So are plugins now 100 robux+ in price? If that is that is not a great change and I feel like it’s not doing a lot. As long as you can price it free then I am fine with this update. As @rabbi99 said small developers won’t be able to afford such plugins. I am using about 15+ plugins with will cost about 1.5k robux 15$. And you won’t be able to know if you be able to profit enough to “re gain” the spendings. There are lots of developers that work on games using plugins to create them and don’t charge money but now they will probably have to make some microtransactions. If you want to stick to the quote “Power of Imagination” then please make plugins to be free. Instead of forcing payments to prevent scams then write a script to detect malicious scripts within the plugin.
Wouldn’t this (almost) completely kill plugin sales?
I personally would love to pay and support a developer who made a useful tool, but I know most Studio users are young and would consider 100 robux or even any paid plugins as a non option.
Could we hear more about what’s being done on the safer side of the Plugin Marketplace? It’s mentioned in the thread but there’s only financial coverage here.
A while ago when paid plugins became a feature on Roblox, it was made very apparent by testimonies from those in the program that selling plugins is not sustainable and is even dangerous. The price floor doesn’t make a significant difference in the expected revenue for developers and may even reinforce the aforementioned danger of using the plugin marketplace.
Please see the following discussion, where the issue of death threats was even raised simply for selling plugins for less than a few dollars:
This is a way of protecting all plugin creators. Those that underprice their work set a precedent that no one should charge high prices. As seen many times, plugin developers have been harassed before for pricing their plugins any higher than a few cents.
A hard floor prevents this harassment from happening as it’s physically impossible to charge any lower.
The developer community brought it upon themselves. They couldn’t stop harassing plugin developers for perceived “”“high”"" prices, so Roblox had to step up.
This change seems meaningless without additional ways to show off plugin functionality to potential buyers.
How is someone going to justify putting down money for a plugin if all they can see is some barebones asset description text (no markdown or anything, yes you can link to external domains but that’s a hack to begin with), no thumbnails apart from the main square asset thumbnail, no video/gif to show what the plugin does? We need markdown support, image/video/gif reels, and other features like reviews and statistics to promote our plugins to justify higher price points.
It would be nice if the order of improvements to the plugin marketplace would be additive, I don’t think this step as the first step is the best choice.
This update looks like a bandaid fix to the complaints about plugin developers not making any money.
If the minimum price is 100 Robux, wouldn’t that deter users from buying paid plugins? I can’t expect an increase in profit to plugin developers by raising the minimum price.
I’m also intetested on how much Roblox relies on plugin sales. Would it damage them if they were to remove the 30% tax altogether for plugin sales?
This is more about how creators should be able to price things however they want, i see no reason for a 100 robux minimum, unlike the 5 robux one for most which is just for math reasons.
I too, find 0x1D quite useful…
You could use a tool like remodel on your built RBXMs with some sort of source obfuscation API. (Won’t link anything in specific for obvious reasons…)
As of now, with how it all works, we’ll need to worry about all more security-based factors ourselves, but I think Roblox could eventually work on a better set of solutions for plugin developers.
While the price floor is an interesting attempt at a culture change, I don’t expect it will improve the amount of money developers make when all of the supporting infra around plugins is poor. A description and icon will not and will never convince anyone, especially the majority of roblox developers with limited robux to buy anything. We need videos/gifs for plugin demonstration, at least images other than the plugin icon. These changes at best seem more like patchwork to improve a bad situation rather than any development that actually improves the core problems.
They’ve been able to price them however they want but would be shunned and harassed by users when charging anything close to 100 robux. This update sets a minimum price floor to help prevent developers from undervaluing their work, especially as the marketplace program opens up more.
If you ask me, 100 robux is still far too slow, but whatever.
If Roblox wants people to develop more plugins, stop taking ~75% of the money the buyer spent on the plugin.
On average R$80 costs $1. If I sell a plugin for R$160, that costs $2 to the buyer and I earn $0.39. This gap in cost/earnings is disrespectfully high and way too big for anybody to even consider developing plugins as being a good source of income
Unless I missed something in this post I really don’t see how this helps anyone. From what I read in the post all it is doing is just stopping people putting there plugins for a small amount under 100. I know personally I am not really willing to pay much for a plugin unless it’s a really good one I want.
I also don’t see how like some people above have been saying about how it will reduce copies of plugins and to be honest I don’t massively see any positives to this update. Sure it will make people not be able to under value there work but 100 is not much at all. I just don’t see how this helps any one tbh. Also I don’t understand why people keep saying it will allow them to earn more, I personally think this update would rather reduce sales of plugins cuz people might be less willing to pay causing plugin devs to just put them free.
Like what @gillern said if you really want to help us be able to make real profits off a game and plugins then remove the % or at least reduce it. Or you could make us get more via DevEx which I think would be even better. On Roblox at the moment it’s legit nearly impossible to make a living off unlike other platforms where it is possible. I know some people will say things like “Well Roblox gives us a free to use platform” which is true but the price of Robux to purchase is sooo much and how much Roblox earns I kinda feel we should get more.
This update changes nothing really at all. I wish rather then just giving an update Roblox would explain well why this is being implemented.
If anyone can see any real benefits about this update I would love to hear them but from what I can see it’s just pointless.
UPDATE: I just found out that not everyone can put plugins for sale which I just find also pointless. How about Roblox just removes the whole plugin program and make it so everyone can just make plugins for sale on the marketplace rather then having this update. Gonna allow more people to earn money rather then this update that is 100% pointless.
Game developers: imagine if the only way to make a source of income was to convert your game to Paid Access. Not only does this restrict a large majority of your players, it also severely limits your income potential. That’s in addition to an economy where there are tremendously fewer developers (buying plugins) than players (buying game-related products).
This does not provide any meaningful change at all.
Without new inventive revenue sources or the introduction of changes like a reduced plugin fee there will continue to be little-to-no incentive for experienced developers and large teams to truly invest into the marketplace. The stigma around paid plugins will remain.
Roblox: why do you expect developers to devote time, hard work and years of experience to the marketplace when they can alternatively earn x100 fold the income by creating a game within the same space of time? The marketplace cannot continue to depend on the good will of the community. Good will doesn’t pay for rent. It doesn’t pay for large teams of highly specialized developers.
I’m really happy with the price floor. Creators were being pressured to sell their plugins for far too low of a price and now customers are forced to pay fair prices to plugin developers.
