Though ROBLOX makes publishing a game easy, getting people to play it is another matter entirely. A myriad of factors will determine the popularity of your game, and we’re here to share a few of the quickest and most effective to attract players. Enjoy.
Make a Great Thumbnail
Each ROBLOX game on the Games page has a thumbnail. This is your chance to make a first impression, so choose a picture that’s colorful, well framed and aesthetically pleasing. You can choose to frame your thumbnail shot in ROBLOX Studio — remember, the camera’s location when you save your game is going to be where the thumbnail shot is taken, so take a few pictures and choose your favorite one. You can also manually upload a thumbnail image in the “Place Configuration” page for 20 Robux.
Make a Game That Keeps ‘Em Coming Back
Make as many badges and achievements you can for your place, and make sure the top ones are difficult, or nearly impossible, to earn. A lot of ROBLOX users are hard-core gamers, and they don’t think they’ve beaten the game until every achievement is completed and every trophy is obtained. Make ‘em work for it. You can also incentivize repeat visits by utilizing our Data Persistence System, which allows users to save their in-game belongings (clothes, coins, weapons, etc.) and continue to earn more cool items in-game.
VIP Shirts
You can sell VIP shirts that will give users special powers in your game. If someone is willing to spend money on the shirt, chances are they’re going to want to utilize the powers that come with it more than once.
Be Social
Forums are a huge part of ROBLOX, and keeping the community at large updated with what you’re doing with your place can garner a lot of interest. Remember, your job is to build your name as a personal brand. Going into a forum and simply saying, “Please play my game” doesn’t work as well as going into a forum and saying “I’ve added some new designs to my place — it looks way different since my last post, check it out.”
Having conversations with people is important. Ask for feedback. You can explore other social avenues as well — advertise your game on Facebook or Twitter, or show off some of your new designs on YouTube.
Utilize Genres
If you’re just starting out, it may seem difficult to get your game noticed. Take a look the Genres bar to see how many visits certain types of games are getting — you’ll find that it’s easier to get your game to the front of certain genres than the top of the Games page. You can even do research before you start building your game — if you notice that “horror” is a genre that doesn’t take a ton of visits to make the front page, you might consider creating a horror game to help you establish a reputable name.
Advertise Your Game
Advertising your game on ROBLOX is a great way to get noticed and an awesome creative outlet. Our ad system is a bidding war between users — the more money you choose to spend on advertising your game banner, the more likely it’ll pop up on Roblox.com while users are browsing. But bidding is only half of the art — make creative, colorful ads that will draw people’s attention. For a more in-depth look at how to advertise, take a look our Beginners Guide to the ROBLOX Economy article.
User Paul2448 on the popularity of his game: “A few friends played it, and I kept on improving my places, then I ran some ads that mostly failed. But enough people favorited it that it had a semi-constant stream of visitors, and one day it was on the front page.”