that should very well be addressed by Roblox, they are being intentionally vague about all of this and it is troubling for everyone who does not have a Roblox staff in their contacts list.

10 Likes
#887

I mean seriously… A youtuber legit copied a design and just put a gold colour on it. I am sorry but we have people who legit work hours, then youtubers who copy and upload for money. I mean…

8 Likes