New features such as Shopify e-commerce, Party, Community get target launch dates.
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The Roblox platform is always evolving to better serve the needs of players and developers. At the annual Roblox Developers Conference last September, the company announced a variety of new features that are coming to the platform in the near future.
Exciting forthcoming features such as Party, Shopify e-commerce integrations and Community all feature in the Fall '24 edition of the Roblox Creator Roadmap. This set of announcements includes the planned launch dates for these and other features.
Let's take a look at what's coming up next and when we should expect them to arrive. The following descriptions and dates are quoted directly from the Creator Roadmap announcement page from Roblox's Dev Forum. I've also dropped in my thoughts on why several of these features matter.
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Commerce in-experience via Shopify - Ability to make physical products retailed via your Shopify storefronts available for users to purchase within your experience. (Early 2025)
Why This Matters: This was one of the biggest announcements to come out of RDC. It's unclear whether Roblox players will want to purchase physical goods from within Roblox. But this partnership allows developers who already use Shopify to expand their monetization within their games, which should beneficial to those early adopters.
Create Rich and Lifelike Worlds
Video API - We are adding new video instances and APIs that intersect with and build off of the newly added Audio API. These video functionalities will give developers more control over how they can utilize videos within their experiences - as well as unique new ways to display videos. (2025)
Why This Matters: Roblox has dipped its toes into video playback within experiences. While most experiences don't currently utilize video, it will be interesting to see what type of new innovative experiences spring up and offer video in creative and appealing ways.
Powering Music Discovery
DistroKid Music Integration - You can now incorporate select music from DistroKid’s catalog into your experiences, bringing a new level of creativity and engagement to the platform. For artists that own the rights to their music, starting in October, you’ll be able to upload your music via DistroKid. (Late 2024)
What’s Playing (UI in Experience Controls) - Music section in the upcoming experience controls will show users what music they are currently hearing and by which artist. Users will also see additional features to help with settings and reporting. (Early 2025)
Music Experience Charts - The Roblox Discover page will include top charts of music-themed experiences. Users will be able to launch associated experiences from charts. This chart is a mixture of sub-genres related to music - e.g. DJ, rhythm, music education, etc. (Late 2024)
Basic Song Charts - A web-based destination for industry and off-platform discovery includes popular songs on Roblox without sign-in. (Late 2024)
As an extension of the “Music Experience Charts” feature, the Roblox Discover page will include top charts of popular songs. Users can open a Song Detail Page from charts, showing what experiences carry that song. (Early 2025)
Why This Matters: With players spending so much engagement time on Roblox, there's a real opportunity for the platform to facilitate new music discovery and music listening in general. Roblox is setting up the proper infrastructure to be able to rank and promote music of all kinds, including from major labels, which it likely wants to attract in the future.
Empower Immersive Communication and Expression
Roblox Groups rebranded Roblox Communities - Roblox Groups, which allows creators and users to form communities with people who share similar interests on the platform, is becoming Communities to reflect the expanding toolset we’re building for creators to connect with their audiences. With this launch will come a Community Ban feature, where Creators can now permanently ban a user from their Community. (Late 2024)
Forums - Housed in Communities, Forums is a dedicated space where users can share feedback, discuss gameplay, and report issues found. (Late 2024)
Sharing on Profile Experiment - Experiment to allow users the ability to share screenshots to their profile. This is expected to promote discovery and play of new experiences for users. (Late 2024)
Why This Matters: With players able to share screenshots to their profile, Roblox is taking a step towards becoming more of a social media platform. It's easy to imagine how posting screenshots to your profile can eventually turn into posting screenshots and videos to a social feed. It will be interesting to see how this "experiment" develops.
Party API - Announced at RDC, Party is a seamless way for users to group up with their friends (up to 6), discover, and play their favorite games and experiences together. Party APIs allow you to see who is in a Party, empowering you to provide the best experience to keep friends together. (Early 2025)
Why This Matters: There's lots of friction when players try to play a game together. This Party feature has the potential to eliminate that friction, which would certainly improve players' session metrics.
Match Your Users to the Best Server
Custom Matchmaking - Custom Matchmaking lets you, the creator, define rules to customize matchmaking, allowing you to match players in a way that best suits your experience. Tailor the experience to your unique vision, optimizing how players are matched for maximum engagement.
Early 2025: Skill-based matching and similar use cases with custom attributes and matchmaking rules.
Mid 2025: Additional rule types and deeper analytics.
Late 2025: Queue-based Matchmaking and rule expansions.
Why This Matters: It can be frustrating for players when they play a new game and get paired with an expert-level player who simply demolishes them. This skill-based matching can lead to better user experiences that foster more fair competitions and drive longer engagement time.
Roblox Home Page Connects You To Your Ideal Audience
Social and Contextual Descriptors - Updating the UI for Experiences on Home to show labels like Friend presence in the experience, Genre and additional insights to distinguish different types of experiences on the Home page. (Late 2024)
Powerful Search and Browse Capabilities
Expanding Charts - We turned the Discover page into Charts. Charts showcase what is top and trending on Roblox across multiple dimensions and criteria, and more will be added to this expanding discovery surface. (Ongoing)
Why This Matters: The Charts page is a huge driver of discovery on the platform. When Roblox makes updates to this page, it signals what it cares about promoting. Keeping an eye on what new criteria is featured will show what KPIs and genres have strong growth potential on the platform looking ahead.
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Subscription promotions - Enabling devs to run promotions on subscriptions (e.g. free trial or discounted first month). (On Hold)
Why This Matters: By putting these subscription features on hold, Roblox is indicating that Subscriptions, which have been active for about a year, are not as much of a priority right now.
Which of these Roblox updates do you think is the most interesting? Let me know on LinkedIn.
Have a Roblox game you'd like me to write about? Send me an email with more details: steve [at] metaversemarcom.io
Stephen Dypiangco is a strategy and marketing consultant , helping brands reach young audiences on Roblox.
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