Roblox is introducing two new systems that are designed to further encourage creators to bring players onto the social games platform on a regular basis. The systems, part of what Roblox is calling Creator Rewards, will roll out beginning July 24th.
One is the Daily Engagement Reward program, which gives Roblox creators 5 Robux for an “active spender” on the platform who spends at least 10 minutes in their experience in one day. 5 Robux isn’t a lot on its own — depending on where you buy Robux, that can translate to about five cents — but if an experience brings back thousands or millions of people every day, that could add up quickly. Roblox may also change the payout in the future, it says in a blog post.
To be eligible for the reward, a creator’s experience must also be one of the first three experiences an active spender (which the platform defines as a user who has spent at least $9.99 in the last 60 days) launches each day.
The choice to offer these payouts after the first three experiences isn’t an exact science, Roblox CPO Manuel Bronstein tells The Verge. It’s more that those first three experiences are why you may come to the platform in a given day, he says, while you might visit experiences after those first three because you found something new through recommendations or because of a friend’s suggestion.
Bronstein doesn’t think creators will change their experiences to optimize just for that 10-minute threshold. “Continue to build a great product, continue to build a great game, continue to build a great experience, and you will benefit from this reward,” he says.
He also points out that these engagement-based rewards aren’t the sole mechanism for Roblox creators to make money. The “vast” majority of transactions for Roblox developers come from transactions that they generate on the platform, according to Bronstein, and creators can also monetize with things like ads, subscriptions, and even selling physical goods.
The second program Roblox is adding is the Audience Expansion Reward, which pays creators a revenue share of purchases from Roblox users who join or return to the platform because of them. Roblox will apply the credit if a player joins the platform through a creator’s link or if a player searches for a creator’s experience on Roblox by name and plays for at least 10 minutes. This new system will eventually take over for Roblox’s current Creator Affiliate program. This program will offer a 35 percent revenue share to creators on up to the first $100 those new or returning users spend in their first two months on Roblox.
