Extra steps can kill conversions.
I'm a big fan of Roblox - as a company and as a platform. It's incredible what's built daily in the engine, from gaming to virtual experiences. Still, something that drags down the experience - at least in my opinion is the new user onboarding, specifically for those that want to play a Roblox game that may not yet have an account.
Am I overreacting? Maybe a little.
However, I'm not the only one that thinks like this. Almost all social media apps let you use some view-only version. TikTok, Discord (visiting a direct server link), Reddit, etc. Users can engage and browse content without going through a pesky sign-up system.
When we put together Why Don't We a few weeks back, we saw 166,000 peak concurrents - a fantastic figure. But I couldn't help but wonder about the potentially lost % of users who may be discovering Roblox for the first time and just not being bothered to set up an account?
You can try it yourself. Try to visit your favorite Roblox game page in a signed-out browser window, and you'll be greeted with a pop-up asking you to register before jumping in and playing.
And at first, the answer is obvious: "How would player data be saved without accounts? What about chat moderation?" but the problem is much simpler than that.
Adding a form of guest access would significantly boost almost all experiences, especially in the event space.
In theory, this guest session would act as if the player was a full Roblox account from a game's perspective. They'd have a Player ID, username, and even physically appear in the world. Limitations would be in place on things like chatting or spending money, of course. There could also be an API-based (programming) flag for game devs to look for if they wanted to limit guest access somehow, too. The win here is that this user could play and enjoy the experience without signing up for a full account -- at least not right away.
If they love it, then an in-game/in-engine way to "save their stuff" by assigning an email and password would link that player ID to a full account. If not, no worries - the player leaves, and that's that. The experience is seamless to the end-user in every way.
Giving new users a seamless way to access Roblox content will make those curious much more likely to jump in. And those new people might be users who never would have given it a try otherwise.
- Devon
I'm a big fan of Roblox - as a company and as a platform. It's incredible what's built daily in the engine, from gaming to virtual experiences. Still, something that drags down the experience - at least in my opinion is the new user onboarding, specifically for those that want to play a Roblox game that may not yet have an account.
Am I overreacting? Maybe a little.
However, I'm not the only one that thinks like this. Almost all social media apps let you use some view-only version. TikTok, Discord (visiting a direct server link), Reddit, etc. Users can engage and browse content without going through a pesky sign-up system.
When we put together Why Don't We a few weeks back, we saw 166,000 peak concurrents - a fantastic figure. But I couldn't help but wonder about the potentially lost % of users who may be discovering Roblox for the first time and just not being bothered to set up an account?
You can try it yourself. Try to visit your favorite Roblox game page in a signed-out browser window, and you'll be greeted with a pop-up asking you to register before jumping in and playing.
And at first, the answer is obvious: "How would player data be saved without accounts? What about chat moderation?" but the problem is much simpler than that.
Adding a form of guest access would significantly boost almost all experiences, especially in the event space.
In theory, this guest session would act as if the player was a full Roblox account from a game's perspective. They'd have a Player ID, username, and even physically appear in the world. Limitations would be in place on things like chatting or spending money, of course. There could also be an API-based (programming) flag for game devs to look for if they wanted to limit guest access somehow, too. The win here is that this user could play and enjoy the experience without signing up for a full account -- at least not right away.
If they love it, then an in-game/in-engine way to "save their stuff" by assigning an email and password would link that player ID to a full account. If not, no worries - the player leaves, and that's that. The experience is seamless to the end-user in every way.
Giving new users a seamless way to access Roblox content will make those curious much more likely to jump in. And those new people might be users who never would have given it a try otherwise.
- Devon