It’s easy to get caught up in the “now” on ROBLOX. Every few days, there’s a new crop of popular and successful games – though only some have enough gameplay depth to maintain their chart-topping positions. But when you step back and look at ROBLOX from 30,000 feet and over the course of months rather than days, you start to see the trends and sweeping shifts of opinion. And at that point, you can draw conclusions about what’s fueling the fire – what’s working for developers and their players.

This is particularly fun in relation to game monetization, especially after the advent of the Developer’s Exchange. Now, being smart about monetizing your game can lead to real-world earnings – currently, if you accumulate 100,000 ROBUX, you can cash out for $100 U.S. dollars.

The most effective money-makers

To start, let’s look at the 25 games that have most effectively monetized players from September 1st through November 1st. These are the games that have earned the most ROBUX off of Game Passes, Gear Commissions, and Paid Access. Making it this high in the rankings requires a blend of the right items at the right prices, and an underlying game that attracts players in the first place.

If you’re a ROBLOX gamer or developer, the first thing you notice about this list is the games are generally of very high quality. We’ve been working hard over the last year to improve the games that rise to the front of the Games page, and one of the ways we’ve done this is by rewarding developers who monetize their games well. The basic logic is players will only spend money on games that are good, and those games deserve better visibility. It seems to be working – just look how this list of games compares to a similar list from January, 2013 (click the link and scroll down to the bottom of the article).

There has also been significant turnover since the last time we looked at game monetization on the blog. Only eight games – Sword Fighting Tournament, Pokemon Reborn RPG, Kohls Admin House, Intense Sword Fighting!, Survive the Disasters!, Grand Theft Auto ONLINE, ROBLOX Titanic and ROBLOX Point – kept their footing in the top 25.

Other observations:

• Game Passes are an obvious choice. Paid Access and Gear Commissions are dependent on the game’s systems (i.e., it’s easy to upset gameplay by dropping in an overpowered gear) and the developer’s goals (volume versus profit margin).
• Leveraging all three game monetization features at once is rare. If you have a good game, you need to keep balance in mind; plus, too many options might overwhelm players.
• Trucking Tycoon has been a stalwart on the Top Earning sort. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the better “tycoon” games you’ll play.
• ROBLOX Dodgeball and Darkness are two newcomers, and both rose up in the ranks with a combination of super-fun gameplay and effective sales strategies.
• Sword Fighting Tournament nearly maintained its position at the very top of the list – where it was the last time we checked on game monetization. This is one game where selling gear is a great fit, as the ROBLOX catalog is chock full of cool swords.
• ClashBLOX: Aura Masters, Welcome to Venezia and Terra Novus are using Paid Access to offer early access to unfinished games, which is paying off because they offer exciting, unique experiences.
• Not surprisingly, our Halloween game is at the top. We had certain advantages.

Paid Access

For the first time, the period we’re analyzing includes Paid Access across the board. Here are the 15 games that earned the most ROBUX off Paid Access from September 1st through November 1st:

Halloween 2013: The Witching Hour

Welcome to Venezia

Terra Novus

ROBLOX Point

Nuke the Whales

Survive The Lava Waves!

Legacy III: Private Server

Cool Wipeout Obby!

Disaster Hotel!

Mineblox Build An Armed Base & Sword Fight!

Truss Bust

Gekkou Online

The Super Fun Obstacle Course!!

Halloween Marble Ride Tycoon 2

Call of ROBLOXia 5: Dev Tests

As you can see, three of the top 15 Paid Access games made the overall top 25. We’ve talked two of the three developers behind these games and have found that early beta access is a good way to offset the costs (both in terms of time and things like sound effects) of developing a high-quality game. The amount of ROBUX earned per visit is very high for Paid Access games.

Game Passes

Game Passes are the most lucrative game-monetization approach of the three we’re factoring in this article. All of the 15 best Game Pass sellers made it into the top 25 overall.

Trucking Tycoon

Sword Fighting Tournament

Space Knights

POKEMON REBORN RPG

The Bermuda

Animation Lab

ROBLOX Dodgeball!

Kohls Admin House NBC

Darkness

Skies Of Steam

Intense Sword Fighting!

Apocalypse Rising

Survive The Disasters!

The Stalker

Grand Theft Auto ONLINE

Trucking Tycoon barely nudged Sword Fighting Tournament, but both of them use a strategy that proves to be very effective: give players a “starter pack” of goods and abilities (aka “VIP”) at two price tiers. Trucking Tycoon’s VIP passes are seven and 14 ROBUX, which is a very low barrier to entry. Sword Fighting Tournament’s are 10 and 50 ROBUX – a little higher, but still affordable.

Gusmanak has even added Game Passes to Apocalypse Rising. Most of them offer cosmetic upgrades – new vest colors and better camouflage – but the most popular Game Pass lets you spawn with a map, compass, MRE, water bottle, and survival flashlight for 50 ROBUX. In a game as volatile as Apocalypse Rising, starting with basic survival elements is a huge convenience. I even purchased the Game Pass myself.

Animation Lab is a unique story in that it’s not a game. The game’s developer, Tomarty, sells passes that allow your character to perform special animations for 20 to 80 ROBUX, and they sell well (in the neighborhood of 5,000 to 15,000 sales each).

Gear Commissions

Gear sales still indicate two key opportunities: personal transport around large maps and melee weaponry in combat arenas. It remains to be seen whether a shooter-style game can effectively leverage the ranged weapons we’ve released and turn a profit with them. These are the top 15 games in terms of Gear Commissions from September 1st through November 1st:

Halloween 2013: The Witching Hour

Sword Fighting Tournament

Kohls Admin House NBC

Grand Mall of ROBLOXia

Welcome to the Neighborhood of ROBLOXia

Welcome to Venezia

Mineblox Build An Armed Base & Sword Fight!

 [Kestrel] – HomeStore

RO-Force Rescue Mission

Who Killed Patrick Obby

The Greenwood Town

Canoe without a Paddle!

The Bermuda

City of London, United Kingdom

Kohls Admin House BC

Final word

There’s a huge opportunity with the Top Earning and Top Paid game sorts to not only earn ROBUX (and potentially harness DevEx, as a result), but remain visible to players browsing games. These successful games illustrate a few of the ways you can use the game-monetization features we offer to essentially pay yourself for the time you pour into game development. There will be more variations in the future — for example, we demonstrated consumables in The Witching Hour and will soon launch them as a feature for developers.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to create your own gameplay foundation and determine what strategy works best with it. Our hats are off to everyone who’s made it work thus far.