Always uglier than stitchface and a korblox leg. I never liked RTHO and i never will do so.
2 Likes
Yes, monetization is something we plan on so further thought into how we are going to move around this and tricky, especially as this is a monthly news show and pushing for release by the end of the month. Something like this comes out of nowhere, and with little time for us, and fellow developers…
1 Like
On the Dev Stars Program side, I can sort’ve understand why the program is being shut down as there are too many large IPs under them to be properly utilized.
Though I just believe that very few people even have the appropriate skillset to manage to get their own toys out, which is why we used the program to help us. Removing that just leaves like maybe two games that have their own toy lines? (Piggy + PSX)
Secondly, why does being inside a “merch” program not merit anyone UGC access? If you just gave all Dev Stars UGC access it would certainly soften the blow and they’ve already proven themselves via making a successful game and then would allow them to merchandise over Roblox. So why not?
Thirdly, the dev stars gave a safe umbrella for how to create/merchandise brands. Now that’s gone the developers themselves have to either
- Sell the licensing rights (potentially % or potentially flat rate (no sales %))
- Take a huge risk and fund the toys themselves.
Or thirdly, realize your brand isn’t as large as others and just have a revenue stream cut off.
Roblox kinda is killing the potential of young developers by not giving them the tools they need. So they just get exploited by large companies to sell off their game or something like that.
3 Likes
I wanted to have toys based on my experience but looks like that isnt happening anymore, im unable to get a partnership with some toy company as a solo dev because who actually would like to buy that? My game isnt as big as piggy or PSX.
3 Likes
I have to agree, with @OutlookG as a solo developer myself, the Stars Program, with the ability for Roblox to create some merch and toys for my experience, has really helped me be able to do this as my sole source of income.
Are there any plans to for new services that can help individual developers in regards to merch and income?
4 Likes
I’m a solo dev too, and all I can say is good luck lol.
That’s kinda why Roblox used the toy mystery boxes, to advertise the “smaller” devs
3 Likes
Now i’ll have to suffer like always because roblox is always favoritizing the big fish, while treating small passionate devs like garbage.
4 Likes
As for R#b#ox and Bl#x no longer being allowed in game titles, will this eventually apply to future group names? Because I also feel many users owning groups having B##x in their names may accidentally make a new group experience that has the group name in them without knowing that it contained Bl#x (myself included!).
Confusing is an understatement.
1 Like
I think this also wraps into the new ideologies involved with advertising and marketing. Respectfully, a healthy mix of genders, races, etc are now to be involved whenever using Rthro characters, but the original beauty of Roblox was that the original R6 blocky avatar wasn’t any race or gender, it was ambiguous to what the user wanted to appear as, and it wasn’t humanoid because it was merely in the appearance of a plastic character. If they wanted to be some cool unique creation, then they could do that. The push of Rthro also removes any uniqueness and identity to people’s avatars, especially if they continue to be forced the way they are.
6 Likes
The magic of Roblox was that the characters didn’t have any real human-like features. It was just a bunch of characters akin to LEGO minifgures running around blowing each other up with rocket launchers.
This is the sort of stuff I think of when I hear “Roblox”, not a virtual metaverse with human-like rigs.
13 Likes
Exactly, and all the features Roblox has been introducing HAVE been beneficial in some light, but the majority of the platform which are users, not developers and video creators, would not see half of that. They only care for what is on the front page, people don’t think about hyper-realistic avatars, they think about the majority, as you mentioned, blocky characters and plastic blocks flying around.
2 Likes
I 100% agree, in the only 6 years of using the platform, Roblox is differs greatly in many ways from when I joined in 2016, all of the technology that has been implemented in those years is quite impressive, although I can’t ignore the shortcomings of the platform in recent years, such as the over usage of Rthro in advertising, and how as you outlined, layered clothing being built around an avatar type that sees little to no use, and with all of the controversial metaverse branding, some people may never join the platform if they don’t enjoy the idea of living a second virtual ‘life’.
3 Likes
R6 not blocking emote clip, sometimes counted as cheating.
1 Like
Does this mean that if I make a Roblox experience and promote it on an external social network like Twitter I can put “On Roblox” badge on it as long as I follow the rules?
2 Likes
Every time I see this kind of an update, the more I want to move to another game engine or just completely move to web development.
I do not understand why Roblox started downgrading their platform by forcefully suppressing fun and iconic R6 characters to instead replace them with human rigs that are wearing layered clothing which look like an absolute joke, and in fact they’re a big meme at this point. Just to be clear, I am not against newer technology, but rather the fact that Roblox is actively trying to get rid of that one unique thing about the platform. We used to make games, and now we’re “experience” developers.
Roblox has proven that they will not listen most of the time despite the fact that plenty of developers spoke out about the issues on this platform, such as ignorance, unfair payment, lack of improvements, and lack of transparency. When will Roblox start listening to their developers? Will that ever even happen?
We don’t want “metaverse”, we want the iconic Roblox that we used to play, so please don’t push something that the platform wasn’t made for. All these “new and improved” sites didn’t show any signs of improvement but mostly downgrade in quality.
As much as I love this platform, I dislike it a lot due those reasons, and the most sad thing is that Roblox hasn’t improved a single bit so far. Plenty of my friends already had moved away from Roblox because of these things.
20 Likes
I think I can understand the reasoning behind sunsetting Stars; endorsing random creators by selling their avatars or IP is dangerous if they do something bad, and the scalability of this program is questionable. This was honestly a long time coming.
Further, I think I can understand the reasoning behind preventing developers from creating experiences titled after the Roblox brand; Unity games never refer back to their engine, that would be weird, and Roblox in the past has made it very clear that they want to step into the background in a similar way, but I think Roblox’s pursuit of this is getting aggressive and artificial. Roblox was incredible to users of all ages for years for a good reason, and I don’t think this new direction is compatible with that reason. We are losing something.
Instead of embracing what makes Roblox unique (the entire concept of the Roblox Community, and the almost family-like togetherness the platform itself created over almost 2 decades), Roblox has now dropped everything that made it truly special to its userbase and is chasing some sterile corporate ideal, distilling itself down into its minimum required components and dissolving everything else, trying to become a gargantuan and faceless platform, which is honestly just very sad? If I found Roblox today at the age I was when I discovered it in 2007, I likely would not have become a developer. I’m starting to lose that feeling like I belong to something greater. I don’t feel like I matter anymore.
I cannot say anything towards whether or not this vision will make Roblox more successful as a platform or as a company, but to us as developers, we are absolutely feeling the loss of Roblox’s identity and involvement with us. We are losing how approachable and friendly Roblox was, and trying to engage with the platform we love is getting increasingly out of reach.
Further, lately it has felt increasingly like the people in charge of the features we love just don’t care, don’t have the time to dedicate to managing them, are themselves mismanaged, or are getting priorities as they matter to developers just plain wrong. Roblox’s communication with us on important matters is getting corporate and terse, or completely nonexistent. Questions go unanswered and language is often infuriatingly vague or rife with legalese. Our feedback most of the time doesn’t feel like it ever goes anywhere (see below).
I left a lot of other related feedback in a private discord server. MisterGreenTurtle has notes from me and the other people in that server, including some great examples of instances where our feedback on matters that affect us has simply been ignored, even if low-effort, with no communication funneled back to us.
It really feels like the direction this platform is going is losing us something important.
44 Likes
Hi all, I work with Jazwares. If you are interested in learning more about working with us on licensed product, please send me a DM here on the forums. Thanks!
13 Likes
Not really making me want to keep my games on roblox, Unity is a lot more chill
2 Likes
Wow, I uh…think you’re 100% right even if you’re sorta guessing most of this.
Truth be told, this sort of thing did actually happen once in the past believe it or not…
COUGH
COUGH
And it’s kinda easy to tell that Roblox doesn’t want a repeat of this to happen on their platform, so it really does make sense when you think about it.
I mean, they’ll literality do almost anything for their investors so…yeah.
Yeah, that’s the sad truth unfortunately.
I thought that maybe things would get better over time, but copyrighting the likeness of R6 and R15 just because they want Rthro pushed even more is a new kind of low for them.
Maybe in 2035, we’ll see a Roblox animator get sued for having an R6 charcter in a Youtube video for 8 seconds.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they become the next Viacom by then.
4 Likes
This change is in no way endorsing Rthro characters. Blocky character can still be used in media (youtube, twitter, ect). This change only applies to physical products, packaging, retail displays, services, NFTs, film, TV, books, stage shows or amusement parks. R6 and R15 blocky characters have very strong brand recognition. Roblox does not want developers working with toy manufactures to exploiting that recognition and create knock-off Roblox toys. You can use blocky characters in your game and game icons but when it comes time to manufacture a toy for your game the toy design can’t have that Roblox blocky aesthetic. It will need to be altered in a way that is recognizable as your IP but not recognizable as a Roblox toy.
The reason Roblox wants “Roblox” and “Blox” removed from future games is to that when a game starts working with a toy/merch company, they won’t have any reference to Roblox on the packaging
It’s a shame they completely removed the stars program. Though stars was a terrible deal for large games it allowed smaller games to get a toy who otherwise wouldn’t. Just some changes to the exclusivity clauses would have been enough to free large games.
50 Likes