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Adding Gear to Games: Some Tips & Success Stories


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We released the Add Gear to Game feature last week, and have been monitoring how our users have been using it to further enrich their games. We’re proud to report that some of our most entrepreneurial users have been quick to leverage this new feature to further enhance their popular games. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, last week we released a feature that gave uers fine-grain control over which gear items can enter their games, while at the same time, allowing place creators to earn some extra Robux. 

Users & Revenue

We’re sure you’ve heard of Sword Fighting Tournament, one of ROBLOX’s most famous games. User TheGamer101 has found a way to leverage adding gear to his game, making various swords available for different prices, each with an independently unique skill set. The average price of one of his swords is 334 Robux, and in just over a week, TheGamer101 has sold over 892 swords using the Add Gear to Game Game function, making him the highest grossing user thus far.

User Boksunni1, creator of the wildly popular The Insanely Hard Ninja Training Dojo (an apt title, we tried it. It is insanely hard), also used weapons to leverage his in-game sales, though this user leveraged something that we want to encourage among users: rentals.

“Adding rent-able gear to your game is a great way to earn commissions,” says Rosemary Ehlers, Software Engineer at ROBLOX. “Even after the item expires, it still appears in the inventory. Kind of like a reminder of how awesome it was when you had it.”

Boksunni1 rents the majority of his weapons, like bamboo blades, and custom silver ninja stars, for varying prices. He’s made 497 sales since the feature released, selling his gear items at an average price of 38 Robux.

Amazeman's special Grappling Hook allowed us to get to the highest point of the ROBLOX Titanic with ease.

Weapons aren’t the only way to successfully add gear to your game, as evidenced by Amazemans ROBLOX Titanic. In fact, the addition of a grappling hook basically flips the gameplay dynamic dramatically, allowing you to counter-act the downward momentum by shooting a hook out to latch on to corners or edges in order to pull yourself to safety. Amazeman has included a bevy of other random items as well, including potions that can up your defense or make you harder to see.

Statistics

We were really eager to see gear being promoted through games, but were equally as eager to find out what kind of gear users promoted most. So we gathered up some statistics, and made a handy-dandy chart out of it. Check it out.

Affiliate Sales

So what to make of all this? Well for one, you guys love flying and fighting. Weapons (including swords and 13+), in general took up nearly 50% of gear items sold via games, while anything anti-gravity related rounded out about 35% of sales. We were a little bummed to see that rental sales were low–take it from us, you can make a pretty penny keeping users coming back to rent your items over and over again. Experiment with it.

We’re excited to see the gear to games feature continue to grow, and will be keeping an eye on users who find new and creative ways to leverage the system. For now, keep on creating exclusive content for your games, and keep promoting those items vigorously. Not only could you earn some decent Robux, but you can radically alter the way your games are played.

Want to experiment with adding gear to your place? Where do you start? We decided to round up the ten most popular Add Gear to Game items that have been released so far, to give you a general idea of the types of items that have worked so far, as well as how many have been sold. Here it is:

Gravity Coil 781 units sold
Darksteel Katana of Ancient Illuminators 265 units sold
Grapple Hook 132 units sold
M1 Garand 185 units sold
Green Balloon 77 units sold
Flying Magic Carpet 77 units sold
Katana 204 units sold
Body Swap Potion 126 units sold
Freeze Ray 40 units sold
Trench Warfare Shotgun 40 units sold

Also, keep this in mind: try to add gear that will actually change the way your game is played–this will act as an incentive for users to purchase your gear. It’s all about finding a balance between giving players what they want at reasonable prices that they can afford. And, as always, experiment to find what works best for you.