Sorry if this isn’t the right category !!
I’m working on a new game and it has crates where you can get items with random weighted chances.
All the items you can get sell for LESS than the crate costs to open (ex: crate cost $75m, most expensive item sells in crate for $25m)
I’m unsure of it all and I don’t know what is considered as “gambling” on Roblox or the guidelines, so I just want to make sure I’m not in the wrong or anything !!
This wouldn’t be considered “gambling”, because as you’ve probably seen in simulators, you exchange items for money. And with that money, you buy other stuff. So this would not be considered “gambling”.
EDIT 06/20/2023
As of the same date of this edit, Roblox has officially moved to ban simulated gambling by September 18th, 2023 (in 3 months), which means that all forms of gambling are no longer allowed on the platform. This contrasts the prior stance to which, as long as there was no Robux involved, it could be passable.
The advice in this post is no longer accurate. Please avoid sharing this as an answer. For more information, please see Updating our policy on simulated gambling in the thread Create Experiences for People 17 and Older on Roblox.
There are two policies that are relevant to obtaining items through generators with Robux: gambling and paid virtual random items (or lootboxes/gacha). The difference in which one you need to abide by is primarily determined by if the player can lose currency or not.
The system you’ve outlined falls under the paid random virtual items policy. This is because the player may buy a crate and is always guaranteed an item from said crate. The policy dictates that you must disclose the odds of obtaining items from the crate with full transparency so players know what they can get from your crates if any Robux is directly or indirectly involved.
To be clear on our terms: direct involvement of Robux is of course using Robux to pay for a feature, while indirectly means that Robux is involved at some point (e.g. if an in-game currency is purchasable and the in-game currency can be used on the generator). Either type of involvement enacts these policies when you have item generators in your game.
I can see where the trickiness may kick in and it’s because your sell value of items obtained from the crates is lower than the crate opening cost, so selling the item would therefore mean Robux loss and thus gambling. A player is not required to sell their item and may keep it, so this does not fall under the gambling policy. The player is guaranteed their item when they pay, so their purchase is appropriately honoured. They have the option to turn that item back in for a partial refund.
I personally would never significantly devalue an item’s worth by 66% as your example shows and would give a higher or matched sell percentage to any item obtained from an item generator. If my game has materials which allow upgrading/forging other items, I would allow them to “salvage” crate items for materials of equivalent value so they still effectively get good use of their Robux.
What I’m saying is: no this does not fall under gambling but instead a different policy relating to lootbox/gacha systems which has different demands.
You can read more about the paid random virtual items policy here: