This is a amazing update for groups and smaller games, this can help build up certain communities.
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“There are no traits that a boy or girl is just born with.” First of all, controversial/political opinions have NO place here, and second, please don’t refer to a dated hypothesis as objective fact. Everyone has their own beliefs on the subject, and it isn’t your place to make up their minds for them.
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Out of curiosity: will we be able to use group funds directly to sponsor our games without having to payout to ourselves?
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How do we know if we have the new sponsor page?
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Will the same thing ever be considered for advetising (like actual ads)?
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How exactly do I find the option to run for 28 days? Can’t seem to find it.
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I understand you wish to rewrite the course of gender identity for the generation of tomorrow, but what does that have to do with the majority of millions who already have their dispositions. I don’t think roblox is instilling anything to the player that’s already been reinforced at home. If a gender fluid boy wants to play princess and dress-up games, he can easily access those games, what is merely sponsored to them hardly influences them.
Besides, everything you claim is theoretical and hotly debated, not a concrete fact. Let’s stay away from controversy and focus on the intention of the feature: as an effective tool for developers to market their games. The front page already has recommendations based on the user’s history. Gender statistics and sponsoring will benefit people more than you presume it’ll supposedly harm a small statistic.
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!!User Ads have stopped working for me and also seem to not work for other players. Also when previewing a sponsorship using new design I get taken to a blank page and this only happens for sponsoring group games!!!
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This is a great addition! I have a game that is intended for older audiences and have had very negative experiences of advertising it in the past, due to the sponsor being displayed to everyone. The sponsors have received low CTR and high dislike ratios, despite it being a beloved game amongst it’s target audience. With this system, I will be able to advertise the game to a much more accurate audience and thus benefit more from the sponsors. Thank you, Roblox.
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but can we remove already created Sponsored Games?
What kind of stats can we track?
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I’m looking forward for this update to roll out as I’m excited that advertising is finally getting an update.
Regarding the whole gender topic going on here, this is a real way of marketing games. I have to agree with @Lua_Cappy. Boys are more likely to play military games while girls are more likely to play games that are more calm. You can basically figure that out by playing any game that is military based or is dress-up related.
This rebuilt sponsored system is new and has plenty of time to add new things to it. The option of “other” may come down the road at some point. Personally, I do not want to see sponsored ads for a game that is targeted for the opposite gender. I’d much preferably like to play games targeted for me and my gender, hence why I will like this new way of advertising a game.
People’s feelings when it comes to people trying to make a living shouldn’t be a debate. Nobody really knows your gender unless you tell them in all honesty. It’s up to you what you want to click on or even advertise. The option shouldn’t be removed just because a few feelings may be hurt. Instead, wait for things to be added.
I’ve been on Roblox for many of years, ads do not influence my choice of what I want to play or not in the first place, but it would be nice to see things I am more likely to be interested in. Regardless, this is going to help many developers in the future and I see it as a step forward in growing a game or community.
6 Likes
I don’t think it’s good dev forum practice to attribute a quote while replying to someone, whether or not you’re using the official Discourse quote feature, that they did not say. In my opinion, you should edit your post to no longer contain quotes, or make sure you say that the following is not what the author stated.
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With all due respect, your argument is silly and ignores the fact that the entire industry, and every ad platform, has gender targeting. Like it or not, a lot (but not all) of goods and services (including Roblox games) are targeted to a gender. It’s not remotely unethical; you’re overreacting.
With regards to ‘nonbinary folx and closeted trans people’, they will be a small % of users (meaning the benefit of better targeting outweighs the negatives).
There will be a small group of people that don’t conform to the gender-targeted marketing and don’t fit into the societal boxes, but again, small % of users, outweighs the negative.
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Absolutely… not. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having more options to select from and quite on the contrary is not limiting this platform in any way. Developers cannot see who has selected either gender anyway, which is not conflicting with the privacy and safety of the players.
Not all games are gender neutral. Like a princess game for example which you might want to target females for this kind of game to get more out of your advertisement time. Again, having more options is not limiting the platform!! The gender targeting option is much more likely to be more helpful than not for those who can find a practical use for it.
I think that all these comments from fragile people about the gender targeting feature are just biased and very overexaggerated. It’s 2020, and the 21st century, the spectrum is mostly accepted by now, so there’s no need to go all Trump on this. =)
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Perhaps instead of gender targeted advertising, when a player joins Roblox, they have the option to select games that seem like something they’d like to play, kind of like how twitter lets you follow certain accounts when you first join.
It’s not directly correlated with any gender, just your game preferences.
You have 9 games listed, and the user can select the game icons which seem like something they would enjoy. Each game is tied with a specific demographic, whether it be feminine, masculine, or very generalized. Based on what they pick, they will then receive targeted sponsor ads for their chosen demographic.
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This would be a great addition and improvements to game targeting (and game discovery, outside of sponsored content); doesn’t mean that gender should be removed as an option, because they will be edge cases where it is necessary.
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Sponsoring has always been my main way of advertising my game because it’s well very well for me for the past few years. However, I’m definitely not okay with the gender profiling at all. Firstly, it’s problematic because you are assigning specific interests to specific genders based off society’s views. Boys should be marketed a princess game as much as females because what someone likes isn’t based off their gender. Secondly, not everyone has a static gender. Some people might be male, some might be female, but others may feel like both, neither, etc. If you specifically market a game to one specific gender, you are excluding the more “atypical” genders, which is problematic for hopefully obvious reasons.
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I agree that gender can be a useful tool, I just like to think my suggestion is a nice middle ground for those absolutely opposed to gender targeted advertising.
1 Like
I agree with the resonant that ‘boys toys’ and ‘girls toys’ is a stupid divide, However, the society we live in has businesses target some products based on gender; that’s just a fact of society. Market research shows that (as a result of societal gender roles and childhood cannalisation) boys are less likely to want to play a ‘princess fairy simulator’.
Roblox is simply giving us, developers, the tools to decide how and to whom we market our games. If you want boys to play your princess fairy simulator, nothing is stopping you from marketing to them. However for developers that believe that their game’s market is segmented based on gender, they have the tools and the choice on what gender they can market their game to.
See also: LuaBraryGood’s reply (below). He hit the nail on the head.
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The harsh reality of it in, in a competitive business environment it is essential to target by gender and in the reality of games there is a gender stereotype of who would prefer it more.
While stereotyping is not good in everyday life, in business its considered pretty normal and without it you are effectively going o be wasting half your money your spending on marketing.
For example, if you have a game where 99% of players are likely to be boys, there is no point marketing an ad towards boys and girls since you are effectively wasting half the money on an audience who will never consider playing your game.
12 Likes