Roblox is now rolling out the ability for developers to create subscriptions that they can sell in their experiences, according to a forum post. The company announced in July that it was working on these tools, saying that they could help developers “establish a recurring economic relationship with their users and potentially increase the predictability of their earning,” and now developers can actually start to plan out their offerings.
Roblox users won’t be able to buy subscriptions just yet, however; that won’t be possible until sometime in November, according to the post. When they can, users will pay for subscriptions in their local currency, but the money will make its way to developers as Robux, Roblox’s on-platform currency.
It’s a little weird, but here’s how Roblox justifies that decision:
Why are subscriptions purchased in local currency but paid in Robux?
Subscriptions renew automatically unless the user actively cancels. To support this automatic renewal feature, subscribers will pay in real world currency. Automatic renewals help to retain subscribers which leads to more opportunities for creators to earn from an ongoing revenue stream.
Paying creators in Robux also allows creators to understand overall experience monetization across different products (dev products, Passes, subs, ads rev share) more seamlessly without having to do currency conversions.
There are some limits on who can make subscriptions and for which experiences. Developers will need to have verified their account, and only experiences made in Roblox Studio before September 1st will be eligible to have subscriptions. Roblox says this is “meant to be a temporary requirement” and that it plans to open subscriptions to all experiences “in early 2024.”
The new subscription tools arrive more than a week after Roblox’s developer conference, which included news about Roblox’s AI chatbot to help users build experiences and its new take on video chat.
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