We’re constantly working to improve how users discover and engage with your experiences on Roblox. We’ve seen that games appeal to users for different reasons. Sometimes it’s because a game is highly rated (social proof) or other times it looks like a genre they might enjoy.
Over the coming months, we will be experimenting showing users different types of metadata in the subtitle section of the tiles for each game. Our objective is to present users with the most pertinent details thereby attracting genuinely interested players to your games. This, in turn, should lead to increased engagement, a higher QPTR, and an overall improvement in play quality.
In the first set of subtitle metadata tests we plan to expand beyond Ratings with 2 additional metadata types:
Genre for that game such as “Adventure” or “Survival” or
Social proof descriptors such as “Top Trending” or “Up-and-Coming”
Ratings will still be in the subtitle for some games on Home and for all games on the Experience Details Page.
This is great! Although, please use less vague genres in favor of more specific ones, and use their actual names.
For example,
Survival/1 vs All in the case of games like Forsaken should be PvP/Asymmetric.
Survival/Escape in the case of games like Doors and Pressure should be Survival/Roomslike*.
This would only improve this further and make it easier to find new games similar to those you like. There’s no downsides that I can think of! Don’t be shy to adding new genres and subgenres.
* The name “roomslike” comes from the game Rooms, the game Doors and Pressure are inspired by. These games consist of procedurally generated hallways with enemies you cannot kill but must hide from, and the goal is either to get as far as possible or to reach the end. The -like suffix comes from the video game genre naming convention seen in “roguelike,” “soulslike,” and other similar genre names.
Perfect timing because I was experimenting with putting some generalized info in my experience’s name lol
I definitely agree that it would be awesome to specify our own relevant information. Just as an example, maybe our recent event. Something similar to how Today’s Picks works with their information messaging.
I would appreciate if you could add more ways to organically grow your game (without needing Robux) and add Official tags instead of just putting “Tags: MultiPlayer, Fun, UnderRated” in the bottom of your game’s description
The only issue I can think of is that many people avoid games with extremely low ratings because often it means the game is low quality or a flat-out scam.
Other than that this seems like a solid update, and I’m interested to see how it’ll help QPTR
Yes, but there is a better solution to supporting that nuance in what appeals to people. something I like to call ‘Actionable Discovery.’
Trying to give relevant information can require multiple different bits of metadata. The screenshot shows one or the other. Like rating or genre. Having both would be a start, but we’re missing the bigger picture here. sub-genre, server size, age rating, price, etc.
We can’t have all those factors all on each game tile; it’d be too much. The logical conclusion is Filters & Tags. Let people actively say what genre or whatever they want instead of sometimes telling them the genre. The current product here isn’t scalable for the other metrics people would find important, even if less important. It’s not only about the product itself here, though; it’s about what Roblox isn’t working on instead.
There’s also the angle of unverifiable data, asking us to blindly trust you.
Roblox has a self-interest in lying about product data. That’s in addition to historical and present reasons not to trust the company. If not that, their methods could be flawed, and we couldn’t contend. -The OP gives insight into the methodology, but if I don’t see a link with a breakdown of the study/test, I won’t truly believe it.
We desperately need genre sorting back, I almost never visit charts anymore. All of them are practically just the same popular games in every catagory. I feel like this is still just a main issue with almost shoving recommendations onto our homepage instead of being our continued & favorites.
I’d suggest having a “Main” Genre which most games can classify themselves as so they fit into a generalized category, and and their generalized genres, Just like Valve/Steam they can place genres that are deem make sense for their game premise.
Main Genre: Survival
Descriptors: Freeroam, Openworld, Action Survival, FPS
Recommendations have some core flaws that make it unusable as a source of discovering high value games as an older user. I’m condemned to seeing the games polluting my Recommended For You each time I open the home page.
I don’t care if it says “Top Trending”, “Up and Coming”, or has a 99% like rating (even though a good portion fail to even have 50%), I’m simply not interested in the types of games appearing on my feed.
I can’t curate my feed whatsoever, so I’m stuck relying on external sources (friends, social media) to find games worth my time.
At least I sometimes see options so terrible I can screenshot them and get a laugh with my friends over it!
Roblox used to let players filter by game genre. It’s cool that you’re showing the tags but… it’s useless if users can’t actively filter by those tags.
If I want to play a scifi game or a platformer, I can’t find them. I have to hope the algorithm randomly recommends one to me.
I accidentally pasted in a slightly older version (when this announcement was made I immediately started writing this but forgot to copy the finished version lol), I thought I wrote “in the case of games like Forsaken”. I’ll edit my post to say that.
I do disagree on this. If Roblox really wants to improve recommendations, then they need more specific genres, or at least an internal way of saying where the game falls within a wider genre. For instance, Asymmetric can be PvP or PvE, which is why instead of just Survival/Asymmetric, I wrote PvP/Asymmetric in reference to games like Forsaken. Although, while there are PvE asymmetric games, most asymmetric games are PvP.
Why does it need to be automatic? Why does game discovery need to be automatic? Why can’t we just pick which genre/tags apply to our games, and have players search for games with those specific tags? What is so fundamentally wrong with that system that Roblox refuses to support it when literally every other conceivable platform in the last decade does?
I seriously want an answer to this. There has never been a single documented response as to why Roblox decided to remove the perfectly working original genre system and then wait 7 years to replace it with a functionally inferior and—frankly annoying—automatic system. The change wasn’t even announced.
If there’s one aspect of Roblox that has the worst amount of community transparency possible, it would be game discovery. That’s because there is no transparency. And that’s scary. The livelihood of the games you expect us to make for you are dictated by a policy you refuse to even discuss. That has to change if you want the platform to ever properly grow again.
This is nice and all, and I’m glad that genres are back, but Roblox needs a whole rework on how game discovery works, and a huge improvement on experience pages.
Improving Roblox Game Discovery
Genre Tags – Not just picking a single genre from a (relatively small) genre list. Games should be allowed multiple tags that accurately represent their mechanics, themes, and style, similar to Steam.
User-Defined Tags & Community Voting – This could be done a variety of ways, such as user voted tags, but the introduction of game review comments may help with this as well. (This isn’t as important as the previous point.)
Advanced Search & Filters – Players should be able to search by tags, features, release date, rating, age range, or perhaps even monetization type (e.g., free-to-play, subscriptions, Premium benefits, paid access, in-experience purchases).
Curated & Rotating Front Page – The homepage should showcase a diverse rotation of genres, indie titles, experimental projects, and age-appropriate games tailored for the individual user, rather than experiences targeting <13 users (the largest demographic on Roblox).
This is probably the worst part about Roblox, that the front page almost exclusively focuses on the most popular of experiences, which are almost all targeting the primary demographic of Roblox. While this is understandable, this basically kills any other type of experience from ever reaching the front page for any relevant amount of time. Most players don’t search for experiences and may only see what’s shown to them via either the front page or the home page. 99% of Roblox players do not need to be in the same single experience.
Personalized Recommendations – Recommendation algorithms should prioritize showing players games that fit their interests and play history, not just what is globally or regionally popular. This already happens somewhat, but it’s hardly prioritized compared to the latter.
Trending by Niche or Newly Released – Highlight trending games within specific genres or tags so that smaller but high-quality projects can gain visibility without competing directly against the largest titles, and give a temporary boost to newer experiences that have reached a certain minimum requirement.
User Reviews & Ratings – Implement a real review system (again, similar to Steam) that allows players to leave feedback, ratings, and filter reviews by “most helpful,” “recent,” or “positive/negative.” I’ve seen that part of this is already in-the-works, but I hope that this is the end-goal for it.
Editorial & Curated Lists – Introduce official or community-curated collections (e.g., “Best Horror Games,” “Top 10 Simulators,” “Retro Classic Collection”) to guide players to quality content they prefer.
Age-Appropriate Discovery – Discovery feeds should adapt based on the player’s age group, ensuring older players aren’t only shown children’s games just because they’re popular. Again, this is also something that’s somewhat done, but it’s lower priority compared to other flags like popularity.
Event Spotlights & Seasonal Features – Promote experiences tied to holidays, themes, or platform-wide events, giving smaller developers a chance to surface alongside bigger names. This kind of already happens with how events have been going lately, but this should be handled via game discovery rather than hidden behind an event experience. (That and players really just want Roblox events to be a single quality experience, this is more about promoting seasonal sales and events.)
Improving Experience Pages
RichText (or Markdown) Descriptions with Formatting – Allow developers to use basic formatting (bold, italics, bulletpoints, headers, etc) to make their descriptions more readable and professional, instead of being limited to raw text. This would include an increased description size. (This should be expanded to all developer store asset descriptions as well.)
Feature Highlights – Include sections for key gameplay features, supported devices, multiplayer information, and monetization model (e.g., free, premium, in-app purchases). (Optional, but nice.)
Improved Media Support – Beyond the simple thumbnail/video slideshow, allow developers to showcase embedded images, GIFs, or videos, within the description, to better present gameplay.
Community Reviews & Ratings – Give players a space to share feedback on the experience page, making it easier for new players to judge quality before joining. This is a duplicate point, but important enough to restate here. Read the original point for more detail.
Update & Patch Notes Section – Developers should be able to post version updates, changelogs, and announcements in a dedicated section, visible directly on the experience page. (However, this could still be done with an improved description, but having tabs for it would help clean things up and reduce scrolling.)
Improve Communities – I won’t go more into this right now as that is outside the scope of this post, and we’re already seeing improvements in that area.
Improved Recommended Similar Experiences – Suggest related experiences based on tags, style, or community overlap, similar to how Steam shows “More Like This.” The current system barely works, obviously due to the lack of data that Roblox’s algorithms are currently working with, as well as prioritizing the wrong things (in my opinion). This section could also be moved to the side and have its size reduced, that way it can be visible outside of a tab, but still be out of the way.
Event & Seasonal Highlights – If an experience has a special event or update, the page should prominently display this (like Steam’s event banners). This is also starting to happen, so this point may not be needed, but I thought I’d include it anyway. I’d also like further support for events that are over a longer period of time, rather than a single event that’s set for a specific time.
TL;DR
Make game discovery and experience pages good. Use Steam as a reference, no company or platform has done anything anywhere near as good as they have.
