Roblox introduces new earning opportunities for creators, teases generative AI project | TechCrunch

At the annual Roblox Developers Conference, the company announced on Friday a series of changes coming to the platform in the next few months and years. Most notably, Roblox is adding more ways for creators to earn money through their experiences, and the company is unveiling a project that will power generative AI creation on the platform. 

The company is introducing a new program that will give creators a higher share of revenue for their paid experiences on the desktop. Creators will now receive 50% of the revenue for paid experiences that cost $9.99, 60% for experiences that cost $29.99 and 70% for experiences that cost $49.99. The change marks a significant increase in revenue sharing, as creators currently earn about 25% of the revenue for their paid experiences. 

Roblox chief product officer Manuel Bronstein told TechCrunch in an interview that the company believes this change will encourage more traditional game developers to bring their games to the platform. 

The company also announced that it’s partnering with Shopify to allow creators to sell physical merchandise directly within their experiences. Roblox plans to pilot this integration later this year with select creators, brands and e-commerce partners. 

To further support creators, Roblox is going to roll out a “Price Optimization” tool that will run tests to help developers identify the best price for in-experience purchases. In some cases, the tool may suggest that developers lower the price of an item to get more sales, benefiting both the developer and players. 

In the same vein, the company is going to start experimenting with regional pricing recommendations to allow developers to tailor their prices to local markets. 

Powering generative AI creation

In terms of AI, Roblox announced that it’s working on a 3D foundational model that will power generative creation on its platform. The model will be open source and multimodal and allow creators to generate 3D content using text, video and prompts. 

“A creator could say I want to create a world that is in the Scottish Highlands with castles and a stormy day, with a dragon background, and I want all of this in a steampunk steam style. And then the output will be the full scene creation,” Bronstein said. 

He noted that generative AI is currently focused on pictures and videos, not 3D creation. But, in Roblox, you need 3D objects, so if you see a tree, it needs to behave like a tree and also be visible from all sides. 

Bronstein noted that Roblox isn’t trying to replace the creative process but instead focuses on enabling more people to develop and create games. For instance, you may be a great developer but struggle with the artistic requirements for game creation. The 3D foundational model aims to make it easier for anybody to get started on the platform, while also helping current teams speed up the process of game development. 

Plus, just because you get an output, doesn’t mean that you will implement it right away. Developers will likely fine-tune and modify the AI-generated content, Bronstein said.

In addition, Roblox revealed that it’s rolling out a new technology called “Harmony” that will help developers automatically optimize their experiences for different devices and network conditions. 

Making Roblox more social

While Roblox already has social features that allow users to interact with each other, the company is introducing new ways for users to do so. 

For starters, it’s adding “Party,” which is a new way for a group of friends to move around Roblox together as a group in a private chat. If a user is under the age of 13, they can chat via text. If a user is older, they can use voice chat. Users in a Party can chat with each other even if they’re playing different games, and if they all want to play the same game, they can send invites to each other. 

The company is also introducing forums later this year to give users a dedicated space to share feedback, discuss gameplay and report any issues they encounter. 

To make its platform a destination for people to discover new music, Roblox will roll out a new “What’s Playing” and “Music Charts” feature where people will be able to find trending songs from breakout artists. Roblox is also planning an integration with music distribution service DistroKid to give artists a way to upload and share their music on the platform. 

All of the features announced today are part of Roblox’s ambitious goal of having 10% of all gaming content revenue worldwide flow through its ecosystem. Although the company didn’t provide a timeline for when it aims to reach this goal, Roblox believes the changes it is introducing will help it achieve the milestone.