With the excitement of the submission and voting periods now in the books, we have selected — with public opinion as a significant factor — the nominees for each category of the ROBLOX International Film Festival. As promised, we will be announcing the actual winners for each category at the upcoming BLOXcon Chicago, London and New York City. Winners will have their films screened in front of a live BLOXcon audience and highlighted on the ROBLOX YouTube channel, and receive a coveted BLOXY Award!

We don’t want to kill the suspense and anticipation of the actual announcements, so we’re not going to show the nominees for every category. However, we do have a bundle of potential winners for the popular machinima/short film and trailer categories to share. All nominees are listed in a random order. Grab a snack and settle in for some great works of ROBLOX cinema!

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We have a vision of a Games page that’s populated with incredible games to play and places to explore. With content like Apocalypse Rising and ROBLOXity and Battlefield and Sword Fighting Tournament re-appearing week after week, we’re partway there. However, among such great stuff, you might see games that don’t live up to their own hype. We’re working on solving that problem; one step we’re taking is experimenting with a new sort for the Games page, known as the Top Grossing sort.

This type of sort might ring a bell if you’re a mobile app fiend. The iTunes App Store, for example, shows top 10 lists for not just highly downloaded apps, but apps that are grossing a lot of money via sales and in-app purchases. While there may be exceptions, top-grossing apps are often quality apps. People don’t spend significant money on things that are “bad,” especially not over a sustained period of time. ROBLOXians, by the same token, are smart enough not to spend their time or Robux on games that fail to deliver a good experience.

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Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: a STEM field trip to Behind the BLOX, a showcase of incredible ROBLOX builds, a simple GUI for creating an in-game store, scaling our thumbnail database, the winners of the BLOXcon Poster Contest, a plethora of new shades, Ready, Steady, Build!, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

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Seven-day Blog Recap

Local STEM group field trips to Behind the BLOX

Many educators recognize the educational value of ROBLOX. It’s a vehicle for learning to manipulate digital objects in 3D, develop a programming foundation and learn some economics basics within the context of pure fun. We recently had a group of students from a local middle school’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Coalition) program stop in our office for a weekly Behind the BLOX session, where they had the opportunity to provide feedback and play test a project that’s currently in development. You can read about their visit and get some insight as to why this STEM group uses ROBLOX as a hybrid of fun and learning.

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In the ROBLOXian spirit of creativity and participation, we decided not to make our own posters for the fast-approaching BLOXcon, but leave it in the hands of our community. We received almost 300 (requirement-meeting) posters over the course of a 10-day submission period, and today are announcing the winners and runners up for each BLOXcon — Chicago, London and New York City. Congratulations in advance to all the winners and a big, blocky thank you to everyone who participated in the competition.

As promised, all three winners will receive three fantastic prizes: distribution of their printed poster to all BLOXcon attendees, a signed copy from the ROBLOX admins, and an exclusive virtual item (details forthcoming). And, because of the quality of the submissions, we’ll also give the virtual exclusive to the two runners up for each category.

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Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: Virtual BLOXcon this September, the creation of Apocalypse Rising’s v5.0 update, a spotlight on UlrichStern25′s impressive pirate ships, impending contest deadlines, a ROBLOX build of Minas Tirith, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

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Seven-day Blog Recap

Virtual BLOXcon is coming this September

Only a small fraction of ROBLOXia’s current population will actually get to attend the sold-out BLOXcon in person this summer. As much as we’d like to show up in every town and throw a live BLOXcon for you and your friends, we haven’t yet mastered the technology or hired the couple thousand minions we’d need to make that possible. We will, however, be making our way into your home on September 21st, 2013, the date of our virtual BLOXcon. For a general idea of what we’re planning to offer and why you should attend, check out our announcement from last week. Stay tuned for more concrete details in the coming weeks.

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Attention, directors and designers of ROBLOXia: we have arrived at the final weekend for submitting entries to the ROBLOX International Film Festival and the BLOXcon Poster Contest! Both contests close on Monday, June 3rd at 11:59 p.m. PT – if you’re planning to enter, now is the time to get creating. Polish what you’ve already started, or set aside some time to start something from scratch. It’s not too late.

ROBLOX International Film Festival

The Film Festival has been open to submissions for just under a month. While we’re seeking films within five categories, we have still received very few speed-building showcases and city-themed films. If you want to get noticed, go for one of those categories.

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Only a small fraction of ROBLOXia’s current population will actually get to attend the sold-out BLOXcon in person this summer. As much as we’d like to show up in every town and throw a live BLOXcon for you and your friends, we haven’t yet mastered the technology or hired the couple thousand minions we’d need to make that possible. Instead, we’re going to show up via the series of tubes that are The Internet this September for a virtual BLOXcon! While we hammer out the details of the event, save this date: Saturday, September 21st.

What do we have in mind for the virtual equivalent of BLOXcon? We’re planning to:

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