My Roblox Game Made $43,292 (Here's Exactly How to Monetize Yours) — Transcript

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1. 0:00So, one of my Roblox games made $43,292.
2. 0:04And in this video, I'm going to break
3. 0:06down exactly how the monetization was
4. 0:08set up, what actually sold, why it sold,
5. 0:10and how you can apply the same thinking
6. 0:12to your own game. Because most
7. 0:14developers either don't monetize at all,
8. 0:17or they set it up completely wrong and
9. 0:19leave a ton of money on the table. So,
10. 0:21let's get into it. So, the game was
11. 0:23called Sell Potatoes. Basically, a
12. 0:25tycoon idle game where you start with
13. 0:27nothing and build up a potato-selling
14. 0:29empire. It was a similar concept to Sell
15. 0:31Lemons, if you've seen that game blowing
16. 0:33up recently. You start off small, you
17. 0:35upgrade, you automate, and then you
18. 0:36rebirth. It's a pretty simple concept,
19. 0:39but the monetization is where it gets
20. 0:40interesting, because the game itself
21. 0:43making that kind of money had nothing to
22. 0:45do with how complex it was, and
23. 0:47everything to do with how the
24. 0:48monetization was designed. Okay, so the
25. 0:50first thing I want to talk about is the
26. 0:51biggest mistake that I see Roblox
27. 0:53developers make with monetization, and
28. 0:55that's making everything a game pass.
29. 0:57And I get why people do it, because game
30. 0:59passes feel like a bigger deal. They
31. 1:01have higher prices, and one sale feels
32. 1:03more significant [music]
33. 1:05than a cheap developer product. But,
34. 1:07here's the problem with that thinking. A
35. 1:09game pass is a one-time purchase.
36. 1:11Someone buys it once, and that's it.
37. 1:13They never need to buy it again. Which
38. 1:15means the only way to keep making money
39. 1:17from game passes is to keep getting new
40. 1:19players into your game. Developer
41. 1:21products, on the other hand, are
42. 1:22consumables. Meaning, a player can buy
43. 1:25them over and over again, and that
44. 1:27changes everything. Think about it like
45. 1:29this. In e-commerce, the biggest brands
46. 1:31in the world aren't selling luxury items
47. 1:33that people buy once. They're selling
48. 1:35toothpaste, [music]
49. 1:36supplements, things people buy again and
50. 1:38again. That's what developer products
51. 1:40are in Roblox. And the more that you can
52. 1:42design your monetization around
53. 1:44consumables, the more money that you can
54. 1:46make per player, instead of depending
55. 1:48entirely on new players coming in. So,
56. 1:51here's exactly what my three
57. 1:52best-selling developer products were in
58. 1:54Sell Potatoes, and more importantly, why
59. 1:56[music] they sold. Number one was a
60. 1:58speed boost. Players in a tycoon game
61. 2:00spend a lot of time running around
62. 2:02collecting things and upgrading, and the
63. 2:04pain that they feel is that it's slow.
64. 2:06They're grinding, so a speed boost
65. 2:08directly solves that pain. It makes the
66. 2:10game feel better immediately, and
67. 2:12because it was a developer product and
68. 2:14not a game pass, players who bought it
69. 2:16once and felt how good it was came back
70. 2:18and bought it again the next session.
71. 2:20That's the key. Number two was 5x cash.
72. 2:23Again, this is solving the same pain,
73. 2:25which is the grind. Players who are deep
74. 2:27into the game and just want to progress
75. 2:29faster will pay for [music] that. And
76. 2:30the important thing here is pricing it
77. 2:32right. You don't want to price it so
78. 2:34cheap that it wrecks your in-game
79. 2:35economy, but you don't want it so
80. 2:36expensive that people just don't bother
81. 2:38either. Find the middle ground where it
82. 2:40feels like a no-brainer purchase. Number
83. 2:42three was auto collect. So, in Sell
84. 2:44Potatoes, players had to manually
85. 2:46collect their potato earnings, and a lot
86. 2:48of people just didn't want to do that
87. 2:49actively. They wanted to play more
88. 2:51passively. Auto collect solved that
89. 2:53directly, and this is something that I
90. 2:55learned from watching how players were
91. 2:57actually playing the game, which I'll
92. 2:58get into in a second, because that's
93. 3:00where a lot of your best product ideas
94. 3:02come from. And that's really the whole
95. 3:03framework behind good monetization. Your
96. 3:05best-selling products are always going
97. 3:06to be the ones that solve a specific
98. 3:08pain that your players are already
99. 3:09feeling, not features that are nice to
100. 3:11have, things that feel like must-haves
101. 3:13because they're removing friction from
102. 3:15the experience. Speed boost removes the
103. 3:17pain of moving slow, 5x cash removes the
104. 3:19pain of grinding, auto collect removes
105. 3:21the pain of having to actively manage
106. 3:23everything. Every single one of my top
107. 3:25sellers in that solved a direct problem
108. 3:27players were running into, and the way
109. 3:29you figure out what those problems are
110. 3:31is you actually go into your game and
111. 3:33watch players. Like, literally just
112. 3:35follow someone around for 5 minutes.
113. 3:36You're going to see exactly where they
114. 3:38get frustrated, where they slow down,
115. 3:40where the game stops being fun. Those
116. 3:42moments are your product ideas. Okay, so
117. 3:44another thing that made a huge
118. 3:45difference was purchase pathways, which
119. 3:47basically just means how many different
120. 3:49ways can a player actually buy your
121. 3:50products. Most developers just stick a
122. 3:53shop button in the corner of the screen
123. 3:54and call it done. But the more ways that
124. 3:56a player can access your products, the
125. 3:58more chances you have to make a sale. In
126. 4:00Sell Potatoes, I had the shop button in
127. 4:02the HUD, obviously, but I also had a
128. 4:03little plus icon next to the cash
129. 4:05counter. So, if a player was looking at
130. 4:07their money and thinking about buying
131. 4:08more, they could just tap that
132. 4:10instantly. And I also placed the actual
133. 4:12developer product NPCs or buttons
134. 4:14physically inside the game world near
135. 4:16where players were spending the most
136. 4:17time because if they're walking past the
137. 4:19product [clears throat] 20 times per
138. 4:20session, they're going to eventually buy
139. 4:22it. If it's hidden inside the menu, they
140. 4:24might never even see it. Think about
141. 4:26product placement in a physical store.
142. 4:28They put the stuff that they most want
143. 4:30you to buy at an eye level, right where
144. 4:32you're walking. Same exact principle
145. 4:34works in Roblox. Now, I said earlier
146. 4:36that consumables beat game passes for
147. 4:37most things, and I stand by that, but
148. 4:39there's still a place for game passes.
149. 4:41Permanent upgrades that fundamentally
150. 4:43change how the game feels. Things like a
151. 4:45permanent 2x cash multiplier or VIP
152. 4:48access or an exclusive cosmetic. Those
153. 4:51make sense as game passes because the
154. 4:53value is genuinely permanent. Just don't
155. 4:55make the mistake of turning things that
156. 4:57could be consumables into game passes.
157. 4:592x offline earnings, for example, way
158. 5:02more valuable as a developer product
159. 5:03because players will buy it over and
160. 5:05over every time they log back in. If you
161. 5:07made it a game pass, you sell it once
162. 5:09and it's done. And the process for
163. 5:11figuring all of this out is pretty
164. 5:12simple. You just launch your game with a
165. 5:14basic monetization setup. You watch how
166. 5:16players actually play. You look at your
167. 5:18sales data, and you see what's selling
168. 5:20and what isn't. You add a new product
169. 5:22that solves a pain point that you
170. 5:23noticed. You check if it's sold without
171. 5:25wrecking your other stats like session
172. 5:27time and retention. If it works, you
173. 5:29keep it. If it doesn't, you remove it
174. 5:30and try something else. That's it. It's
175. 5:32not complicated. It's just iterative.
176. 5:34Sell Potatoes didn't make $43,292
177. 5:38because I built the perfect monetization
178. 5:40setup on day one. It made that because I
179. 5:42kept paying attention to what players
180. 5:44were doing and kept adding products that
181. 5:46solved real problems that they were
182. 5:48having. And if you want to go even
183. 5:50deeper on this, all the game setups that
184. 5:51I've built are inside Road Developer
185. 5:53Academy with the full monetization
186. 5:55already set up inside each one so that
187. 5:58you can see exactly how I structured it.
188. 6:00Link is going to be in the description.
189. 6:02Subscribe if you want to see the next
190. 6:03one and I'll see you there.