Roblox announces AI Assistant and other features to boost its creator economy
At its annual developer conference today, Roblox announced several new developments designed to help developers get more out of the platform.
In recent years, the gaming platform has attracted celebrities like Paris Hilton and Karlie Kloss, as well as brands like Vans and Gucci, but today’s announcements represent a concerted effort by Roblox to foster a more robust user-generated content ecosystem.
From marketplace updates to monetization, here’s what’s next for creators on Roblox.
Creating with generative AI
Everyone is getting into the AI game and Roblox is no exception. The platform says it will soon add Assistant, a conversational AI, to help creators and brands create and code experiences. This could make building on the platform more accessible to developers without much technical knowledge and more powerful for developers who are already tech-savvy.
Roblox told Mashable that “working with Assistant is collaborative and iterative,” allowing developers to “provide feedback” to Assistant, which will then work to “provide the right solution.”
A model of what Roblox’s assistant AI will look like for developers.
Photo credit: Roblox
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The Roblox Marketplace is now open to everyone
In a big win for Roblox’s creator economy, the platform will open its marketplace to all users. Only select users and brands approved as part of Roblox so far UGC program could list and sell items. With this update, anyone, anywhere can share their work and get paid for it.
Roblox notes that this change will diversify the offerings in the marketplace to help each user find items and avatars that best represent them, their skin tone, body type, hair, and more.
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Experience subscriptions have arrived
Later this year, developers may begin offering subscriptions to users as part of their Roblox experiences. Roblox told Mashable that subscriptions are a new way for creators to “monetize in the way they believe is best for their business” and “potentially increase the predictability of their revenue.”
In-Experience Subscriptions allow creators to find new ways to monetize their work.
Photo credit: Roblox
No specific details were revealed about how developers can set tiers or subscription frequency (week, month, etc.), but Roblox provided some examples of how subscriptions will be used: licensing an educational experience in a traditional fan club format, and “Trunk to create “clubs” for digital clothing.