|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:03 PM |
Judging by how ROBLOX has developed over the years I guarantee you they'll take this and the glut of complaint threads like this with a grain of salt. But I thought I'd at least be a little more constructive and explain more thoroughly why the price floor is such a poor idea on ROBLOX's part.
Before I get into that, let me say this: I understand what they have in mind. I understand their rationale behind this whole thing. I see what they're getting at, but there's a number of reasons why it just isn't a good idea and needs to be thoroughly revised, if not dropped completely.
1) The quality of content will not improve.
Not by much, anyway. People sell stuff at dirt cheap prices for a reason: they're not worth R$ 10 or R$ 25. Translated to today's economy, that's 120 and 300 tickets, respectively. That means a new ROBLOX user would have to log in every 24 hours for 12 and 30 days, respectively, just to afford one item. Theoretically you could just drop the ticket price, but why would you? Practically speaking, there's no good reason not to sell for less than the current rate. I'm sure there are good people out there who would still offer their stuff cheap, at least for tickets (assuming you can change the ticket price in its current state; I'm not a BC member and haven't looked into how the system works, so this is all theoretical. I'm going under the assumption that the ROBUX price is forced and the ticket price can be adjusted below the exchange rate).
2) Incentive to copy will NOT be reduced.
Quite the opposite, in fact. With cheap items, you can just snag them for a few Tickets or Robux. There's no real incentive not to copy since it won't hurt the seller that badly, but at the same time if you do decide to buy the item and support the creator, it's no skin off your nose. People make their stuff affordable for a reason. We all learned from the Internet that piracy is pretty much inevitable. The same can be said for the people who copy content since the risk is low and the payoff is sparing yourself the money. This doesn't apply as much to VIP t-shirts and such, but we have game passes, so you might as well just use those instead.
With the price floor, players have LESS incentive to save up or get the ROBUX or whatever for anything; they'll just copy the item, pay nothing, and never be punished because ROBLOX doesn't moderate copying. The price floor won't stop people from making a profit off stolen goods either; if someone is selling a t-shirt for 20 ROBUX, you can just copy it and sell it yourself for 10 ROBUX, so the profit still goes to you. That forces the original creator to drop his price to match (because ROBLOX won't do anything about it) and still lose potential profit as a result. It's a lose-lose situation. And what happens if someone with BC steals a t-shirt the owner never wanted to sell? What can the owner do, sue for damages? Not on ROBLOX he can't.
3) Incentive to buy ROBUX will NOT increase.
Most of my reasoning for this can be summed up by what I wrote above. No one is going to buy ROBUX; they'll just copy whatever they want without even having to think about buying ROBUX. Selling clothes for profit will be rendered redundant because people will just copy your stuff anyway, and people won't make clothes anymore, or may even delete their stuff to prevent them from being copied. I'd go so far as to wager that clothes that sell dirt cheap will be copied LESS than they were before the price floor update. The system ROBLOX is implementing to stop people from copying will cause people to COPY MORE OFTEN.
This system was not thought through very well at all, and one look at this subforum told me the whole story: Most if not all Roblox players are against it. One comment I found on the blog post caught my attention:
"People need to stop and think about ROBLOX’s need to support the servers, and how they need more revenue to support the game we all know and love."
I can understand that, but it just reminds me of all the people who say "Companies exist to make money." To that, let me pull a quote from a guy who summed it up better than I ever could:
"No, no, no, and A MILLION TIMES NO. Companies exist to trade a valuable product to a consumer in exchange for fair payment. They should only make a profit in order to improve their service efficiency, quality of product, and in order to comfortably support themselves."
I've been playing ROBLOX since 2008, and have seen what it was like in 2006 and 2007. As for how the game is right now, this is my personal opinion of how ROBLOX meets those standards, if you will.
Improve their service efficiency? Flunk. This update will make it even worse. Improve quality of product? Flunk. ROBLOX has degraded considerably over the years; changes to Lua ruining once-functional scripts, changes to ROBLOX Studio making it less user friendly... Comfortably support themselves? I would think so, but I don't have access to data regarding ROBLOX's profits. But I'd think they're making more than enough money they need to comfortably support themselves and maintain the servers.
I don't know what they're doing with the money they make from this game, but judging by how desperate they're getting to make people buy ROBUX or premium membership, they're either not handling their money the way they should, not practicing efficient methods of earning profit, or both.
This post is NOT to defame ROBLOX in any way, shape or form. I don't play this game nearly as much as I used to, but deep down at its core is still the game I found on a whim back in 2008 and played for a good few years. You need to listen to your consumers, ROBLOX, both NBC and BC. NBCers indirectly support you with the ads, and BCers support you directly by paying you money for extra perks (which I among others think you went a little overboard with, but that's another story). You need to listen to ALL your users and not just dismiss them, especially the NBCers who save you money by quitting. You don't seem to care much about them. If you improve the quality of the game, they'll have more incentive to support you.
Now is the time to start listening, ROBLOX. I don't think I've seen such strong opposition to this update since V3 bodies or former BC members losing all their extra places. You shouldn't silence players by locking or deleting their threads when they're only trying to help you. We only want what's best for the game. Even your premium members are upset about this because it negatively affects them, too. If you lose them, you lose your strongest supporters.
Please, do the right thing. Let your consumers help you make ROBLOX a better place like they (and I'd imagine you) want it to be. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:06 PM |
| And no, I'm not posting a TL;DR. If you need one, you don't belong here. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:07 PM |
This.
This explains everything I think, plus more. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
Iysander
|
  |
| Joined: 05 Mar 2013 |
| Total Posts: 8048 |
|
| |
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:07 PM |
| I knew someone would say that... |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:14 PM |
| Seriously, this forum is just FLOODED with threads against the price floor. I'm almost surprised. But then again I'm not entirely so. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:16 PM |
| They won't be fixing it until they see the increased declined in user sales, and vividly small increase in ROBUX purchases |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:19 PM |
| Because they have too many wads of cash stuffed in their ears and can't hear the people that earned them that cash in the first place |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:21 PM |
| Nor would they give 2 hells in the first place |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:21 PM |
eventually they will lower it down.
because there is only one thereelwarman101 in the whole world, it is very original. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
Linkmon99
|
  |
| Joined: 11 Feb 2009 |
| Total Posts: 29662 |
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:23 PM |
Read the whole thing. 100% support.
Only thing is, I think you should mention roblox needs to find other methods to stop copying, raise quality, and earn more money. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:24 PM |
The funny thing is, you never know if they were being serious. So they have change the market orders, that might be enough proof.
But they know that they can't keep this up forever. To make a good site, you would need good customers. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:25 PM |
| linkmon99, You definitely have a point. At time of writing I guess I figured I'd already written more than enough to get my point across, but you're absolutely right. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:25 PM |
| TheNegitivitron, Indeed. And I'm sure their customers will start dropping like flies if they go through with this. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:28 PM |
Xiao you should see shedletsky's twitter and see how much of a horrible person he is being to them
because there is only one thereelwarman101 in the whole world, it is very original. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
jacob726
|
  |
| Joined: 24 Jul 2008 |
| Total Posts: 10732 |
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:29 PM |
"I'm going under the assumption that the ROBUX price is forced and the ticket price can be adjusted below the exchange rate"
You actually can't change tix below 300. I just tried, because a shirt I was using as a VIP shirt (I used a shirt because it doubled as an in-theme costume to the RPG it was in.) was just bumped from 6 tix to 300 tix. It only boosted health by 30pts.
Who in their right mind would pay 300 tix for 30 health, in an RPG where you can simply level up and spend points on constitution to gain more hp?
~>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQ1xKc8t0U<~ |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:29 PM |
| I think a tear just ran down my cheek. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:31 PM |
"You actually can't change tix below 300. I just tried, because a shirt I was using as a VIP shirt (I used a shirt because it doubled as an in-theme costume to the RPG it was in.) was just bumped from 6 tix to 300 tix. It only boosted health by 30pts."
Thanks for clearing that up.
There you have it, folks: even the TICKETS are forced. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:32 PM |
This is the first day, and everyone decided to go on a frenzy. I start to wonder how much ROBLOX really means to all of you.
But that's just me. I can leave whenever, whereas some find it hard to. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:32 PM |
Support
Join to petition against the clothing price update: http://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=958754 |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:33 PM |
| Thenegitivitron, Then leave. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:33 PM |
| support, half way. I wouldn't mind it if it was like 10 robux |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:37 PM |
| Honestly, a price floor is just a terrible idea, period. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
bvalere
|
  |
| Joined: 26 Jan 2009 |
| Total Posts: 7365 |
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:38 PM |
At a situation like this, I'm quite amazed at how TheNegitivitron can stay so calm throughout it all. Anyways I support. Like he said, it is only the first day. Every update up until now has always ended up this way. People claiming to leave, create groups specifically for how much they hate this or that, or what they imagine the future to be like if it continues this way.
ROBLOX hasn't died yet. For some reason, it still keeps going no matter what's at stake.
|
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|
Lovaticz
|
  |
| Joined: 13 Jun 2012 |
| Total Posts: 3537 |
|
|
| 24 Sep 2013 07:45 PM |
| I've only been playing Roblox for about a year, and it's amazing how much it has changed in that time. Most of the changes were not good. I would have to say that 12 months ago, I liked Roblox much more than I do now. |
|
|
| Report Abuse |
|
|