**Monetizing a Roblox Experience with Erythia, MrFergie & Shawnyg — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/monetizing-roblox-experience-erythia-mrfergie-shawnyg/

Roblox roundtable on monetizing experiences: developers Erythia, MrFergie and Shawnyg discuss paid access, free-to-play transitions, and ethical monetization balance.

## Key Takeaways

- Start with a strong game; monetization should reward effort rather than drive design.
- Offer a range of price points so both big spenders and low-budget players can participate.
- Avoid pay-to-win: keep purchases cosmetic or convenience-based where progression matters.
- Paid access during early development can limit market exposure but help fund work.
- Monetization can be adjusted after launch based on player feedback and data.

## What the video covers

- Level Up roundtable hosted by Erin (Breakfast Candy) with Roblox's Dan (DSpav) and three developers.
- Emergency Response: Liberty County's developers (Tripp and Shawn) describe how they met through a roleplay group and how the game grew from early access.
- Emergency Response launched in paid access (around 300 Robux) before lowering the price to 15-25 Robux and going free to play.
- Erythia, co-founder of Sonar Studios (Creatures of Sonaria, Dragon Adventures, Griffin's Destiny), explains paid access during alpha/beta to limit release and fund development.
- Developers discuss when to start considering monetization, ideally with a 'make a great game first' mindset.
- Panelists argue for a healthy range of price points so players with little Robux still feel they can support the game.
- Ethical concerns are raised, especially avoiding aggressive monetization that makes games feel pay-to-win.
- Pay-to-win is discussed as unfair advantage purchases; the panel suggests offering fair options and balancing paid content.
- Developers note they can adjust monetization after launch if feedback or revenue indicates problems.
- Emergency Response's economy is discussed: limiting purchases so players cannot skip seasonal content like Halloween updates.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and Panelist Welcome
2. 02:22 Developer Backgrounds and Origin Stories
3. 07:17 Paid Access to Free-to-Play Transition
4. 14:22 When to Consider Monetization in Design
5. 25:20 Pricing Ranges and Player Value
6. 44:00 Ethics and Pay-to-Win Concerns
7. 61:00 Balancing Monetization and Fairness
8. 88:20 Protecting Seasonal Content and Economy

Answers

## Questions about this video

Why did Emergency Response start as a paid access game?

Emergency Response initially launched in early access at around 300 Robux. The developers said this was a way to fund development and manage the release. The price was later lowered to 15-25 Robux before the game went free to play.

What do the panelists consider pay-to-win, and why is it a problem?

Pay-to-win refers to purchases that give players an unfair advantage over others. The panel said aggressive monetization like this makes players feel the game is unfair. They recommend fair options and balanced paid content instead.

When should developers start thinking about monetization?

The panelists suggested focusing first on making a great game, treating monetization as a reward for the hard work and experience put into it. Monetization can be adjusted later if needed.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:07

Speaker A

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our latest Level Up roundtable, "Monetizing a Roblox Experience." I'm Erin, also known as Breakfast Candy, and today we'll be joined by three amazing developers and Roblox's own Dan, a.k.a. DSpav.

00:22

Speaker A

Dspav. Dan, take it away! Thank you, Erin. And welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us today.

00:28

Speaker A

Dan, take it away!

00:36

Speaker A

So we're excited to finally get to it. Today, we're joined by some awesome panelists with some really great experiences.

00:44

Speaker A

Thank you, Erin, and welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us today.

00:55

Speaker A

Guys welcome. Thanks for joining us today. Are you guys doing today? Hey, thanks for having us.

01:01

Speaker A

We're really excited to have this roundtable. I think this is probably our most highly requested roundtable whenever we send out a survey to everyone.

01:10

Speaker A

Tripp, Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do on the team and how long have you been on Roblox?

01:15

Speaker A

So we're excited to finally get to it. Today, we're joined by some awesome panelists with some really great experiences, and we're going to jam on some really great monetization topics today.

01:23

Speaker A

And then I made a game. My own Emergency Response: Liberty County. It's been out since 2018.

01:30

Speaker A

So starting us off, and introducing first from the Emergency Response: Liberty County team, I want to introduce Shawn and Tripp.

01:44

Speaker A

Awesome. Awesome. And Sean, tossing it over to you, please introduce yourself. Flex your Roblox street cred.

01:50

Speaker A

Guys, welcome. Thanks for joining us today. How are you doing today?

01:59

Speaker A

So like if you see an update come out, any of the coding behind it is pretty much me for the most part.

02:05

Speaker A

Hey, thanks for having us. Doing great. Yep, doing awesome.

02:11

Speaker A

I see. So you do like all the real work and Tripp's just like the idea guy, right?

02:15

Speaker A

Awesome. So, introducing each of you, I like to start out with your street cred. Tripp, tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do on the team, and how long have you been on Roblox?

02:23

Speaker A

We met in a role play group on Roblox, and we met through a mutual friend, actually, because we all were in that group at one point working for.

02:32

Speaker A

Oh, well, I've been on Roblox since I was a little kid, about 2010. I started playing police and city games, and then I made a game, my own, Emergency Response: Liberty County. It's been out since 2018.

02:40

Speaker A

And I was like, Oh, you know, try to try to set something up with me and group.

02:44

Speaker A

Okay. And what do you do on the team?

02:54

Speaker A

And yeah, I did. Yeah. So Emergency Response is kind of popular. When what was like?

03:02

Speaker A

Well, I basically just lead everything: general direction, the vision of future updates, and putting everything in order. And a little bit of UI and UX here and there.

03:07

Speaker A

Well, from early access release in late 2018, it pretty quickly started to get some traction.

03:15

Speaker A

Awesome. Awesome. And Shawn, tossing it over to you, please introduce yourself. Flex your Roblox street cred. How long have you been on the platform?

03:28

Speaker A

Yeah, well, I love that you mention paid access because I think that's a really interesting experience that you had that not every developer has.

03:37

Speaker A

I've been on since about 2011, and for the game I pretty much do any of the main scripting. So if you see an update come out, any of the coding behind it is pretty much me for the most part.

03:43

Speaker A

But like, what was the what was the decision to switch from paid access to free to play?

03:49

Speaker A

And yeah, I've been on with the game since December 2018, and it's been cool.

04:07

Speaker A

But we we slowly lowered the price already down to 15 and 25 robux right before going free to play.

04:14

Speaker A

I see. So you do all the real work, and Tripp's just the idea guy, right?

04:26

Speaker A

So you felt like you had enough content ready for the greater hordes of Roblox to come?

04:31

Speaker A

Yeah. How did you guys meet? How did you get together and start working on Emergency Response?

04:38

Speaker A

For those living under a rock who have never seen or played it. Maybe we could show them what it's all about.

04:45

Speaker A

We met in a roleplay group on Roblox, and we met through a mutual friend, actually, because we were all in that group at one point, working for it. And then a mutual friend, who is our community manager, LostInfinity, basically hit me up like, "Hey, why don't you just come work for the game?" And I was like, "Oh, let's try to set something up with the group." And luckily it all worked out nicely.

04:57

Speaker A

With new air generated emergencies. You can rescue civilians from plane crashes, tunnel collapses, car wrecks and more.

05:09

Speaker A

It was basically immediately after I released the early access alpha version, and they just hit me up and said, "Hey, do you need some help?" And yeah, I did.

05:19

Speaker A

It's not the new experience anymore. But how did that do for you guys? Oh, it was pretty good.

05:25

Speaker A

Yeah. So Emergency Response is kind of popular. Was there a moment when it suddenly blew up? Can you talk about that a little bit?

05:32

Speaker A

So this time we pretty much doubled the map, introduced the whole bunch of features they loved.

05:37

Speaker A

Well, from the early access release in late 2018, it pretty quickly started to get some traction. It wasn't a lot at first. It was paid access when we first released in early access, and it was almost 300 Robux, but within weeks we had full servers, and it just constantly and organically grew from there.

05:54

Speaker A

Erythia, welcome to Level Up again. Thanks for joining us today. Why don't you introduce yourself?

06:00

Speaker A

Yeah, I love that you mention paid access, because I think that's a really interesting experience that not every developer has. So I'd love to pick your brain on that today, but ultimately I guess we could start at a high level and dig in later on. What was the decision to switch from paid access to free to play?

06:08

Speaker A

Before I was working with Sonar Studios, but recently we merged as companies and I co-founded Sonar Studios with AlertCoderF, and I've created Creatures of Sonaria, Dragon Adventures, and now I'm working on Griffin's Destiny and I do 3D modeling, animation, general game design and environment design.

06:29

Speaker A

We initially decided to make it paid access just during early access, during alpha and beta, to limit our release to market until the game had all the planned features we wanted it to have, and also to support development. But we slowly lowered the price down to 15 and 25 Robux right before going free to play. We did it to reach the greater market. By the time we went free to play, the game had everything we wanted for a full market push.

06:37

Speaker A

So now you're that you're sort of the head of everything. Do you actually get to do any of that art and animation and stuff anymore?

06:44

Speaker A

So you felt like you had enough content ready for the greater hordes of Roblox to come?

06:53

Speaker A

I would say, Yeah, I would never give up working directly in games. Never. That's my favorite.

07:01

Speaker A

That's right. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Erin, I believe we have a clip of Emergency Response here, for those living under a rock who have never seen or played it. Maybe we could show them what it's all about.

07:04

Speaker A

And you always kind of got to get in there and do it. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that.

07:10

Speaker A

You wanted a map expansion. You got it. Explore areas like the new historic downtown strip and the new industrial zone, with new air-generated emergencies. You can rescue civilians from plane crashes, tunnel collapses, car wrecks, and more in Liberty County. Explore the new summer update today.

07:17

Speaker A

Griffin. Yeah. So Griffin's Destiny is actually releasing fully in three days. It's free to play and you roleplay as a griffin.

07:28

Speaker A

Awesome. So summer is over? I guess so. It's not the new experience anymore. But how did that do for you guys?

07:39

Speaker A

So tons of cool information on that. Awesome. Awesome. So there you have it. I know we're going to be uploading this video a couple of weeks later, but for those who are attending today, you know, they get a sneak peek of this awesome game that's coming out.

07:53

Speaker A

Oh, it was pretty good. The entire community loved it. Since we usually have an annual tradition of a summer update, we made the map bigger. This time we pretty much doubled the map and introduced a whole bunch of features they loved. And yeah, there's definitely a lot of hype surrounding it.

08:04

Speaker A

No, it's just another day, another day, another dollar. You know what they say, but, you know, we've already seen the numbers and people are already so excited.

08:14

Speaker A

Awesome. All right. Well, moving on, we're waiting patiently to introduce someone, actually once again, because she is our very second returning guest to the show. Erythia, welcome to Level Up again. Thanks for joining us today. Why don't you introduce yourself?

08:22

Speaker A

Yeah. Yeah. So you guys. Yeah, you're pretty well known for doing sort of like an early access thing and then suddenly pulling the switch.

08:30

Speaker A

Hi. So I'm Mary, and I have a new title. I'm now the Director of Creativity at Twin Atlas. Before, I was working with Sonar Studios, but recently we merged as companies. I co-founded Sonar Studios with AlertCoderF, and I've created Creatures of Sonaria, Dragon Adventures, and now I'm working on Griffin's Destiny. I do 3D modeling, animation, general game design, and environment design, so everything visual.

08:42

Speaker A

In a world where creatures run. Dragons fly. Battleship sail. And beasts lurk. Fight. Survive.

08:58

Speaker A

Ah, congratulations. That's incredible, all of your success there. Secondly, I have a question for you. Now that you're sort of the head of everything, do you actually get to do any of that art and animation and stuff anymore?

09:15

Speaker A

Yeah. All me. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us. All right, This is our introduction.

09:22

Speaker A

Oh yeah. Director of Creativity kind of comes along with working on core games, so I really got lucky with that. I would never give up working directly in games. Never. That's my favorite.

09:27

Speaker A

Starting off, I wanted to ask you all about monetization goals and throw out a little softball to everybody here.

09:34

Speaker A

Yeah. So you would never want to just manage the people who do it. You always kind of have to get in there and do it.

09:43

Speaker A

It's pretty straightforward for us. Helps you get paid for your work and can provide a sustainable job for you.

09:50

Speaker A

Yeah, I feel that.

10:04

Speaker A

Yeah sure. That's a good point. Yes. And also. If if you can make games and you like to make games on Roblox, then why not have it be your full time job?

10:14

Speaker A

Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us a little bit about the most recent project you're working on?

10:25

Speaker A

And also, Shawn, I like your point too. I hadn't really thought of it that way.

10:28

Speaker A

Griffin's Destiny. Yeah. It's actually releasing fully in three days. It's free to play, and you roleplay as a griffin. We're taking a more modern approach to the animal roleplay game genre, so it's pretty interesting, and I'll be able to speak on it later today with the crates and all that kind of stuff. So, tons of cool information on that.

10:35

Speaker A

Yeah definitely. Because at the start it was only it was pretty much only just the three of us working on the game.

10:41

Speaker A

Awesome. Awesome. So there you have it. I know we're going to be uploading this video a couple of weeks later, but for those who are attending today, they get a sneak peek of this awesome game that's coming out. You mentioned you have a couple of titles under your belt now. Are you nervous anymore about new releases, or is this just another day at the job for you?

10:49

Speaker A

So it definitely helps though. Or sorry, Twin Atlas Studios. Yeah, I forgot it, but yeah.

10:58

Speaker A

No, it's just another day, another dollar, as they say. But we've already seen the numbers, and people are already so excited. With our tendency to release games as soon as they're playable, we kind of see how it's going to do early on.

11:09

Speaker A

I mean, I feel like a lot of developers resonate with like working for free off the off the bat.

11:14

Speaker A

Yeah. You guys are pretty well known for doing an early access thing and then suddenly pulling the switch.

11:20

Speaker A

But now that teams expand and there's more games that we want to do, more ideas we definitely monetize for ourselves for making money.

11:30

Speaker A

Yes. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today. I believe, Erin, we have a trailer of formerly known as Sonar Studios, now Twin Atlas, and some of the great creations that you have here.

11:36

Speaker A

But I would also say that we want to monetize because it took so long for so many of us to hone and practice our skills that you're paying for developers who have worked so hard and really understand the art of game development.

11:51

Speaker A

In a world where creatures run. Dragons fly. Battleshi

11:57

Speaker A

Like, you know, you're not really doing yourself a service there. But I've also seen that from a lot of developers I've interacted with where they feel like, you know, they kind of have imposter syndrome.

12:07

Speaker A

They're like, I don't know if my work is like good enough to make money, so I don't really charge for it.

12:11

Speaker A

Right? But if you think about the time and the effort and the passion that you put into your work, right?

12:16

Speaker A

Like ultimately, you you deserve it, right? Like, you know, this is your skill and this is your career that you're sort of pursuing.

12:23

Speaker A

So why not try and make a career of it? Yeah, I think those are all valid points.

12:29

Speaker A

So let's look at the flip side of that. Like why would players want to spend money in the game?

12:36

Speaker A

Maybe I'll toss it over to the Emergency Response team first. Yeah. So to have better items and games, to unlock new parts, to look cooler and to feel like a better player.

12:52

Speaker A

All great reasons to spend money in a game. And if you if you build something great, players will be more than happy to spend money on it too, to show off to their friends and and maybe even advance their friends in certain situations.

13:08

Speaker A

We have mafia in our game, like mafias for criminals to form. And if you buy the criminal game pass, you can.

13:16

Speaker A

It gives you a lot of different features than mafia, for example, and you can up the percentages of different members in your mafia to payout from robberies and stuff like that.

13:27

Speaker A

Yeah. I believe, Erin, we have an example from Emergency Response here in terms of like buying expensive items.

13:38

Speaker A

Yeah. There you go. So this mobile command center and this really expensive car here.

13:43

Speaker A

Players could play the game for a really, really long time and grind at it.

13:47

Speaker A

Or you could skip the grind, pay a little bit and unlock it early and look cooler than all your friends.

13:54

Speaker A

Yeah. Awesome. And I mean, bringing it back to the original question, which is like, why would players want to spend money in your game?

14:02

Speaker A

This is a question you guys are often thinking about and trying to answer with like content you're creating, right?

14:08

Speaker A

Yeah. Yeah. So there's many different aspects to it. Why would they want to spend money in a social system?

14:15

Speaker A

Why would they want to spend money in a progression system in a currency system?

14:19

Speaker A

So there's many different answers to it, but it all goes back to just advancing yourself as a player and being making yourself a little bit better player, but you without getting yourself an unfair advantage.

14:32

Speaker A

Yeah. And this is a question I commonly get from developers, so I'll toss it over to you and put you on the spot here.

14:38

Speaker A

But like at what? When you're designing a feature, you're mentioning like progression systems and all these things.

14:44

Speaker A

When you're designing a feature, at what point do you start considering monetization? Do you do it all the way from the start?

14:50

Speaker A

Do you build out a really fun system first and then put it on top of it?

14:53

Speaker A

Like, what's your general strategy? Not from the start, not at all. You want to make it a fun feature from the start, design to be fun and valuable to the players from the start.

15:04

Speaker A

And then later on you can think, Is this something that we could monetize? Is there some mechanism here that we could integrate monetization?

15:13

Speaker A

Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. If the answer is no, we don't want to try and force it.

15:18

Speaker A

We're not going to take a great fun feature and make it not fun just to make money off of it.

15:24

Speaker A

So monetization kind of comes second and you fit it in where you can and it works out.

15:30

Speaker A

Yeah, that's a good point, because you do want players to spend because they're enjoying your game, not because they feel like they have to.

15:39

Speaker A

Right Right. Those are the kind of systems that create like a pay to win scenario and also sort of like scare away a lot of players who could potentially be enjoying your game like everybody else.

15:49

Speaker A

Yeah, if you if you build it, if you build something fun, they will come and they will be happy to pay for a good value.

15:56

Speaker A

You have it. Field of Dreams. But video games. Erythia I wanted to toss it over to you.

16:01

Speaker A

Same question for you. Why would players want to spend in your large portfolio of games that you have right now?

16:08

Speaker A

So I would say for us it's actually pretty similar. You know, players just want to boost themselves, boost their progress in the game, or have a really cool cosmetics that kind of differentiate themselves from other users.

16:20

Speaker A

Our games, you know, they're super customizable with colors, materials, designing your your own creature to kind of look how you want it.

16:30

Speaker A

But, you know, similar to the Emergency Response. The first and foremost goal that we have is making sure that our game is really good on a base level and making sure that players can't get from the start of the game to immediately the end of the game.

16:46

Speaker A

So there's always a lot of balance there to make sure players still have to actually play the game and enjoy it.

16:53

Speaker A

Yeah, well, I've seen like a few of the games that you guys have shipped, and I've noticed for a couple of them, you guys don't even have monetization in there at the beginning, right?

17:03

Speaker A

Like, yeah, So yeah. Focus. What are the things like you're focused on at that point when you're launching the game.

17:10

Speaker A

So Right. Dragon Adventures didn't even have monetization. I don't think Sonar-- Creatures of Sonaria did either right off the bat.

17:17

Speaker A

We're just trying to make sure that the game is playable and enjoyable before we start adding like, all right, how can we how can we start making money off of this?

17:26

Speaker A

And, you know, sometimes the systems just come naturally like this. This is how players unlock new creatures.

17:32

Speaker A

Obviously, this is something we can monetize. It's definitely not at the forefront of our thought when we're designing a game.

17:39

Speaker A

It's just kind of they're like, we're aware of it and we're ready once the game is more developed to kind of monetize off of that.

17:46

Speaker A

Yeah. Okay. And, Erin, I believe we have something to share from creatures as well on this.

17:57

Speaker A

Yeah. So this is just one of our shop menus. And this is how creatures obtain more sought after creatures.

18:04

Speaker A

And these are developer creatures, and they're usually designed after our game developers. So it's kind of a way to highlight our game developers and tie in a really cool creature with with them.

18:17

Speaker A

Do they get all the proceeds of the sales? So like, incentive to create the coolest avatar?

18:22

Speaker A

No, not really. Awesome. All right. Well, we talked about it a little bit, but I wanted to talk about monetization goals.

18:31

Speaker A

What should Erythia, this is for you first, but what should developers consider when setting up monetization goals?

18:39

Speaker A

So since Griffin is coming out, this is kind of like on my mind right now where maybe it's not as much on other games, but after your game is completed, I try to think of how much money would I like to make and how much money I realistically think I'm going to be making and kind of setting healthy goals that's reasonable for the player base.

19:01

Speaker A

And for me, it's important to consider the starting and end point of my game because I don't want the player to spend their way through the game.

19:09

Speaker A

Otherwise they'll they'll be finished with the game and they won't really have any reason to play it.

19:14

Speaker A

And on top of that, it's really important to me to consider the range of monetization.

19:19

Speaker A

You know, how much robux are players buying with the USD, trying to look at those tiers and kind of set up fair values in the game.

19:29

Speaker A

And you want a healthy range of that because not all players have thousands of robux and some players have a little robux and even that to them is really valuable to think that they're supporting the game, you know, 1530 Robux and they feel like they're supporting or even getting something small and cool.

19:47

Speaker A

Hmm. So when you are actually setting your monetization goals, you're looking to serve every group of player that there is from those who want to spend a thousand robux to those that want to spend in the case you just mentioned like 30 Roblox, right?

20:00

Speaker A

Yeah exactly. And then offering, you know, if they just want cosmetic items or if they're trying to boost their way, so offering a variety of items for them to purchase.

20:11

Speaker A

Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing that you mention there that I thought was interesting was you mentioned you never want to set out monetization such that a player can just spend through the game, right?

20:24

Speaker A

So like, what's, what's the alternative there? Like if they're not buying, you know, ten levels in your game or they're not buying the best gear in the game, Like what are the alternatives there that are more healthy for the overall sort of progression of your game?

20:41

Speaker A

That's a good question. Well, I would say we don't really offer right now. We don't offer boosts where the player can just level up super fast, at least in Griffin's Destiny.

20:51

Speaker A

We just offer you can get in-game currency. And that's fair because that's just like a repetitive purchase and not really buying the end content immediately.

21:04

Speaker A

I mean, that's something that I would personally experiment with, but. I don't know. I feel like if Emergency can jump in on that, I'm not really sure.

21:16

Speaker A

Phoning a friend. Emergency Response. What are your thoughts? Could you repeat it just to make sure I don't mess up?

21:25

Speaker A

Yeah. So. So rather than just selling straight up power in the game, right. Or just selling, you know, going from level one to max level as like a game pass or something like what are alternatives that that you as developers sort of consider for players in those situations also.

21:45

Speaker A

Ah so in our game we also have a progression system like different rankings. But there's basically like level one through let's say nine, for example.

21:53

Speaker A

And for those people wanting to try to pay to win, we offer a different alternatives to where they can't directly purchase you know, experience points to progress themselves, but they can unlock they can unlock the items early.

22:06

Speaker A

So say if we locked a vehicle behind a certain rank instead of waiting to actually achieve that rank, you could pay robux and get that vehicle early.

22:14

Speaker A

So that's kind of the alternative we have. Just because a rank your level, it does have some significance.

22:21

Speaker A

It kind of shows. Yeah, you put in the work you got here and at least that will always stay true to each player, including the free players.

22:28

Speaker A

And especially if you haven't paid anything, It shows you got this far without paying, but it still gives the people who want to try to pay to get ahead just something, you know, like a little perk for them.

22:38

Speaker A

Tripp? Yeah, but knowing with that, with the the things they can unlock doesn't necessarily make the game easier for them.

22:48

Speaker A

It's just, you know, cooler cars, better cars, you know, more features on your car.

22:52

Speaker A

That doesn't make it any easier to arrest criminals or play the game for that matter, really.

23:00

Speaker A

Yeah. I think, given all of that, seems like the common thread here is that you're allowing players to pay for passion in terms of like cosmetics and looks and, you know, different looking things, but you're expecting your players to still put in the time to get good at the game, to experience the game or whatever else, right?

23:21

Speaker A

So that might also come in like XP Boost or something like that where it's like, you know, you could get double the XP, but you still have to play this game during this time.

23:29

Speaker A

We're not just going to give you the ten levels. You can just grind at two x the speed to get there or something, right?

23:35

Speaker A

Right. The fun comes from actually playing the game and getting good at it yourself and and being, you know, the best cop on the team, being able to arrest all the criminals.

23:45

Speaker A

And that's something you can't pay for you have to play for. Yeah. It's almost like you're getting them to pay you to not play your game, which is not really.

23:53

Speaker A

Yeah right. And it's kind of also structured. So like, say, a person who kind of just started, if you maybe put in like an hour or two to get decent, you can still compete on the same level as someone who's the max rank just because they may have a few more tools to maybe help them arrest someone.

24:12

Speaker A

You can still, you know, just as easily go around and do what you have to do and you could still progress at a decent rate without feeling overpowered.

24:22

Speaker A

Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. Awesome. Well, bringing it back to the question, I want to toss it over to you guys as well and pick your brain on this.

24:29

Speaker A

What should developers consider when setting monetization goals? Oh I. Well, they should. Developers should consider I guess like we've mentioned how the free player plays and how, you know, the paid player plays, that ideally the free player should still be able to access all or if not most, you know, maybe in certain cases like the game pass, but in majority of cases you should still be able to access like all the content for free, pretty much whether that's through grinding and raking up or whatever you want to do with that.

25:03

Speaker A

But as long as they're having fun and still getting through the game and that nothing is behind a paywall, that's actually important.

25:11

Speaker A

So you can maybe put a vehicle behind a paywall since that may not be so important in our game.

25:17

Speaker A

But say if you have a driving base game that you need to get a certain lap time, for example, and you can only get that lap time with a really fast car, they had several bucks For now you're sort of hindering their progress behind a paywall, which isn't the idea when you're introducing monetization.

25:33

Speaker A

Tripp?. Yeah. And we talking about monetization goals and how we what we consider monetary lies, we don't actually plan any goals as like hitting a certain number or certain number of sales or revenue or whatever.

25:51

Speaker A

Our goal is to make it fun and make it flow and just to make it work well as a game.

25:58

Speaker A

Okay great. Well, I wanted to move on to our next topic, which is probably heavy on everybody's minds.

26:05

Speaker A

And that's just the ethics around monetization and balance. And, you know, starting off, the first question I wanted to ask is just what are some of the ethical concerns of monetization?

26:22

Speaker A

We're all kind of making money from kids here. You know, you don't see kids going into Walmart buying things on their own, but you do see kids going into games and buying things without their parents permission sometimes.

26:37

Speaker A

So you don't want to make it misleading and you don't want to make it, you know, like a trap.

26:43

Speaker A

You don't want to trick them and you don't want to, like, sell them on something that that you don't need to sell them on.

26:53

Speaker A

So just tread carefully, be honest, and try not to make it something that they get lured into.

27:03

Speaker A

Mm hmm. Anybody else have anything to add. That I would add that there's also a bit of just being honest with all players, regardless of age, even older players, like they want to see kind of what they're receiving.

27:16

Speaker A

So showing numbers as much as you can and being upfront with players about what they might receive is really important.

27:24

Speaker A

Yeah, that's a good point. Like everything in life, communication is the most important thing.

27:30

Speaker A

And that's that's often I've seen in the past where a lot of developers get in trouble as they advertise something, as something players can obtain easily.

27:39

Speaker A

And it's not. And that's where a lot of the ethical concerns come in. Oh, another sorry.

27:45

Speaker A

Just to add on to that, a lot of times, you know, not everything is gold.

27:49

Speaker A

Sometimes things do go wrong, like maybe a transaction is mishandled for whatever reason. Adding on to honesty is having a good support system.

27:59

Speaker A

So say if a player feels cheated out of their money, they want to come express their concerns, See whether that's on your Guilded or any other server.

28:08

Speaker A

You should allow them to be able to join and get the proper help. So if something did indeed go wrong, they, you know, fully get what they were owed rather than feeling scammed at the end of the day.

28:18

Speaker A

Yeah, it's a very good point. I know that this is kind of common sense, but I'm going to ask it.

28:26

Speaker A

Why should developers be concerned with being ethical with their monetization? Maybe Erythia, for you?

28:37

Speaker A

I would say. If your game completely relies off of loot boxes to make any money at all, that would be very concerning.

28:48

Speaker A

But as long as you offer plenty of options to the player and fair options, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

28:56

Speaker A

But definitely don't fully rely on RNG chance-based stuff. That can be really frustrating to players to kind of spend, spend, spend and never get the item that they're looking for.

29:06

Speaker A

So as long as you have systems for them to obtain those items or other ways to get really cool items, that would be good.

29:15

Speaker A

Yeah, that's a good point. And then that same line, is there a way to make those systems more fair, especially like RNG especially?

29:23

Speaker A

Obviously you could with a one in 20 chance, you could get it on the 20th chance or you can get it on the 1,000th chance, right?

29:30

Speaker A

Yeah. So how do you sort of mitigate that risk in that port experience for players?

29:35

Speaker A

I definitely think I've been experimenting with this with Griffin-- Griffin's Destiny. But I would say one game that does something is a pity pull, and that's if you've been spinning so many times, eventually you just get a very rare item.

29:49

Speaker A

I would really say that's a great way to go about it. Or what I've been doing for Griffin's is if you have rare or legendary items in the game, maybe offer those as their own kind of separate chests where the user is always guaranteed an epic or legendary based item.

30:07

Speaker A

And they, you know, they pay a little bit more for that item, but they're guaranteed it.

30:12

Speaker A

And also, you know, we just have a regular shop where users can buy stuff without rolling.

30:19

Speaker A

Yeah, that's a very good point. You definitely want to mitigate greed on that front.

30:23

Speaker A

And another way I sort of pitch it to at the streak breakers, I love that you brought that up, is you didn't design the system in the example I gave to have them spin a thousand times to get that item, you designed it so that they would get it after 20 times on average, right?

30:39

Speaker A

Yeah. So the only thing you're doing at that point is creating a poor experience for your players and damaging your own reputation, which is very important, right?

30:48

Speaker A

Yeah definitely. You don't want to be the developer who's known as, you know, the greedy person who's trying to pinch me for every penny that I have.

30:56

Speaker A

You want to be the person who gives out the awesome unicorn pets at this rate that everybody wants or can trade with one another.

31:04

Speaker A

So. I guess in that same line, like how does balance affect player perception on a monetization system?

31:14

Speaker A

You know, Tripp, Shawn, maybe for you guys like pricing of your cars or, you know, the other offerings that you have, like how much does balance go into it and why is it important for making sure that you keep a monetization system ethical?

31:29

Speaker A

Yeah. You want to make it balanced, not too aggressive, because an aggressive monetization system will make players feel like the game is paid to win.

31:40

Speaker A

And if they don't feel like they're getting a good value, if they feel like they're getting scammed or or taking advantage of what they're just going to steer away from the game.

31:49

Speaker A

You know, the player's community and you're just going to see numbers go down across the board.

31:55

Speaker A

And of course, sales go down as well. Mm hmm. And in terms of pricing items, you should have a decent reference point, like maybe compare yourself to other games and their pricing points for their in-game currency and make sure to sort of line it up because it's good and it's good to price it accordingly to where if a free person were to do it and you know, spend 8 hours grinding.

32:21

Speaker A

Is it fair to only price that as a 20 robux to a paid person like or are you truly valuing 8 hours of time and it's 20 robux.

32:29

Speaker A

Now that might make the free player feel like, wow, you know, that's that's kind of, you know, poor that they only value my time at 20 robux So maybe consider pricing it higher just to show like, we really want you to do this for free.

32:42

Speaker A

If you really want to try and get ahead, maybe you can go ahead and pay this instead.

32:48

Speaker A

But of course it's always like, Oh, it's just find the right middle number, right balance for everything because you of course, you don't want to go too aggressive, too high with the price.

32:58

Speaker A

Yeah. And in that same line, I also get this question all the time Where do you even begin as a developer to price an item?

33:06

Speaker A

Like, what's your sort of starting point for that? I can take this on because I always wondered this myself too.

33:14

Speaker A

And when I first when we first introduced our first game passes, this was after.

33:18

Speaker A

This is after several months into the game after alpha. But we first of all, I'd ask myself, what if I were a player of this game?

33:29

Speaker A

What would I what would I pay for this? What do I think is a fair value as a player?

33:34

Speaker A

And hopefully you are a player of your own game. And then you want to look at other games, maybe find another game similar to yours in the same genre or whatever.

33:43

Speaker A

Another city role play a game that offers a similar, say, game pass or feature a similar amount of content.

33:50

Speaker A

What do they charge for it and are they successful with that? Are they charging too little, too much?

33:57

Speaker A

And then lastly, monitor sales and and make changes from there. Is it selling too slowly, maybe too quickly?

34:05

Speaker A

Do you have more people getting this than you expected? You can always make changes.

34:10

Speaker A

Better late than never. Yeah. Ery, anything to add to that? I would say our games are definitely similar, but what is different is we actually come up with our currency.

34:25

Speaker A

We have usually mathematical equations that we come up with to kind of predict where things are at.

34:30

Speaker A

So, you know, if a player is playing the game for 5 minutes, for 30 minutes, for an hour, how much are they actually making in those time sessions?

34:40

Speaker A

So after we kind of get those numbers, then we can predict a robux to in-game currency ratio.

34:47

Speaker A

And I feel like a lot of the times our ratios are like one in-game currency to, you know, like 0.15 of a robux and we kind of go off of that for pricing the in-game currency.

34:59

Speaker A

And then I can be like, okay, so 100 hours of a player's gameplay is about average to this and then I can kind of price items off of that.

35:08

Speaker A

And it's I really like that system for items, but I would say for game passes, I definitely like snoop on front page games and I'm like, All right, who's doing what?

35:19

Speaker A

Do I feel like I should make this slower? Do I feel like this is good value?

35:23

Speaker A

But, you know, that's for game passes. I feel like I know my my game's really well and we have tester community teams, We have data teams who are kind of giving us feedback on stuff that we want to price.

35:35

Speaker A

So I feel like we're pretty on the spot with that usually. All right, So copy everybody else's price.

35:41

Speaker A

No, all three of you talk about something, and I just want to put the exclamation point on it, because, you know, I always rant on this on any if you see my economy talks.

35:51

Speaker A

But time is probably sort of the bedrock that you want to sort of base your prices on.

35:57

Speaker A

And I think that mentality that Ery talked about and that Shawn talked about is exactly right.

36:02

Speaker A

How much time on my essentially selling for this amount? Is that a fair value should be higher because I don't want them to just pay for it straight up and I want them to grind for it should be lower.

36:12

Speaker A

Nice. Right. That's typically where I also sort of start with my pricing, and I think that's generally a good direction to go.

36:21

Speaker A

So we talked about it a little bit. The elephant in the room here, the maligned term that we never want our games to be called, pay to win.

36:31

Speaker A

Can we talk about that a little bit? What in your view, is like a pay to win game and why is it a bad thing?

36:41

Speaker A

So for for me, personally, I'm sure, probably feels the same way. Pay to win is giving an unfair advantage to players willing to pay and especially like, say, for our game, for example.

36:55

Speaker A

And basically cops in the game, they have, you know, a pair of handcuffs to arrest someone.

36:59

Speaker A

And of course, there's a certain range on that. Now, so if we made it so if you bought this game pass for 500 robux, your handcuffs now has like a one mile range for whatever reason.

37:11

Speaker A

Let's just pick people out of thin air. Now, that's giving you a ridiculously unfair advantage, and it's going to ruin the experience for free players because they're no longer going to be attractive since these people are just abusing the perk you gave them.

37:25

Speaker A

Yeah. And for pay to win, it's like, as you mentioned, it drives out the free players of your game and it just ruins the fun and your stats will reflect upon that with due time.

37:35

Speaker A

Well, why would you want free players for your game? Aren't they just like moochers at that point?

37:39

Speaker A

Like, what is what is the point of having free players in your game, just to play that guy.

37:45

Speaker A

It's not that we want free player. Well we do want we don't want people to feel like they have to pay money or be required to pay money, but you're always going to have free players.

37:56

Speaker A

So just acknowledge you're going to have free players and you're going to have paid players and you want to make it fair for all players.

38:05

Speaker A

Yeah. Even though I'm not like sort of a bio major here, the analogy I always use is kind of like algae in the ocean, right?

38:12

Speaker A

If algae didn't exist, everything else would be dead because that's like a main food source.

38:18

Speaker A

That's not to say that you're paid players are going to eat your free players, but if your free players aren't there, those free players are friends of the paid players.

38:26

Speaker A

They're competition for the paid players. Right, they're content for the pay players as well.

38:31

Speaker A

Right. So to your point, when your free players quit, then your game is kind of in this state of rot and decay where free players drop off and your low end payers drop off and your mid payers drop off and then eventually you have a dead game with zero concurrence, right?

38:47

Speaker A

So it's a it's a very, very important part of your community that you definitely want to respect and, you know, give some love to.

38:55

Speaker A

So and like Erythia mentioned, your first mindset, it shouldn't necessarily be to get, you know, money like even unless of course a great thing.

39:05

Speaker A

But your first mindset should be, hey, I want to make a great game and the money is just reward for the hard work you're putting in and all the experience you gathered along the way with the mindset with you keeping that mindset of, Yeah, I want to make a great game.

39:19

Speaker A

Now, you should always basically keep in mind, yeah, I want to make a great game for free players.

39:24

Speaker A

I want to make a great game for paid players. So you want to include everyone.

39:28

Speaker A

And if one group is suffering because of the other, then what's the point? Honestly?

39:34

Speaker A

Yeah. What are what are the risks as well to over monetizing? Like what? What kind of damage have you guys ever accidentally gone too deep on monetization and seen adverse effects?

39:50

Speaker A

Oh us. I don't think anything right off the top of my head. But adverse -- well, I will say that when we were paid access and we were in this Roblox event and we were paid access.

40:05

Speaker A

There was some backlash and we we did lower our price, but we weren't ready to make the decision to go free to play yet.

40:16

Speaker A

And so the risk is to just have people steer away from your game. Or or if you if you lean too hard and put too many monetization tactics in there, it makes it easier to become pay to win and even without even knowing it.

40:34

Speaker A

And free players will just feel left out and stop playing. And like we actually kind of hold ourselves back.

40:41

Speaker A

Like, it may sound weird, but I like, look at the number of game passes we have, and I always just try to keep it at a reasonable number because I see sometimes other games they may have like 20, 30 game passes.

40:54

Speaker A

Maybe they have to open a new place to hold more game passes because they somehow reached a limit.

40:59

Speaker A

And I'm just like, do we do we necessarily want to be that kind of game where you click on our page and you just see a full page of Hey, buy this, buy this, buy that, or do we want to be that game where you hop in and actually have fun?

41:10

Speaker A

So it's yeah, it's just finding a balance and seeing it through. Yeah, well, you guys are survivors of that backlash, I guess.

41:20

Speaker A

So this next question might be appropriate for you. Can a developer come back from over monetizing or even unethically monetizing with their game?

41:29

Speaker A

And if so, like, what can they do to rebuild trust with the community? Yes, you can come back.

41:36

Speaker A

Like I said, we went into that event Roblox had us in, to my surprise, I didn't think we were going to make it because we were paid access.

41:44

Speaker A

We were 50 robux at the time. We lowered it down to 25 during the event, as low as we could go without going free, because like I said, we weren't ready for that just yet.

41:54

Speaker A

We still had matchmaking servers still in the works and stuff. But. The answer is you can fix the balance, say if you have too many paid things or if.

42:08

Speaker A

If it's too expensive, you can lower the price, fix the balance, maybe remove some stuff, and then after that to rebuild trust, add plenty of free content, add stuff the players really want and the players will enjoy it and don't make them pay for it.

42:22

Speaker A

And with a say. In our case, when we did go free, we made sure all the people who paid, we all gave them like we gave them all perks, pretty much.

42:31

Speaker A

So they got a free card, they got some in-game cash. They got, I think, a weapon in the game.

42:36

Speaker A

And, you know, they just got like perks such as that. And it's like really important to be transparent about that.

42:41

Speaker A

Just be like, you know, don't worry, we didn't forget about you. Here is here you go pretty much.

42:47

Speaker A

And if you ever like, do make a mistake, whether it's over monetizing or say one of your monetization methods fail for some reason, like, say, a developer product, all of a sudden not working between a set time period, make sure you rectify for those users.

43:03

Speaker A

So I know we've had maybe a few, maybe like two or three incidents in the past or like something happened and a developer product wasn't properly issued.

43:12

Speaker A

So we went back in all the data and just had it specify, Hey, if you bought something within this range, pop up a notification to you saying, Hey, we messed up, our bad, here's how we're going to fix it, and here you go.

43:25

Speaker A

Pretty much so, yeah. So communication once again. Yeah. Ery, any final words on that or ethics before we move on to strategies.

43:37

Speaker A

Huh. Okay. So going really far back really quick, I would say pay to win isn't always a bad strategy.

43:43

Speaker A

Frickin Pet Sim X has all the best, like monetization. Like you just want to buy and get more awesome pets.

43:52

Speaker A

But I have to say they have a really great progression. Like it's not too fast because what they do is, you know, you don't get a pet that's super OP.

44:02

Speaker A

Maybe it's 50% of all your pets combined. That type of simulation paid, pay to win I think is good.

44:09

Speaker A

But that word is thrown so much in creatures of so an area because it's a PvP highly competitive game and it's it's unfortunate, it's inevitable, it's going to happen because we could never balance the game to be 100% fair for every single creature available to play as.

44:27

Speaker A

But early on what I did do is I was like, We're not going to have rarity in this game.

44:32

Speaker A

All creatures are going to have a 100% drop rate, which means all creatures are equal percent drops, and we have our testing team to scale all of those creatures very fairly, and we do it our best.

44:46

Speaker A

But still the word is always thrown around. I think it's unavoidable. People are always going to use it and it sucks, but you just have to do your best to do what you can to make the game fair for everybody.

45:01

Speaker A

Yeah, it's kind of part of like the game vernacular now, along with "OP" or "broken", right?

45:06

Speaker A

Yeah, but the "meta", you know, when that happens, obviously we go back, we take a look at creatures that people are having issues with and there's a lot of re-scaling nerfing you know that, that type of stuff.

45:19

Speaker A

Yeah. Awesome. Well let's move on. Let's talk about some monetization mechanics and you know, I guess this one is probably most relevant for Emergency Response.

45:31

Speaker A

But for you guys we talked about a little bit before, what are some considerations for developers weighing the choice between paid access and free to play?

45:40

Speaker A

Yeah. So with us, the first thing that went into that was the state of the game being early access.

45:49

Speaker A

We weren't ready to push it out to the market. We didn't want people to have a first impression of our barebones version of the game, but we still wanted to get it out there and get some people in there to give us some feedback and let some, you know, hardcore Roblox roleplay community fans get their hands on the game and check it out.

46:05

Speaker A

And so that's why we went paid access. And to add on to that, I think if you are determining whether or not to make your game paid access think, does it provide a value and is it unique?

46:18

Speaker A

Does it have enough uniqueness and value that players want to pay for it? And I think with our game we really did because within the like emergency services, police roleplay, city roleplay genre of games.

46:31

Speaker A

Ours was very much different than those in the past that it was after a lot more role play and immersion and features like that that hit you like a real life cop in the game.

46:43

Speaker A

But it was also very much anybody could play it and play the game without, you know, doing a training and a group or anything.

46:49

Speaker A

And that's what made ours unique and valuable to the players. Mm hmm. And what's like the the difference?

46:56

Speaker A

Are there some, like, main differences that you notice between, like, when your game is paid access and free to play?

47:01

Speaker A

Like the kind of player that you have or. Um. Um, well, Shawn, you do you want to talk about, like, the private servers and matchmaking.

47:11

Speaker A

Yeah sure. So when we were paid access, um, since you kind of pay for the game, pretty much you want to get the most out of it and you likely were roleplayer yourself.

47:19

Speaker A

So the roleplay experience in terms of, you know, people going along the stuff and public servers, it was like a frequent sight, but we went free, obviously that kind of decreased since more free players came in and a lot of people just want to hurry up and grind and finish the game.

47:34

Speaker A

So we released our private servers and you know, matchmaking servers where -- matchmaking means if you have a certain amount of XP and a certain amount of play time in the game, you get to be in a private server with, you know, people of similar stats.

47:48

Speaker A

And in those servers we usually see a little bit more roleplay and our private servers where communities could make their own server just for their own communities so only their members could join in play.

47:58

Speaker A

That's where we see like the peak amount of roleplay. So you can have a private community, you know, moderating and doing their own thing, setting up cool scenarios.

48:07

Speaker A

And that's where the I guess the roleplay experience really is at its peak. Yeah.

48:12

Speaker A

Now, did you guys go free to play with that system in or was it something that you had it later?

48:19

Speaker A

Yeah. We went with the that was like Tripp mentioned earlier. That was the contingency for us to go free to play.

48:24

Speaker A

We had to make sure the private server system was great and matchmaking was where it needed to be.

48:30

Speaker A

Yeah. And do you feel like that was sort of the key to your success of transitioning to free to play?

48:36

Speaker A

It definitely, it definitely was, because when we when we were looking at other games that weren't free to play, we saw certain mistakes that were were made and we just noticed a lot of people complaining, hey, you know, these people are coming.

48:49

Speaker A

We're in our experience. So we figured, all right, let's make a kind of safe space in a sense, for the players who have all these high stats already and let's put them in their own server if they so choose.

48:59

Speaker A

So they could still have a similar experience to what they had before. I believe we have an image of that too, right?

49:05

Speaker A

Of the servers, Erin? Yeah. And just to add on to that, um, matchmaking servers and private servers are a very big part of it, but I think in addition, just having a game that.

49:21

Speaker A

That protects players from themselves. And that is a good game overall. That's very important for maintaining our success going free to play.

49:31

Speaker A

And yeah, this is our matchmaking servers here where you have to have a certain amount of XP to go play with other players of similar experience level.

49:39

Speaker A

So that way you don't have some hardcore roleplayer with, you know, dozens of hours logged in the game playing against somebody who just joined the game today or yesterday.

49:49

Speaker A

And we even have a set of servers for voice-enabled users, for those who want to roleplay with other voice users.

49:57

Speaker A

And that adds a whole new level of roleplay immersion. Yeah, this is all great to see because it's it is really important that you get players with similar interests and values playing together because otherwise you have a weird mishmash of people who are grinding versus roleplaying and they're not really getting that meaningful experience that they want.

50:18

Speaker A

And I know that's that's something a lot of people who are currently paid access struggle with in their fear of going free to play is that a lot of players that are ingrained in their paid access system are going to lose that core experience that they've come to love about your game, right?

50:33

Speaker A

So yeah, and I'm at least in my mind, I also agree with you. I feel like this was an essential system that you had to go out with when you made that transition.

50:42

Speaker A

So. Yeah. I remember we kept bothering you all the time, like, because you kept pushing for us to go free, and we're just like, I don't know about that, but I'm glad it all worked out.

50:53

Speaker A

Yeah. Awesome. All right, well, moving on. Are there any advantages in having in-game currencies as opposed to just robux?

51:03

Speaker A

Erythia? I want to toss on the first. Sorry. Yes definitely. I would say all the free to play players, You want to give them an experience, too, because in the end, like your game is made for everybody.

51:17

Speaker A

So having that free in-game currency can give those free to play players a chance to access all content in your game.

51:25

Speaker A

And that's definitely something that I try to do have a variety of ways for players to obtain, even blocked off content that normally would be robux.

51:34

Speaker A

So you know, in Creatures of Sonaria, we do have robux creatures, but you can trial those creatures with the in-game currency.

51:41

Speaker A

That way you can kind of test them out. If you're just thinking of purchasing it, you can see if you like it, kind of like a test run.

51:49

Speaker A

So it's like it's like getting those free samples from like the makeup store and stuff.

51:53

Speaker A

Yeah. And obviously they, they have their own limit. So it's not that OP either.

51:57

Speaker A

They're scaled properly. You know, you're a male when you spawn in, so you can't lay eggs and have other people join as your creature.

52:06

Speaker A

And they also have cool bonuses where you get like a 25% chance increase to glow.

52:13

Speaker A

So that's pretty. Cool. Yeah. And what are the benefits of of making that stuff available?

52:18

Speaker A

I know I joked about the free samples, but like, what is the benefit of free samples or even just access to the same content that somebody who could spend robux.

52:28

Speaker A

You know, I would say just it existing at all kind of lets the players be like, Oh, wow.

52:33

Speaker A

Like, even though I might not have a lot of robux, like I spent so much time in this game, like it's my favorite game ever and I get to try out this creature.

52:42

Speaker A

Like, I guess it puts you in a brighter light by the community. But also, like, if someone is just on the verge of like, buying something, just having that for them to try and you know, if that in-game purchase with your in-game currency is what changes their mind, like, Oh yeah, I want to buy that like that.

53:00

Speaker A

That's great. And Emergency Response for you guys as well, right? Same question for you.

53:08

Speaker A

Advantages to in-game currencies. Like what does it do for your game? Yeah. Well, my obvious answer here is you can reward in-game currency players and you can't give them robux, for example.

53:22

Speaker A

You want to give cops a paycheck for arresting criminals, or criminals, you want to give them a reward for robbing the bank you give them.

53:29

Speaker A

You can reward them currencies, which you can't do for robux and the players can can work for it, can collect and use that to buy something instead of having to bag robux.

53:41

Speaker A

And then that goes into having multiple currencies for, say, different lines of progression of different teams.

53:48

Speaker A

You could have different currencies too. So we we rely more on XP, on the teams and then cash on the civilian team.

53:56

Speaker A

So that way you could you could work and progress as a criminal on the civilian team or you can go and work and progress as a cop on the police team or the fire department team, and you can do those in whatever combination you want.

54:11

Speaker A

You can play on the police team 24/7. You could do a little bit of both.

54:16

Speaker A

Whatever's most important for you and even like limited-time events, you can do currencies for events and so the players have to participate in the event to to purchase things from the event, stored things like that.

54:30

Speaker A

Yeah. So why would you want to do I guess, in terms of monetization, why would you want to do an event currency for events?

54:36

Speaker A

Like what's the benefit of that versus just using your regular currency? Well, it was just the regular currency than players who have been playing the game and already have the currency.

54:45

Speaker A

Well, they don't need to participate in the event. They could just use their hoarded cash and just go buy everything out on day one.

54:52

Speaker A

And then you don't have that. They're not playing the event. You don't have the participation that you're looking for.

54:59

Speaker A

So in our Halloween event, for example, you can go trick or treating and get candy, and that candy is our event currency.

55:06

Speaker A

And then they can go to the Halloween shop and buy some some special potions or things like that for the the Halloween limited-time event.

55:16

Speaker A

Limited-time, we'll get to the limited-time events in a bit as a monetization strategy. But Ery, same question for you: event currencies, do you guys use those in your game as well?

55:28

Speaker A

Oh yeah. We have, you know, three Halloween events going on right now throughout our games and we always have used limited currency.

55:35

Speaker A

And part of it is like, oh yeah, we don't want players who, you know, with our sometimes broken economies, we don't want them to be able to purchase out, skip all of the Halloween content that we've been working on, just to be able to get everything immediately.

55:49

Speaker A

So spending time with the Halloween events is really important. But also usually Halloween events throughout our games have really, really sought-after content by the players.

56:01

Speaker A

And it's also a time for us to introduce some new content. So for the previous content that they see as extremely rare items, we want those to kind of represent their rarity through their their price.

56:13

Speaker A

So we're going to set those higher value based on how the community already views them.

56:19

Speaker A

And you know, newer items are a little bit cheaper because they need time to saturate and develop their value naturally.

56:26

Speaker A

So I would say always events just introduce a new currency. Otherwise, you know, put rich players who play your game are just going to buy it out and be able to skip all that amazing content that you've created for them.

56:39

Speaker A

Yeah, I have experienced the same thing where no matter how tight your economy, there's always going to be the hoarders who just have like boatloads of cash.

56:47

Speaker A

So like event currencies are a great way to just start everybody and zero for that specific event.

56:53

Speaker A

Especially like in your example of Halloween, if you're starting on October 1st and you're designing it such that getting the best item in the event takes them, let's say 20 days of engagement, right?

57:04

Speaker A

Like, you can't do that with your own currency because some players are going to be halfway there already at the beginning or all the way there at the beginning.

57:11

Speaker A

Right. So it's just a great way to start from zero. Yeah exactly. You can kind of see it there.

57:15

Speaker A

And we do like show, Oh, this is the best value to kind of be like, if you want the best bang for your buck, this is what option you want to buy.

57:24

Speaker A

Yeah. Have you have you had a UI before where you didn't have that tag in there in terms of displaying the best value.

57:32

Speaker A

No, I think we use that throughout all or all of our cars, even if it's in a slightly different format.

57:37

Speaker A

We always have, you know, you get 10% more just for free if you buy this tier.

57:43

Speaker A

Yeah, because I was I was going to ask if you had seen the benefit of adding it on there.

57:49

Speaker A

Spoiler. See, this one. But huge benefit to doing that. Yeah. And I mean right now we can't see the exact purchases that users are making, which kind of is a little bit frustrating.

58:01

Speaker A

But I know like at RDC they said they're working on better analytics for us, so hopefully soon.

58:08

Speaker A

But you know, players like to get free free bonuses. So those numbers are always cool to see.

58:15

Speaker A

Yeah, and it's not enough just to give them that free bonus. It's important to do the math for them, right?

58:20

Speaker A

Because what percentage I mean, I'll ask the audience here, what percentage of you have gone to a store and done that, sat down with a pen and paper and done the math of which one is the best deal?

58:30

Speaker A

Right. Well, I won't lie, I kind of am that person. Everyone other than Shawn.

58:37

Speaker A

I'm taking out a calculator and figuring that out. Right. But that's time that you could have spent actually playing the game versus just making a purchase and going, Right.

58:47

Speaker A

So there's huge benefit to just not only giving these offerings because you're incentivizing players to make a bigger purchase, but also helping them make that decision by doing the math for them.

59:01

Speaker A

And on that topic, we we also have a picture of our in-game currency shop.

59:06

Speaker A

And we we do that with the best value. But we also. But how much exactly how much money in-game they get for every one Robux.

59:15

Speaker A

And you can see how much it increases with each, with each level of products.

59:22

Speaker A

And I think that really that's really good for, for people seeing the value of bigger, bigger bundles.

59:31

Speaker A

Yeah. Yeah. You see their starts said like, uh, see what's that say $214 for one robux and then the highest one is $571 for one robux So that's a very tempting.

59:46

Speaker A

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, You did the exact math here. Was this Shawn in this calculator again?

59:52

Speaker A

I think it's actually just done by code Oh, awesome. There you go. The calculator method never fails.

60:03

Speaker A

All right. Moving on. And this is a popular one. I've seen limited time items in rotating shops.

60:10

Speaker A

Do any of you guys include these in your games? So we we have done it and we've made mistakes in the past.

60:20

Speaker A

Basically for limited-time items you should be able to keep them unless they're something like consumables, like, you know, stuff you a player can purchase multiple times maybe and use often, let's say if it's like a one time purchase during a Halloween event, you kind of want to make sure they can keep it.

60:38

Speaker A

Because one year we offered, I believe, and if you finish the event, you got to have a cool Halloween costume livery.

60:46

Speaker A

And then when Halloween was over, we took that back and, you know, we got some backlash for that.

60:51

Speaker A

So it's kind of good to make sure that if you're going to include something like as grand as that, where it's not a consumable, make sure that once the event ends, they so keep it or else backlash is kind of inevitable.

61:03

Speaker A

Mm hmm. It's a very good point. Have any of you experimented with rotating shops before?

61:13

Speaker A

I would say, yeah, we okay not only rotation shops but limited-time items. We do that a lot in like DA.

61:20

Speaker A

We have the the monthly dragons that players work tours all month to obtain or and Creatures of Sonaria we have a beer I mean a Dragon Adventures too we have Halloween, Christmas themed creatures and I guess those are those have always been permanent.

61:38

Speaker A

Like we've never had temporary stuff besides boosts. But like when you have that type of limited-time stuff, players are going to see it as much more rare.

61:48

Speaker A

So they're going to get they can get very fiery over it, especially when it returns the next year.

61:55

Speaker A

Here is something I kind of experimented with. This is a rotational shop that actually gives the creature kind of a subtle rarity.

62:04

Speaker A

So every 12 or 6 hours I think this will rotate. And every time the player buys a creature, the price will go up.

62:13

Speaker A

And we do make sure that this shop specifically cycles all types of rarities. So if it's been cycling common for a while and it'll try to get in a rare creature and yeah, I don't think this has been seen as a negative thing, honestly.

62:30

Speaker A

This was used to kind of patch up a mistake that happened. The economy kind of got way too much money.

62:38

Speaker A

So this was our effort to kind of sink that back out. And I believe it did work for the most part.

62:46

Speaker A

Yeah. Do you find players often sort of engaging with that still? Again, it's definitely hard to tell because we can't see those exact purchases.

62:56

Speaker A

I think we need more analytics on that. But, you know, just by seeing those creatures in-game, people are, people interact with it based on if the creature's cool, if it has cool abilities.

63:08

Speaker A

But always players are collectors. They want at least one of each creature in the entire game, so they'll interact or receive those creatures, whether it's by the shop directly or trading.

63:20

Speaker A

You know. In that sort of same light. Do you have have you guys had any experience running sales in your game?

63:29

Speaker A

Do you guys do any sales for like holidays or summer events or anything like that?

63:36

Speaker A

I don't think we do sales. So if you if you guys wanna talk on that.

63:41

Speaker A

We've done sales in the past, although not too often, and that's a good thing.

63:46

Speaker A

And so sales for us is a good way to bring attention to your store players, even though players know you have a store.

63:54

Speaker A

They've seen it before. But then all of a sudden you advertise a weekend. So and they go and check it out and they look at all the prices again and they reconsider everything again.

64:03

Speaker A

And the fact that we don't have it too often, maybe just a handful of times a year, that means the players -- well, if you do do it too often, players will look of look forward to the sales and anticipate the sales and just learn to only buy things during the sales as opposed to just buying things at regular price.

64:22

Speaker A

So sales are good. They they will refresh and bring attention to your store if maybe your sales are slowing, but not too often or or it's not going to sell at full price.

64:34

Speaker A

Yeah, that's a that's a very, very good point and a cautionary tale that I've experienced.

64:39

Speaker A

On the very first game I worked on. They ran a sale every month and the only thing it accomplished at first it monetizes pretty well, but then the only thing it accomplished was it trained anybody who was going to spend to only spend during the sales.

64:52

Speaker A

Right. So you have to be very, very, very careful of if you're going to run sales, when you're going to run them and not at a predictable frequency that your players then are essentially paying you less than they would have for the things that you're offering, right?

65:07

Speaker A

Definitely, I would. I would also add that you want to make sure that your monetization graphs are in a good place before you do a sale, because you are going to see your graphs dip a little bit.

65:17

Speaker A

You know, players are buying stuff cheaper, so you just want to be careful. Make sure you're in a place where you are able to do sales.

65:25

Speaker A

And I definitely am really interested in maybe using sales to bring attention to places that aren't seen as often.

65:32

Speaker A

I really like that. Um, and every game would probably have a little different results.

65:38

Speaker A

But whenever we do sells maybe like a 25, 30% sell off, we see a huge spike, not necessarily dip, but a huge like two, three, four times increase in revenue over whatever it is we're putting so on.

65:53

Speaker A

So it may vary from game to game, but that's our experience. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us for part one of the Level Up roundtable on Monetizing a Roblox Experience.

66:07

Speaker A

Part two, featuring Q&A with Erythia, Shawnyg and Mr.Fergie is coming soon, so keep an eye out on the Roblox Level Up YouTube channel.

66:16

Speaker A

See you there!

Topics: Roblox monetization game development pay to win paid access free to play Emergency Response Liberty County Robux game design Level Up roundtable

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