Be a ROBLOX Tycoon: Earn Robux With Game Passes and Gear (By Shedletsky

By John Shedletsky.

By John Shedletsky - January 28, 2013

ROBLOX users often want to know how they can earn some extra Robux. Fortunately, the way our economy is structured, there is a wide range of things you can do to fatten your ROBLOX wallet. Today, we’ll be focusing on Game Passes and the Add Gear to Game feature, both of which are great places to start–especially if you’ve got a game that’s picking up traction.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on how currency moves through ROBLOX in an effort to provide more tips and education in the future.

Add Gear to Game

Selling promoted gear for your popular game can earn you some serious Robux.
Pro: It’s free to add gear to your place! Builder’s Club or not, no matter how you swing it, it’s free. So if you’ve got a game that’s popular, why not head into the catalog and start adding items to your game? Even if your game is just getting a couple of thousand visits a month, you could easily earn some extra Robux by encouraging people to experiment with other items in your game.

Pro: Buyers are more likely to buy items that can be used in other games. A game pass, by way of example, can only be used within the rules and parameters of the game that person is occupying. With gear, it’s a tangible item that users can keep after their transaction. Users are much more likely to buy items they can walk away with.
Pro: It’s fast! You can add gear to your game in seconds.
Con: You only get 10% of the purchase price of the item. These items are relatively easy to sell but you don’t turn a huge profit per item. 10% may seem like a small number, but it’s about quantity. You’d be surprised how fast a couple thousand item sales can add up.
Con: Be careful what you add! Remember, some gear is extremely powerful, and could alter the rules of your game. Be selective, and test out gear you want to add first.

Game Passes

Pro: Unlike gear, you get to design exactly what a Game Pass does–you’re the developer. You can have game passes do virtually anything in your game. They can unlock hidden classes, parts of levels, weapons–you are in full control.
Pro: You keep 70% of what you earn. That’s a whole lot more than gear, but also brings up a pretty major…
Con: If you’re not well established, people are much less likely to purchase your Game Pass, as compared to an official gear item created by ROBLOX. That’s why they cost developers 100 Robux to make. You’ve got to be totally sure you want to make one and that it will give users abilities worth the cash.
Con:You have to be a Builder’s Club member to create and sell Game Passes.

Tycoon Stats

We were curious who was making the most money from their ROBLOX games, so we pulled a bunch of stats relating to gear and pass sales from the last 30 days. Incredibly, there are 468 levels on ROBLOX that are each making their creators at least 1000 Robux per month. 150 builders are making more than 10,000 Robux per month. Finally, there are 29 ROBLOX tycoons who are each bringing in more than 100,000 Robux per month from their games.

Measuring Success

The most popular games, by definition, have a ton of people playing them and thus tend to make more money than less popular places when they opt to sell game passes or gear. You might not have the most popular game on ROBLOX, so how do you measure your success? One simple metric that takes popularity out of the equation is keeping track of how many Robux you make per visit to your level. For example, if you have a level that gets 100 visits per 7 days (a stat you can see on your Build page (it’s in the dropbox combo box for the sort)), and you sell 200 Robux worth of game passes per week there, then you are making 2 Robux per visit. If you’re actually making 2 Robux/visit, you’re doing awesome. That means if you manage to make your place more popular through updates (or ads) to the point where you’re getting 1000 visits per week, you’d magically start making 2000 Robux a week without tweaking your game passes or gear offerings.
I dug around in our database and found the places with the highest Robux/visit over the past 30 days (filtering out the ones with a very low number of total visits to make the results statistically sound). The following is a list of the top 20 most successfully monetizing levels on ROBLOX:
Longest Obby on ROBLOX!! (MEGA SALE ON ALL VIPS!!) – 8.1 Robux/visit
Gear 4 Pro’s! – 6.5 Robux/visit
Legend of the Shattered Rune II-Closed Until 31st – 6.4 Robux/visit
Trollventure Wars V.6.3! — Buy Vip! – 5.8 Robux/visit
Warrior Cats RPG: Leaf-Fall! (FAVORITE!) – 5.7 Robux/visit
Climb the Stairs [HUGE VIP AND ADMIN SALE!] – 5.5 Robux/visit
End of Robloxia™: GIANT NOOB ATTACK – 5.2 Robux/visit
The Legends Of Hawkhaven (3k vists!!!!) – 4.7 Robux/visit
Giftstravaganza 2012™ – 4.5 Robux/visit
IRM – The District of Wewelsburg – 4.0 Robux/visit
Kill The Clones: Tournament – 3.9 Robux/visit
Airport Tycoon – 3.8 Robux/visit
Protect Telamon from Zombies! [15] *FAV FOR VIP – 3.8 Robux/visit
Three player war tycoon 5.0 *New Tycoons* – 3.7 Robux/visit
King Of The Hill [New Shops!] – 3.6 Robux/visit
-(TGGE)- Outpost Wolfenstein |WINTER| – 3.4 Robux/visit
Legend of the shattered rune (1k Visited!!!!) – 3.2 Robux/visit
Ragdoll Fight on the Heights – 3.2 Robux/visit
The Legends II RPG | Free Dragon Pet! – 3.1 Robux/visit
[Allied Forces]: LLA H4 J2IV 9283 – 3.1 Robux/visit

We’ll be interviewing some of our most successful ROBLOX tycoons in a future article to bring you guys some inside tips from the best of the best. Until then, the best way to win is to get in the game — if you haven’t tried selling gear in your place, give it a whirl for a couple of days. The results might surprise you.

Deadzone: Suprisingly more loyal to DayZ

In light of Apocalypse Rising's closing, Deadzone, by DeadZoneZakZak (a.k.a RangerIcicle), takes its spot as it rises in popularity to the front page of ROBLOXia.

Gameplay by RangerIcicle, creator of Deadzone

Deadzone, unlike Apocalyspe Rising, takes place in a smaller map, but has more animations, guns, complex mechanics, bigger solo focus, and of course, bandits. Despite this, experience from DayZ has taught me that Deadzone is accurate as you get get from DayZ.



What do you think? Comment on our group page ROBLOXian Universe or on our Twitter
@ROBLOXUniverse!

Top Hats Or Top Atrocities!

Atomic Neon Top Hat:

Today Roblox published three very special hats, for 3 very special reasons. The first hat I sniped was the "Atomic Neon Top Hat" which I personally found very attractive, very modern and very cool! The atomic neon top hat at first sight wasn't much really, and beforehand I heard that it looks “ugly” or comments describing how “Roblox messed up this time” but as I took it into my studio, I got to appreciate this hat for what it really is. This funky top hat has three main colors incorporated into its design

1. Purple – The rim and the top half of this hat is covered in a lush, regal purple.
2. Teal – around the middle of the top had is a thick covering of teal fabric.
3. Green – A cool design added is two, green, floating rings going around the perimeter of the hat.

This pretty special hat was quite a costly 1500R$ however I feel it was well worth my money. I don’t sell my hats often; I usually just save them up until I find other objects which work well with it. However if you are the type who just buys hats for profit, this hat was for you! Straight after all the “Limited U” hats were sold, over 80 went on sale for over 2000R$ which is a clear profit of 500R$ and that’s a real deal! Later I saw that the price began to rise and the amount of people who are selling this particular hat began to rise too and something which makes this hat pretty special is that there were only 348 sold originally.

Cost (6/10) – Although this hat was a very cool design I didn't believe that it was worth 1500R$ and therefore not everyone could have the chance to buy it and earn profit from it.

Texture (8/10) – I love the texture of this hat, the different colors and overall design makes it a really perfect hat for the wacky Robloxians out there!

Mesh (8/10) – As far as I can tell this mesh has never been used before but because it’s a top hat, I don’t feel I can give it full marks. Personally I believe that top hats are really overused and with over 48 top hats currently on sale in the catalog, Is another top hat really going to make a difference?

Overall (7/10) – It’s a good top hat but with the mesh fairly similar to others and the cost being way too high, it really isn't the best hat I've ever had.

Other hats which were sold recently are the “Sensei” which was a terrible disaster of a hat, nothing really matches it and I was hard pushed to even buy it myself, I searched for over 20 minutes trying to find a outfit and other hats and gears which may, just may go well with this hat. Well… none did.

Sensei Mini Review:   Cost:  55R$

Overall (2/10) – I understand that Roblox need to make new hats with new styles and textures, but really? The reason I gave it such a low score is because they did use an original mesh, and yes there is tons of detail within this hat but other than that, there really isn’t anything which would ever attract me to buying a hat such as this ever again

Another hat which Roblox just released was the “Masquerade King”  which was much more of an improvement that the terrible disaster which is the "Sensei". I also had a hard time trying to find a outfit and gears to go with this hat however it was much easier than the previous one.

Masquerade King Mini Review:   Cost:  100R$

Overall (6/10) – This hat is a new mesh, which I do love to see from Roblox! It has such a beautiful texture and design which really made me fall in love with this simple, yet elegant mask. I think for the amount of detail and the neutral style, it has a very reasonable price. I really wish they’d made this hat a Limited item, that’s the reason I gave it such a low score.

Now it's time for your say! Do you think Roblox's hats are decreasing in quality? or are you still faithful in their ability? tell us what you think on our group page ROBLOXianUniverse Or on our twitter @ROBLOXUniverse

User Feedback

Hi there, we would like some user feedback on twitter, group, or a comment below!


We want to hear about
- Posts
- Group
- Staff
- ROBLOX
- Hobos

Those kind of things, post a comment below.

Greyson the Spiny Forked: A spiffingly good steal!

Do people complain you look weak?  You’re not manly enough? Well wait no more! This amazingly complex helmet priced at only 50R$ was a great investment. The helmet comprised of the regular metallic plate with two giant horns curling from both sides, topped off with an extremely detailed spike in the middle and gradually decreasing in size as they reach the nose protection plate. Many people were skeptical as it was released, why? It’s new, no-one likes change and people always have faith in re-textures which made profit in the past, seeing as this was a “Limited U” item, it reeled in some high controversy.

A total of 4996 helmets were sold in the space of twenty minutes making it increasingly popular, with sales starting at a reasonable 300R$ which obviously immediately started to decrease in value. Considering this item was only 50R$, I say, that is some pretty nifty profit!

Style: 7/10, Looks good from afar but amazing up close with full visual effect of the incredible detail.

Cost: 10/10, for a low price of 50R$, this item is a pretty good investment and a great addition to your wardrobe.

Mesh: 8/10, they created a new mesh for something quite original, however other helmets do seem rather similar.

Texture: 10/10, I love the texture on this hat, very cool looking with such detail and a fluent color throughout

Overall: 9/10, Overall I say this item would make a pretty cool addition to anyone’s inventory for any occasion, personally I’m saving this one for Halloween 2013.

Now what do you think? Discuss this hat with us at ROBLOXian Universe on our group page or you could tell us what you thought on our twitter page @ROBLOXUniverse

ROBLOXian Universe Has a Twitter.

Yes we now have a twitter account, slow at the moment, but here we can post offsite links to ROBLOXian Universe if you ever get lost. Just tweet us @ROBLOXUniverse to find out some updates that may not be on the site!

Borderline Could Be ROBLOX’s Summer Blockbuster FP

 By Sherknock - January 25, 2013

They say it’s roughly 10% finished. It might see the light of day this spring. It’s already been scrapped and restarted a few times. The quality standard is insanely high. They call it Borderline, an upcoming ROBLOX first-person shooter, and you wouldn’t be wrong for thinking, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Yet, after ROBLOX was talking with two of the game’s three developers, it’s clear they have their ducks in a row. The team, known as StudioMM, uses a Skype hub to discuss and review building progress – everything from altering the engine to creating a new logo – and has clear direction: a balanced play experience where the user controls their game experience. There is reason to believe one day, you’ll be playing this.
Borderline’s development is being led by user mat852, a 15-year-old student who shifts gears between building in ROBLOX, studying and playing Far Cry 3( So do I, @ruthlessharry on Xbox Live ). While the development process has started over several times, he’s been there all along, slowly progressing forward because he finds it fun and he’s grown to know ROBLOX well. Over the past few months, mat852 has been releasing video updates of first-person shooter tech he’s developed for Borderline, and they’re striking.

As you can see in the above video, if it does not have a error, the game features a level of detail that is largely unmatched on ROBLOX. Much of the detail lies in the animations: your arms gently sway with your breathing, you tuck your gun while sprinting, there’s a smooth transition to peering through a scope, and there’s physicality to reloading. This all works great from the first-person; they’re working on enhancing the animations seen on other characters.
There’s even more detail in the weapon attachments, which alter not only how a given weapon appears, but how it functions. According to mat852, “usually you see that you can add maybe one or two attachments, like optics or under-barrel foregrips. But in this game, we want it so that you can change the way the gun works, from the type of stock and barrel to the gas system inside.”
These sorts of fundamental changes will alter the effectiveness of a weapon, as based on research and data from various sources.

“Really, my knowledge comes from playing other video games. But of course there’s a limit of what you can see from gameplay. There are websites such as symthic.com that collect the data from games like Battlefield 3. I look at that and see how they do things, then put a twist on it to meet with what we want the game to be like.”
Many of the weapons are sourced from ROBLOX’s extensive collection of models and modified with an assortment of perfectly CFramed attachments. Once in game, the code determines which attachments the player has selected and removes any others, then reads a table of data to determine their actual effects.
“Take for example the extended magazine,” mat852 says. “The table says that it adds 25% more ammo, so add 25% more ammo and round it to an integer. You can’t have any decimals when using bullets, can you?”
While weapons will be a major source of user customization, players will also have a choice of camouflage patterns and protective vests, where the more you play, the better protection you unlock. The appearance and effects of each defensive item are managed in the same way as the weapons.
There are even plans to integrate vehicles of the wheeled and winged varieties in a balanced way.
“If a jet is heading toward you, and you have the right launcher, you have the same chance to take down the person controlling the jet as he has to get you,” mat852 says.
With so much granular detail, so many visions for grandiose battles and aspirations for rock-solid performance, it seems like somewhere, something has to give. But when asked whether their ideas are technically feasible, especially with 20 or 30 players in a server, both mat852 and his German scripting cohort Bauer102 seem confident they can pull it off. One of the key reasons is their strong framework – their engine within the ROBLOX engine.
Using their framework, they can “easily spread the whole game engine into multiple scripts, which is useful for multi-threading and because ROBLOX’s scripts have a maximum of 220k lines,” says Bauer102. Essentially, the framework allows them to split their code into independent, portable pieces, meaning they can call on them as needed and even use them in future projects.
Another reason to believe is the team was once on the verge of a solid play experience, until running into some “badly optimized movement code,” mat852 says. “Once I took that out it ran flawless with 14+ players shooting all at once.”
Since then, they’ve totally revamped the code and Bauer102 has joined to write and optimize code. It sounds frustrating, the idea of doing work a second or third time, but each restart of the development process has brought more efficiency.
“You could say we all learn from our mistakes and make the end result we expected before, better than ever,” says mat852.

Finally, Borderline’s level designer, MahPizzaIsHere, has a simple building aesthetic, allowing him to make a few blocks go a long way and build expansive, vehicle- and performance-friendly maps. The few maps that have been made public look great, a testament to the power of simplicity.
The pieces are in place for a great ROBLOX game – maybe the definitive ROBLOX shooter. While it’s too early to make that call, this small team appears to be on the right track (not to mention committed and persevering). You can keep tabs on StudioMM’s progress by following their Twitter account and subscribing to their YouTube channel.
Will Borderline be an unforgettable, polished game that seizes the attention of ROBLOX’s millions of players, or a glorified tech demo? Here’s to hoping it’s the great game the team is aspiring to build.

~ Sherknock

Showbiz with B0Z!

NOTE: this article is done by a friend of mine, B0ZY, but he wanted me to post his articles, so I'm going to do it.

Hello guys! :) welcome to the first segment of Showbiz wit' B0Z! I am extremely happy to start this new pop culture column, along with the start of the all new ROBLOX Newspaper/Magazine News source, ROBLOXian Universe! Get ready for some scandalous fun! ;)

Here is this week's pop top 3 :)

1. Welcome to the NEIGHBORHOOD of ROBLOXia?

You heard it right! A little under a year since the fall of the great, Welcome to the Town of ROBLOXia, emerges a new spin on the classic game. I, personally, enjoy the new game, however, some on the forums disagree! Kholech, for example, said he prefers neither of the games! I laughed at this response, but I'm sure 1dev2 wouldn't! He was the owner of Welcome to the Town of ROBLOX. His account was terminated a few months ago after his place had just reached 15 million visits. The popular, staple-of-a-ROBLOX-game fell. Other town roleplay games emerged, such as Lakeside and the Complex. More recently, the popular Neighborhood of ROBLOXia! It has (for the most part) stayed on the home page, just like it's predecessor. Visit the game, and tell me, what do you think?

2. New ROBLOX Updates!

Yep! :) visit anyone's ROBLOX profile and scroll down to their inventory. It now has a sleeker, more modern look, just like the catalog does since it's big update nearly a year ago. I think it made the inventories look more simple and modern, but wait -- what do YOU think? ;)

3. Last, but DEFINITELY not least, what do you think of this new news source, ROBLOXian Universe? We all have faith in this ROBLOX-sponsored blog, as we believe it will become a ROBLOX staple! :) please join our ROBLOX group, too, so you can get updates when new stories are posted. PM me anything you think could be eligible for a spot in my pop top 3! Also, PM things YOU would like to hear about.

Thanks guys, see ya next week! :)

The Most Popular Games, Gear and Items of 2012

- January 24, 2013

2012 was a big year for ROBLOX and the users. Along with the many product releases and events that came along, ROBLOX has released a bunch of new gear and saw our users create a bevy of new and unique ROBLOX games. I thought I’d take a look back at the top 15 most popular games of 2012 and, while I'm were at it, dig up some item and gear statistics as well. Remember, I'm only counting data from 2012 — some of these popular games have millions more visits when you consider their lifetime stats.

Most Visited Games of 2012

1. Base Wars: The Land – 15,189,409 visits
2. Catalog Heaven – 11,602,354 visits
3. Rollercoaster Into a Black Hole Obby! (Now known as Jump Into the Ball Pit and Survive!) – 11,501,222 visits
4. Paintball! – 10,096.274 visits
5. Call of Robloxia 5 – ROBLOX At War – 8,184,995 visits
6. Welcome to the Town of Robloxia – 7,455,373 visits
7. Build a Hideout and Fight – 6,812,161 visits
8. The Complex V.4 – 6,703,501 visits
9. Build to Survive the Zombies – 6,645,146 visits
10. Sword Fighting Tournament – 6,477,147 visits
11. Monsters Vs Robloxians (Now known as Be A Superhero Go To Highschool) - 5,403,099 visits
12. Disaster Hotel – 4,976,622 visits
13. Super Fun Obby – 4,957,167 visits
14. Apocalypse Rising – 4,844,229 visits
15. DriveBlox Unlimited – 4,654,125 visits

The most popular game of 2012 was d4rk886‘s Base Wars: The Land, with more than 15 million game plays. It features about 30 character classes and, on top of that, vehicles to pilot and special weapons for each class that you can unlock through play. On a typical afternoon, Base Wars: The Land is typically in the top 10 games on the Games page. The game owes its longevity to a high amount of replayability, due mostly to the branching number of choices players can make as they accrue points in the game (a topic ROHLOX has touched on before — if you’re looking for tips on how to make your game more replayable, check out a ROBLOX article).

Comparing the top games from this past year to the top games of 2011 yields some interesting results — only three of the top games on the list were on both lists. This speaks volumes about our platform –some games get it so right that they can stand the test of time. But with so many new and innovative games constantly flooding the Games page, this is a rare occurrence. Call of ROBLOXia: ROBLOX at War, Base Wars: The Land, and Rollercoaster Into a Black Hole Obby stood the test of time, appearing on the top 15 list for two years in a row.

Let’s move on to gear. I decided purposely to exclude gear items that were promotional because those items were free, and I want to know which gear sold the most over the course of the year. Here’s the list.

Most Sold Gear of 2012

1. Body Swap Potion – 26,321 sold
2. Spray Paint – 11,949 sold
3. Egg Cannon 9000 – 11,002 sold
4. Speed Coil – 9,386 sold
5. 2013 Firework - 9,319 sold
6. Phoenix – 9,084 sold
7. Flying Magic Carpet – 8,867 sold
8. Bluster Buster – 8,376 sold
9. Captain Steelshanks Recruiting Staff - 7,232 sold
10. Telamax xTreme Dual Shoulder Cannons – 6,847 sold

The best-selling gear item of the year was the Body Swap Potion. When equipped, you can click on another place and you will swap appearances and locations with that player ( I really hate this, but it's fun to use). This chaotic capability is useful in a wide variety of contexts, which probably explains some of its popularity. In a battle game, it affords all kinds of exciting tactical options to confuse the enemy. In a social game, it’s just pure fun to ape your comrades.
Finally, let’s look into our top-selling items. I've removed from consideration all promotional items that we (Readers and I) published this year (some of which were incredibly popular).

Most Sold Items of 2012

1. Ostrichsized Winter Scarf - 22,673 sold
2. Tweet Tweet – 22,660 sold
3. Crimson Winter Scarf – 20,814 sold
4. Valentine’s Day 2012 Cap – 19,817 sold
5. Spiky Halloween Shades – 19,636 sold
6. Saint Patrick’s Day 2012 – 19,242
7. Red Flowered Cloche – 18,011
8. Dark Blue Light Hair - 14,617
9. Charming Brown Haired Fellow – 13,300
10. Opened Gift of the All Seeing Eyes – 13,297

Despite being released in mid-December, OstrichSized‘s winter scarf was our best seller for the year. He pointed out that this item hit the “sweet spot” between “style,” “seasonality,” and “pure value.” Pick one up today for 20 Robux in the catalog while supplies last!

~ Sherknock/Chris

Fast Parts: Rendering Moving Parts 4-5x Faster in ROBLOX

- January 24, 2013

 

With the recent release of featherweight parts they drastically lightened the load, so to speak, of objects in the ROBLOX graphics pipeline. In an effort to continue down this path, they’re developing a system that can switch between featherweight and non-featherweight parts on the fly, in real time. They like to keep things simple around here, so they’ve elected to call them fast parts.

Why would you want to be able to switch? What are the benefits? What type of hardware will be able to handle these new parts? These and many other questions will NOT be answered in this article.

Some of my own pictures:

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I was not at the best place with falling bricks, but you get the idea.

~ Sherknock/Chris

ROBLOX Mobile Now Supports Vehicles and Chat on All Devices!!!

January 23, 2013

( ROBLOX Image )
They've been keeping tabs on your ROBLOX Mobile feedback, and today they are to report that some of your requests have been fulfilled!! Vehicles (cars, trucks, vans, planes, even skateboards) can now be controlled using the standard controls of ROBLOX Mobile. They also added chat functionality to the app on iPhone and iPod Touch, so those of you with such devices can communicate with one another in-game. Gonna be hard sword fighting right?

When will they make one for Android Tablet?

~Sherknock/Chris

Welcome to ROBLOXian Universe!

Hi and welcome!

This is Noswad0208 the owner/creator of ROBLOXian Universe. We're just starting out now but working on making this a great site!

Thanks for viewing!

-Nos