Sponsored event

A sponsored event is a type of event which sponsors and advertises a usually kid-friendly upcoming TV series, movie, or game. Usually, games featured in sponsored events would offer special badges which are only available from the start of the event until it ends, and also may have how to obtain it in its description. To obtain these badges, players would often have to find one or more hidden objects related to the event scattered all over the game. Some prizes cannot be physically seen, but instead be obtained by completing an objective instead of finding it. Some hidden prizes may also emit sparkles. When a player collects or earns the prize(s) related to the event, they would earn the badge corresponding to the prize.

Also, some catalog items related to the event may be put up for sale, but before they were put up on sale, some of them could only be obtained by entering a link or a promotional code. Occasionally, Roblox will publish and sell individual catalog items sponsoring a work that does not have an event.

History
The first sponsored event on Roblox was the Transformers Event, which took place during February 2011, to promote the TV series Transformers Prime. It had two prizes, the Decepticon Recruit, which could be obtained by collecting all five of the Decepticon's coins, and the Autobot Recruit, which could be obtained by collecting all five of the Autobot's coins. The event was in a single place, as dev events did not exist during that time.

The next sponsored event was the Boxtrolls event, which ran during late September 2014. It had three prizes, which were each packages, awarded corresponding to the character the player won as. For example, if the player won as Shoe, they would receive the "Shoe The Boxtroll" package. It was the only sponsored event to award packages instead of hats and gear items.

Sponsored events began to become more common in 2015, starting with the 2015 Jurassic World Event, which promoted the movie Jurassic World. It was the first sponsored event to feature prizes physically in-game, and was also the first to contain multiple games, like many sponsored events today. For example, the Dinosaur Tooth could be found on any of the spawn points located outside the facility in Innovation Research Labs during the event.

Criticism
Many users have criticized sponsored events for their low-quality prizes and for them being too simple to earn, and for most of them being mainly targeted at younger users. Some users have described sponsored events as "boring" and "rushed", and for many of them being "dev events". Users have also stated that they took a relatively short amount of time to obtain each item. Several users have also suggested developers to make it more of a challenge to actually obtain all of the prizes.