Changes: User-generated content

Revision as of 22:33, 17 July 2020

Fresh Red Baseball Cap, the first official user-generated accessory.

User-Generated Content (UGC for short) is a feature that allows users to publish their own items and sell them to other users. It is mainly associated with the Avatar Shop but can also be applied to other parts of the Roblox website such as Models and Plugins since they are techically also types of user generated content.

The accessories can be viewed under the Community Creations category in the Avatar Shop. The feature was initially announced at RDC 2015^{⁠[citation needed]}, but its confirmation was declared at RDC 2019.^[1] It released on August 15, 2019, to certified users on the site. Before its release, Roblox had confirmed that this feature will only be allowed to certain users who had previously worked with Roblox on different occasions for modeling and texturing purposes, with many suspecting that popular Roblox video content creators in the official Roblox Video Stars Program will have access to it.

Roblox has reached out to reveal that they will sometime in the future depend on content created by eligible users rather than prioritizing assets made by the official ROBLOX account, which is managed by admins to publish items as a default.

Whenever a user publishes an accessory, they can input customized descriptions, a Robux price, and much more. However, releasing limited unique items and making existing items limited is still restricted to ROBLOX. Roblox has stated that they want to move in a direction where creators can publish their own limited items to sell to other users^[2], but are unable to reasonably allow this ability due to the minimal amount of creators in the program.^{[citation needed]}

On December 6, 2019, it was revealed that star creators will be given the ability to request User Generated Content items to be created per TheMeganPlays' tweet.^[3] Some select star creators were given the ability to request an item early to test the feature. Roblox catalog managers originally let MeganPlays' item be created to test the feature^[4], but her item was quickly turned into a blank item uploaded by the ROBLOX account. A copy of the item was later re-uploaded onto the catalog the afternoon that the original was deleted, and can currently be purchased. Currently, star creators are able to upload one accessory per month. ^{[citation needed]}

On April 13, 2020, Roblox began testing for the support of Thumbnail Cameras in UGC items. The feature is currently not public.^{[citation needed]}

List of UGC items

Alternatively, click "Expand" to show the list of UGC items.

Selected Developers

Currently, there are only 60 known creators who are allowed to upload their own creations without request. Those selected users are:

There are also 9 selected accounts that were/are used for testing. These are:

Criticism

The UGC feature has mostly been criticized due to potential copies of pre-existing catalog items by ROBLOX, low-effort, or unoriginal ideas. Some notable example being some early hats by tarabyte (BiggestHead, Illuminati, Despacito Spider, and Triple Headstack), as well as the Cartoony Rainbow items by CodyDevv which have been seen by some players as oversaturating the Avatar Shop due to being copied and released in bulk by several other creators within a short time frame.

UGC has also specifically been criticized by the trading community for fears of limited and limited unique items dropping in value. This originally began when the Downtown Denizen Fedora was uploaded by WhoToTrus and had subsequently been claimed by a portion of the community to be a ripoff of The Classic ROBLOX Fedora, despite the Downtown Denizen Fedora using a noticeably different mesh and texture on closer inspection.

Another concern about UGC from traders and collectors in general is the fact that Roblox appear to have canceled their official sales, which were known for bringing back popular 'classic' items such as the Workclock Headphones and Bighead as well as releasing new retextures of popular item meshes like Domini and Valkyrie Helms among other highly demanded items such as limited unique colored faces. The lack of these has led to disappointment from many users including prominent community members such as Younite and even some UGC creators who used to participate in sales themselves.

The ability for creators to allow comments has also drawn criticism as the vast majority of UGC comment sections tend to be filled with spam chains unrelated to the item (such as "/e free" and "Post this on X items" copypastas) as well as general toxicity due to certain users personally attacking other commenters as well as the item and its publisher. They have often been compared to YouTube comment sections as both tend to be filled with children who primarily comment using text-based meme formats, along with many commenters seeking to start petty arguments with each other over their opinions.

On December 14, 2019, users in the Roblox Video Stars Program were granted the ability to publish UGC items at a slower rate than selected developers, presumably in response to YouTube's regulation changes regarding COPPA (effectively reducing ad revenue by a sizeable amount for kid-friendly content creators). This has been met with disdain by some users as they feel that Roblox is favoring video creators as opposed to developers, big and small alike. Additionally, some Star Program creators have been accused of uploading low effort items, with the most notable instance being the Golden Parrot by AntRavioli.

A trend among UGC items are waist accessories designed to look like a giant object, so a user can disguise your avatar as that object and fool other users into thinking their avatars in-game are part of the game map. A notable example is BOX. Because of how this can disrupt gameplay, scripts have been published in which they remove these kinds of accessories from avatars wearing them. As of recent, many of these items have been taken offsale, and it is presumed unlikely that this item trend will ever resurface.

JohnAvia was accepted as part of the UGC program, after posting many UGC concepts. It was then discovered all of his UGC concepts were plagiarized from other artists^[5], which resulted in backlash against him. JohnAvia's items quickly got content deleted.

Trivia

This section is a trivia section. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections of the article.

A UGC item typically consists of a mesh created in a 3D modeling program such as Blender, which then has a texture applied to it and is imported into Roblox Studio for final checks before being published to the Avatar Shop.
- Though this entire concept is not new, players have been brainstorming and sharing ideas of their own of retextures through uploading models and meshes onto the Library section of the catalog over many years.
An early version of the upload interface can be found here, although it does not function if the user is not a designated UGC creator.
Due to the current interface, sometimes hats will go off-sale when being updated.
Creators cannot currently add scripts and particles such as Sparkles, Fire and Smoke to their items.
When uploading, the item must have the Plastic material.^{⁠[citation needed]}
Creators have to sign a "Non-Disclosure Agreement" (NDA) to create accessories.^{⁠[citation needed]}
Premium is required to upload hats, and losing it will cause all pre-existing hats to go off-sale.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Gallery

UGC_Hair_is_Here — UGC Hair is Here

Roblox's story post

References

[1] ttps://devforum.roblox.com/t/thoughts-on-rdcs-ugc-announcement/327646

[2] ttps://devforum.roblox.com/t/ugc-catalog-is-now-live/331405

[3] ttps://twitter.com/MeganPlays/status/1203167916541263872

[4] ttps://twitter.com/MeganPlays/status/1202742288239267841

[5] ttps://twitter.com/KijiSoft/status/1264476378411368448

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{For|a list of current user-made accessories|:Category:UGC items}}[[File:FRBC.png|thumb|[[Catalog:Fresh Red Baseball Cap|Fresh Red Baseball Cap]], the first '''official''' user-generated accessory.]]
-'''[[Wikipedia: User-generated content|User-Generated Content]]', ''also known as''' UGC''' for short, is a feature that allows [[players|users]] to publish their own items and sell them to other users. It is mainly associated with the [[Avatar Shop]] but can also be applied to other parts of the Roblox website such as [[Models]] and [[Plugins]] since they are techically also types of user generated content.
+[[Wikipedia: User-generated content|User-Generated Content]] ('''UGC''' for short) is a feature that allows [[players|users]] to publish their own items and sell them to other users. It is mainly associated with the [[Avatar Shop]] but can also be applied to other parts of the Roblox website such as [[Models]] and [[Plugins]] since they are techically also types of user generated content.
 The [[accessory|accessories]] can be viewed under the [[Catalog#Community Creations|Community Creations category]] in the Avatar Shop. The feature was initially announced at RDC 2015{{Cite}}, but its confirmation was declared at [[RDC 2019]].<ref>https://devforum.roblox.com/t/thoughts-on-rdcs-ugc-announcement/327646</ref> It released on August 15, 2019, to certified users on the site. Before its release, [[Roblox]] had confirmed that this feature will only be allowed to certain users who had previously worked with Roblox on different occasions for modeling and texturing purposes, with many suspecting that popular [[YouTube celebrities|Roblox video content creators]] in the official [[Roblox Video Stars Program]] will have access to it.
@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 Another concern about UGC from traders and collectors in general is the fact that Roblox appear to have canceled their [[Sale|official sales]], which were known for bringing back popular 'classic' items such as the [[Catalog:Workclock Headphones|Workclock Headphones]] and [[Catalog:Bighead|Bighead]] as well as releasing new [[retextures]] of popular item meshes like [[Dominus (series)|Domini]] and [[Valkyrie (series)|Valkyrie Helms]] among other highly demanded items such as limited unique colored faces. The lack of these has led to disappointment from many users including prominent community members such as {{player link|Younite}} and even some UGC creators who used to participate in sales themselves.
-The ability for creators to allow comments has also drawn criticism as the vast majority of UGC comment sections tend to be filled with [[spam]] chains unrelated to the item (such as "/e free" and "Post this on X items" copypastas) as well as generally harbored toxicity due to certain users personally attacking other commenters as well as the item and its publisher. They have often been compared to [[Wikipedia:YouTube|YouTube]] comment sections as both tend to be filled with children who primarily comment using text-based meme formats, along with many commenters seeking to start petty arguments with each other over their opinions.
+The ability for creators to allow comments has also drawn criticism as the vast majority of UGC comment sections tend to be filled with [[spam]] chains unrelated to the item (such as "/e free" and "Post this on X items" copypastas) as well as general toxicity due to certain users personally attacking other commenters as well as the item and its publisher. They have often been compared to [[Wikipedia:YouTube|YouTube]] comment sections as both tend to be filled with children who primarily comment using text-based meme formats, along with many commenters seeking to start petty arguments with each other over their opinions.
 On December 14, 2019, users in the [[Roblox Video Stars Program]] were granted the ability to publish UGC items at a slower rate than selected developers, presumably in response to YouTube's regulation changes regarding COPPA (effectively reducing ad revenue by a sizeable amount for kid-friendly content creators). This has been met with disdain by some users as they feel that Roblox is favoring video creators as opposed to developers, big and small alike. Additionally, some Star Program creators have been accused of uploading low effort items, with the most notable instance being the [[Catalog:Golden Parrot|Golden Parrot]] by [[Community:AntRavioli|AntRavioli]].
@@ Line 67: / Line 67: @@
 *An early version of the upload interface can be found [https://www.roblox.com/build/upload?assetTypeId=8 here], although it does not function if the user is not a designated UGC creator.
 *Due to the current interface, sometimes hats will go off-sale when being updated.
-*Creators cannot currently add [[script]]s and [[Class:ParticleEmitter|particles]] such as {{class link|Sparkles}}, {{class link|Fire}} , and {{class link|Smoke}} to their items.
+*Creators cannot currently add [[script]]s and [[Class:ParticleEmitter|particles]] such as {{class link|Sparkles}}, {{class link|Fire}} and {{class link|Smoke}} to their items.
-*When uploading something, the item must have the "Plastic" Materials {{cite}}
+*When uploading, the item must have the [[Plastic]] material.{{cite}}
 *Creators have to sign a "Non-Disclosure Agreement" (NDA) to create accessories.{{cite}}
 *[[Premium]] is required to upload hats, and losing it will cause all pre-existing hats to go off-sale.{{cite}}