At its annual Roblox Developer Conference on Friday, the company announced a series of changes coming to the platform over the coming months and years. Most notably, Roblox will be adding more ways for creators to earn money from their experiences, as well as announcing a project to encourage generative AI creation on the platform.
The company is introducing a new program that will give creators a higher percentage of revenue from paid experiences on desktop. Creators will receive 50% of revenue from $9.99 paid experiences, 60% of revenue from $29.99 experiences, and 70% of revenue from $49.99 experiences. Currently, creators only get about 25% of revenue from paid experiences, so this change marks a significant increase in revenue sharing.
Roblox chief product officer Manuel Bronstein said in an interview with TechCrunch that the company believes the change will encourage more traditional game developers to bring their games to the platform.
Image credit: Roblox
The company also announced that it's partnering with Shopify to enable creators to sell physical goods directly within their experiences, and Roblox plans to pilot the integration with select creators, brands, and e-commerce partners later this year.
To further support creators, Roblox is rolling out a “price optimization” tool that will run tests to help developers identify the best price for in-experience purchases. In some cases, the tool will suggest to developers to lower the price of an item to increase sales, benefiting both developers and players.
Similarly, the company will begin experimenting with geographic pricing recommendations to help developers tailor prices to local markets.
Empowering generative AI creation
On the AI front, Roblox announced that it is working on developing a 3D foundational model to foster generative creation on the platform. The model will be open-source and multi-modal, allowing creators to generate 3D content using text, video and prompts.
“A creator can say, 'I want to create a world in the Scottish Highlands that has a castle and a stormy day and a dragon backdrop, and I want to create all of this in a steampunk steam style, and the output will be the creation of a complete scene,” Bronstein said.
He noted that generative AI currently focuses on photos and videos, not 3D creation, but Roblox needs 3D objects, so when you look at a tree, it needs to behave as a tree and be visible from all directions.
Bronstein noted that Roblox is focused on empowering more people to develop and create games, rather than replacing the creative process. For example, you may be a great developer, but struggle with the artistic requirements of game creation. The goal of the 3D Foundations model is to make it easier for anyone to get started on the platform and to help current teams speed up the game development process.
And just because we have an output doesn't mean we'll implement it right away: Developers will likely tweak and modify the AI-generated content, Bronstein said.
Image credit: Roblox
Additionally, Roblox revealed that it is rolling out a new technology called “Harmony” that will allow developers to automatically optimize experiences for different devices and network conditions.
Making Roblox more social
Roblox already has social features that allow users to interact with each other, but the company is introducing new ways for users to interact.
First, it adds “Parties,” a new way for groups of friends to navigate Roblox together as a group in private chats. If a user is under 13, they can chat with text. If a user is over 13, they can use voice chat. Users in a party can chat with each other even if they’re playing different games, and can send each other invites if they all want to play the same game.
The company also plans to introduce forums later this year, providing a dedicated space for users to share feedback, discuss gameplay, and report any issues they may have encountered.
Image credit: Roblox
In order to make the platform a place where people can discover new music, Roblox plans to introduce new features called “What's Playing” and “Music Charts” that will let users find trending songs from up-and-coming artists. Roblox also plans to integrate with music distribution service DistroKid, allowing artists to upload and share music on the platform.
All of the features announced today are part of Roblox's ambitious goal to earn 10% of all gaming content revenue worldwide through its ecosystem. The company hasn't said when it plans to achieve this goal, but believes the changes it's introducing will help it reach this milestone.