This is an idea I’m seriously considering: What if there were a shared currency between Roblox games?
I call it Devbux. Devbux can be earned, say, on any participating games, and it can be spent on any participating games. Games would have to sign up through, for example, a Google Form and the game would have to be reviewed before being opted-in to make sure it wouldn’t just give users thousands of Devbux for free. If a game were operating under a false pretense before switching to a free Devbux game, they’d obviously be removed.
You could choose to opt in under 3 different plans:
Earn and use Devbux here
Only earn Devbux here
Only use Devbux here
I can think of some pros and cons to this (and arguments to the cons)
Pros
Centralized currency allows players to “get into” games quicker
Players might want to play your game because it supports Devbux especially if your game is listed as an official Devbux supporter.
Acts as a free alternative to Robux, which can increase player happiness, which may increase player retention (especially if you offer Devbux as an alternative for Robux purchases)
Cons
This won’t work for games where you can pay for better items i.e. most simulators.
Rebuttal: That’s okay. This project wouldn’t be meant for games such as this one. This is meant for games where you pay for cosmetics, and if your simulator has cosmetics, awesome! Use this currency for those as an alternative!
Abusable. Even though you remove games which give out free Devbux, the damage is done.
Rebuttal: There could be an escrow-type system where funds must be held for one day before being released. There would be receipts and tracing to find games that are abusing the system.
What about hackers?! They can hijack the third-party server or falsify information sent to the server and give themselves money!
Rebuttal: Of course, hackers are hard to stop. But if hackers were impossible to stop, lots of external-hosted systems wouldn’t work. And of course, if one user has an absurd amount of money that can’t be traced with receipts, then they would have their funds drained.
I’d really like to know your opinions on this and if you’d use it or not!
I do not believe in a shared currency managed by (a) Roblox developer(s). The only kind of currency I believe in is an authoritative one (Robux) or my own currency.
Every game has a different valuation of the items it puts out to the players and a different reason for employing its currency. Game currency is a huge part of a game’s progression design and it seems useless and risky to entrust one’s monetisation to another’s non-authoritative currency. How you earn that currency and how you use it is also an important part of gameplay design.
Rates of accumulation of this “Devbux” can put some players at an advantage for purchases in one game while it’s imbalanced in another because again the item valuation differs between them. I do recognise this argument can be made for Robux as well but that doesn’t give validation to Devbux.
The pros are not real pros:
You want to reduce the amount of friction a player has towards purchasing so they are less resistant to buy if they enjoy your game. Robux is simple, to-the-point and known by everyone. One currency purchase, a while of fun. Why have two currencies which are virtually identical and then your own game’s currencies?
Players don’t read or care. A mention of Devbux isn’t going to magically drive metrics. There are more factors to play than just a currency you support. There’s Robux for that. This project would need to run for a long time before it has any significance in even just a little bit of acknowledgement of a game and that’s still going to only be by players who care. Remember Roblox’s audience is mostly children and they tend not to have a long attention span.
Not every game wants to go the free route. Devbux already in this capacity sounds niche.
Also, like prompting premium, why would I put so much effort into selling Devbux/Premium but other games could potentially benefit more from my efforts than myself? I’m not a statistics chaser but when I earn I’d like to keep that exclusive. I, too, want to earn a bit from my efforts.
Out for me. Wouldn’t touch a developer-ran currency.
It would be difficult to define the value of Devbux. For example I might make a game where the most expensive item is 15000 Devbux. But (this happens all the time) I update the game, occasionally adding new ways to make money, and more expensive items, so that eventually 15000 Devbux is not that much. Now somebody can play my game, make a lot of Devbux there, and spend it on another game where 15000 Devbux is still a lot.
You have a good point; this is one way where Devbux is similar to Robux but unique. Anyone can price gamepasses as anything with Robux, but users can’t really earn Robux. The best way I can think of is a Devbux guideline that pegs the value of Devbux to Robux, but I’d have to get community agreement. These things’ll probably be ironed out at some point.
I get that Robux is simple and well know, but you need to buy it with real money or become a developer to earn it. Devbux is not like that, because you can earn it by playing games, and it doesn’t cost real money (and I don’t think it should be bought with Robux either). With my experience with Robux, it has always been frustrating that you have to pay, since I didn’t really have money, it was kinda depressing.
That’s not a downside for anyone looking to monetise their experience and earn cash from it. The whole point of monetising your experience is getting money from it and to do that there needs to be a money flow from somewhere, which is players buying Premium/Robux and spending it on your experience.
“Devbux” does not have a real world equivalent nor is it exchangeable for real currency so it’s not an authoritative, stable or worthwhile currency to use in your experience. You can simply provide your players second or third currencies to drive engagement in your own experience. You lose exclusive incentive and strength in a retention route when you introduce something that’s just usable everywhere. Currency is part of progression and progression is a vital factor in designing an experience.
For players that can’t get Robux, that’s where you drive free-to-play features to engage non-paying users and make them also feel welcome in your experience. At some point if they are able to earn Robux then you can also turn them into a paying user and you will often keep a paying user’s retention whether because they really enjoy the experience enough to spend on it or because of sunk cost.
It’s unfortunate if you aren’t able to afford Robux but that should not be translated into a penalty for developers. We want (or need) to earn as well. A user’s inability to be a paying user is not our concern as developers beyond how we design our features to feel inclusive to paying and non-paying users.