Upcoming Changes To The Game Sorts & Submit New Sort Ideas!

Updates Announcements
#65

YES! I’m glad someone suggested this.

And, so it wouldn’t break like the clothing catalog, I’d propose a cap of allowed tags per game, such as around 3-5.
On a realistic FPS, for example, you might see: #fighting #action #-fps #-team #-realistic
Whereas, on a showcase, you might see: #-showcase #exploration #-art #visual
(And, I’ll add that quality showcases would be much easier to find with such a tag system, rather than simply searching for “Showcase”)

Perhaps the tag system could begin with a whitelist of allowed tags, and the list could be expanded upon based on requests. You’d be able to search any number of these tags when looking for games, as a bit of a replacement for the deprecated genre system.

My reason for this is I’m usually unimpressed with most of the titles on the Games page, and would like an intuitive way to find well-built, fun, smaller-community games such as, for example, Astrocraft by Astro Entertainment. I’d really love to see a tag system, above any other improvements to the Games page.

11 Likes
#66

Another main advantage of this is its ability to give lesser known developers exposure and popularity.

More specific tags means more specific search results, which allows broader audiences to find smaller/startup games.

5 Likes
#67

Oh definitely, that’s what I’d love to see. Roblox would probably grow its playerbase, or increase existing interest at the least, if small/startup games had such a way to get exposure. Even I, having been on the platform many years, and knowing how to navigate it as best as anyone else, it’s difficult, if not outright impossible to find these startups that have great content, and simply need players to fill them. (just like the aforementioned Astrocraft, which is a space building simulator in early Alpha, very unique to Roblox)

3 Likes
#68

So what’s the advantage to some of these changes? You want a category specifically for new technology like Rthro, but didn’t you already say you were basically doing that with the Featured category? Same for “retention”. Why do we need multiple categories for the same thing?

Also, as others have mentioned, a tag system would be helpful. I could finally push my games towards a target audience again. But Roblox needs to find a way to keep the games in each genre relevant. No more obbies claiming to be Wild West just so they can show up at the top of a page.

But my main concern is getting new devs’ content seen. I’ve said it like a million times now. Us unpopular devs deserve to have our games promoted in some way too. I don’t want to spend months working on a game just to have nobody play it. This is the biggest change I want to see on this platform.

7 Likes
#69

I have to agree with everyone wanting genre sort back I loved it

though if that does happen more relevant genres would be cool imo e.g (Tycoon, Simulator)

3 Likes
#70

I like the idea so far.
The only other thing I can think of would be bringing back the “sort by genre” option as some other people already suggested as well. I do think it would help players to find new games of a certain genre, as well as help smaller developers who work on those games to gain popularity.

3 Likes
#71

I really agree with the tagging idea, infact I was about to type it until I saw your reply! There are alot of potential great applications for a system like this, because Roblox could “handcraft” a user experience by comparing the tags that games you play have, and deciding what tags in “games” you are looking for. For example, you play alot of FPS games with the #FPS tag, and ever since you’ve started playing loads of them, the “handcrafted” user experience brings up a ton of popular or well made games that share the same tag, if not similar.

6 Likes
#72

I would really like to see the top paid access game section come back. I really like to support new and fun games/developers, and many are paid access. The problem is that there isn’t an efficient way to search for all paid access games.

6 Likes
#73

I liked the idea @TheTitanicHeadMan had for a new sort and I believe it should be considered:

The idea already has a very positive reception with over 80 people here liking it and it’ll help bring exposure to lesser-known/not as popular games, fulfilling all the points in ROBLOX’s vision for game sorts in the OP to my knowledge.

As for something I want to see, I would like the reintroduction of genre sorts. Their removal was odd in the first place, so bringing them back would be nice. I used it to find some cool horror games at the very least, and it’s been harder to find them since the genre sorts removal. Of course, I believe they’re looking for sort ideas which can straight up be featured on the Games page so having it clogged with genre sorts wouldn’t be a good idea.

Perhaps in addition to re implementing genre sorts on the website, a randomised genre sort on the Games page could be a good idea? For example, a player would load the Games page and see the genre sort, themed to a City genre with games relevant to that genre on it. When they reload it, the genre changes to Combat so they see Combat games on the sort instead of City games.

Let me be clear on this - I have no idea if this is feasible to implement or would actually work, but considering how I believe it allows ROBLOX’s vision to be met as well as enhancing players tools to find new games, I’d say it could be worth considering.

At the very least however, thanks for acknowledging that the sorts could be further improved, that’s a bit more reassuring to me as a developer. Now if they responded to the ROBLOX Events Update criticisms, that would be absolutely perfect. :happy1:

5 Likes
#75

It’s probably just being used as an example sort, I’d imagine it’s too early for a sort for 200-player games anyway until it’s easier to create ones that run smoothly like you said.

#76

is the algorithm for the front page of catalog ( clothes in particular ) changed in any way due to this update? - the relevance sort looks different & way unorganized than it’s supposed to be

#77

I agree with having a way to sort through things for “Players Your Age Liked”, seeing as whenever I, personally, or the people on my friends list (long-term veterans, most being a bit younger than me) look at the game page, we rarely find a game we enjoy.

I also think adding a new genre for simulators as well as making it so you can mass filter which genres you want in a search - e.g. all the options in the filter are there, all set to neutral, click it once and it goes to positive, again for negative and third time for neutral once more. Positive = Search for those games with those specifically. Negative = If the games that came up have any of these genres, then they won’t show. Neutral = If the games have this genre, then it’s fine. Side note: Make it so games can get multiple genres like books? You could also make it so that this feature has 2 options, where it either searches for games with all the genres in positive, or at least 1 of those genres.

The first point will not only allow older players or veterans to find games “aimed” at a more mature audience or long-term investments in time, respectively, but will also allow younger players to find games that more people their age enjoy, allowing them to interact with more people their age, which may positively impact their sociability in later life - unlikely, but hey, that’s what happened to me over my 7 year Roblox career.

The second point will allow people to do more advanced searches across genres, as well as “get rid” of genres they don’t want - i.e. currently the games popular page is over-saturated (imo) with simulator games, so for some players who want a change of pace, they can remove that from their searches, seeing as the last time we had genre searches, you were only able to select one genre type rather than more than one, which, imo, is restrictive and wastes time (as per experience on e-reader sites where books that basically have a genre but they don’t have that genre). Conversely, if simulator games (yes, I know, bad example xP) started appearing less in popular, people would be able to search for those games if they enjoy those types of games the most.

2 Likes
#78

Sorry if somebody has already answered this in an earlier reply, but to the best of my knowledge the Popular sort is region based, showing the most popular games in your region, but the player counts are global.

4 Likes
#79

Why is Popular Near You a thing then?
:thinking:

1 Like
#80

I think I got it slightly wrong, I think the popular sort is language based - I’m pretty sure it’s something like this as I remember it being discussed when the localization program started rolling out.

3 Likes
#81

Oh wait, it’s actually age-based now. Crazy how I still see the same exact games as my 11-year-old sister following that change though.

2 Likes
#82

You sure she put 11 as her account age? :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
#83

Yes. She has a hyper-locked account. Although I wouldn’t blame her if she did change it at some point down the road.

2 Likes
#84

Jumping on the genre bandwagon, hashtags, as mentioned already, is a try-hardened and trusted way to get relevant content to users is what is used in media platforms (Twitter, Instagram, ~Steam, etc.)…everywhere at this point
With the current genre categories, its either [Put one of the ~15 genres here] or [All], which is quite limiting.
Obviously this is by no means a small task nor is it specifically a “sort idea” so I’ll leave it at that, but I do know that it is something that a lot of folks miss.

As to deviate from the conversation though, I have a weird feeling that what is meant by “Sort ideas” is fun experimental sorts that appear for short amounts of time!
Here’s some fun ideas (which by no means I am claiming is good or effective)
I’m basing some of these off of statistical algorithms shared to us also.
Short and sweet games. (Playtime)
Long haul games. (Playtime)
Age group popular games. (Age group visits)
Popular amongst your friends games.
Because your friends liked… (games).
Recently updated games (Last updated/visit from then ratio)
Your favorite genre games
“Taste breaker” games

4 Likes
#85

Remove the genre option for games if you’re not going to let us be able to sort games through genre on Roblox.

1 Like