Roblox announced a series of user-oriented changes at its Roblox Developers Conference on Friday, including updates to Roblox usage and how much revenue creators can earn with their “experiences,” along with a new communication system for users and new ways to sell products on the platform.
Roblox is hoping to usher more money toward users. One way is by offering new ways for creators to optimize pricing inside their experiences. A new Price Optimization tool will run tests to find the best pricing strategy, while the company will experiment with regional pricing. Elsewhere, Roblox will soon allow creators to sell physical merchandise inside their experiences. Previously, everything has been virtual, like with how the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice partner collaboration let people buy digital tickets through Fandango.
Finally, creators will be rewarded for bringing new users to the platform thanks to a new affiliate program. Like with other similar programs, people can set up unique links and, if potential users follow through and sign up, the creator will get a cut of what that person spends. This is coupled with a new pricing structure that’ll give creators a higher revenue share (up to 70% for a $50 experience, as an example).
In a follow-up interview with The Verge, Roblox CEO David Baszucki said that all of this is aimed at expanding the user base of the platform and the kinds of content that can be set up. “We believe we’re setting the groundwork for a more expansive range of type of content on the platform,” Baszucki said.
There’s also the new “Party” system that’ll let players age nine and older communicate with friends via text and those 13 and older use voice to chat. While both are expected to be available by the end of 2024, text chat will launch first. The company will also be rebranding Roblox Groups to Communities. Their foundations are basically the same, allowing players to connect over shared interests, but Communities will have forums that allow for more in-depth discussion than what Groups has now.
Beyond just being a messaging app, Party can let you join an experience together. Just join a group with your friends and hop in. Roblox also hopes to add an API that’ll allow developers to do more with Party. As an example, Baszucki says that developers can take a Party and put it into a private server, or at the same save state.
All of this is in service of helping Roblox continue to expand and reach its ultimate goal: to have 10% of all gaming revenue “flow through the Roblox ecosystem and be distributed within our Roblox community” and to reach 300 million daily active users, according to Baszucki. As of June, Roblox reported it had 79.5 million active daily users.
