What is Roblox?
Roblox is an online platform where people can socialise & play and create “experiences”. Mostly dominated by children, Roblox has a very large player base with millions logging on every day to play & create with friends.
When creating an experience (game) on Roblox, developers can monetize their experiences with “Gamepasses”, “Developer Products”, “Paid Access”, and “Private Servers”. But what are they, and how much money can be earned?
What is a Roblox Game Pass?
Roblox Developers can monetize their experiences with “Game Passes”, which are essentially one-time purchases that can be made to unlock in-game items. When a game pass is purchased, it enters a user’s inventory; then, games can check if a user owns a gamepass inside of a script using the “MarketplaceService” to award them with their in-game benefits.
What is a Roblox Developer Product?
A developer product (or dev product), is similar to a gamepass, except it can be bought multiple times. Developer products can only be purchased inside of Roblox experiences & can be purchased an unlimited amount of times (based on a user’s “Robux” balance). When a developer product is purchased inside of an experience, an event is fired that can be picked up inside of a script, the ID number of the product can then be checked which can be used to determine what player recieves what.
What is Paid Access for a Roblox Game?
When a Roblox game offers “paid access”, it means that a user has to purchase a game before they have access to it. For example, as of 2022, to play the game “Welcome to Bloxburg” you must spend 25 Robux to play the game. This is a great way for developers to monetize their games as it means the developer is earning from every user that plays their game. Although, it does limit the size of the playerbase as not all users will be willing to purchase access.
What is a Private Server?
Private servers are exactly what they say they are. It is a private game for users and whoever they invite to join and play without the rest of the playerbase being able to join. Developers can make these either free or paid to promote their game or earn robux.
How do Roblox Developers Turn Robux into Real Money?
When a Roblox Developer earns enough, they unlock the ability to exchange their Robux for real money, this program is called the Developer Exchange Program. Users who wish to “DevEx” must meet certain requirements, as stated in the Developer Exchange Terms of Use. The main requirements are that the user must be over the age of 13, have no major moderation action previously taken on their account & have at least 50,000 Earned Robux in their account. Earned Robux is robux that has been earned through selling the above or items across the platform such as clothing. Whilst these aren’t all the requirements, they are the main ones. But how much real money do developers actually earn? Well, the current conversion rates are 50,000 Robux for (USD) $175. These rates stay the same no matter how much is exchanged, for example:
- 100,000 Robux = $350
- 250,000 Robux = $875
- 1,000,000 Robux = $3500
But do Roblox Developers get paid enough? There has been a lot of controversy recently debating if Developers on the platform were paid enough, based on the amount users pay for Robux, compared to the much smaller amount developers get paid when exchanging it. Now, unlike other platforms such as Steam or Epic; Roblox provides the platform at no cost to its developers, meaning developers don’t have to pay for the hosting of the servers, or the ability to use Roblox Studio. This is one of the reasons why Roblox Developers aren’t paid as much as Developers on Steam, for example, as the devs on Steam have to provide their own servers for their games.
How Much Money Can Be Made?
Whilst some developers only ever earn a few hundred dollars from Roblox, some earn much more. Devs of the top games with hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of concurrent players, can earn tens of millions per year. Games such as Adopt Me & Bloxburg are some of the top games that have gained huge playerbases and made huge amounts of money. Although we can no longer predict the earnings of games accurately after Roblox removed the ability to see how many times items have sold publicly, we can still use old data to predict how much developers make, and it’s a lot.
Is It Worth Making a Roblox Game?
Is it really worth making Roblox Games any more? Well, although there is a very large amount of competition when it comes to releasing your Roblox game, it’s not as hard as you might think. Genereally, if a game is good it will get a good playerbase. And those I mentioned earlier, Adopt Me & Bloxburg, which are especially well made, they can rise all the way to the top. But it does take a lot of time, and effort. But overall, Roblox Development can be relatively easy to pick up, with plenty of online resources avaliable to you for free, you can learn the basics in as little as ten minutes, find out how here.