Roblox is launching a new regional pricing system for creators that sell in-game items on the gaming platform.
The pricing model change is being made in order to stimulate global growth for the gaming platform’s economy by drawing in more international users with pricing based on their local market conditions.
When creators who make and sell their own in-game items opt-in to the new regional pricing feature, Roblox will automatically set the “optimal local prices” for those items, according to Roblox. The prices in Robux, Roblox’s in-game currency, will now be “more reflective” of local economies, rather than asking all users to pay the same price regardless of their location.
The cost of creators’ in-game items will be “updated periodically as Roblox’s virtual economy—and the global economy in the physical world—shifts.” Roblox says it plans to enable this regional pricing feature on avatar items later in the year.
In a Roblox blog post published Monday, Roblox vice president of economy Enrico D’Angelo wrote, “Regional Pricing offers users prices that are more reflective of their local economy, rather than paying the same price regardless of where they are. For example, without Regional Pricing, users in Vietnam or Brazil would pay the same price as users in the United States to access an experience’s economy. With Regional Pricing enabled, prices are automatically optimized for each user’s local economy and updated periodically as Roblox’s virtual economy—and the global economy in the physical world—shifts. Creators set the base price of their in-game items and retain complete control over which are priced regionally. From there, Roblox automatically applies the optimal region-specific prices for those in-game items as economic factors fluctuate.”
This change comes on the heels of last year’s implementation of Roblox’s “price optimization” tool, which “helps eligible creators determine the best prices for their in-game items.” According to Roblox, since price
Since its rollout, Roblox says the price optimization offering has led to a median earnings increase of 4% for eligible creators who have run a pricing test and “in many cases, these tests recommended that creators reduce prices on some of their in-experience items to make their offerings more attractive to a wider audience, driving higher earnings overall.”
