User-generated content

User-Generated Content (UGC) is a term used by Roblox for types of items and assets that can be created by a user, such as models and audio. The term is often used to differentiate assets from ones created by Roblox's account or other administrators.

The UGC catalog program allows users to publish and sell their accessories on the marketplace known as UGC items. The collection of accessories created by users is referred to as the UGC catalog.^[1] Previously, all accessories in the Avatar Shop were created by Roblox. Since the release, the community often use "UGC" to refer to UGC items.

The term is also used in custom materials known as UGC Materials.^[2]

Accessories[]

For a list of current user-made accessories, see Category:Community-created accessories.

User-created accessories can be viewed under the Community Creations category in the Avatar Shop. It was released on August 15, 2019, to certified users on the site.

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.

Currently, users are allowed the ability to create accessories through applications that are opened at some times on the Developer Forum. They must submit a portfolio of items, along with some examples of creation process documentation. After applications are closed, they are reviewed and certain users are chosen for that application.^[3]

History[]

The feature was initially announced at RDC 2015^{⁠[citation needed]}, but its confirmation was declared at RDC 2019.^[4] Before its release, Roblox had confirmed that this feature will only be allowed to certain users who had previously worked with Roblox 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.

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.^[5] Some select star creators were given the ability to request an item early to test the feature. Roblox avatar shop managers originally let MeganPlays' item be created to test the feature,^[6] 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 avatar shop the afternoon that the original was deleted, and can currently be purchased. Currently, star creators can only create one accessory per month.^{⁠[citation needed]} The items are uploaded by the Roblox staff account hornsword after being approved, and are transferred under the star creators' assets.

On September 23, 2021, it was revealed that Roblox was testing a new feature for UGC which would allowed UGC creators to upload accessories through groups. Later on September 27, 2021, it was released to the public. Only UGC creators with high enough permissions are allowed to upload accessories through groups.^[7]

On October 14, 2021, it was announced during RDC 2021 that in the future, UGC items would be available for all users, be able to create bodies and heads, UGC creators being allowed to make their items go Limited, as well as implement UGC items into experiences.^[8]

On August 16, 2022, Roblox removed the UGC category from the marketplace for an unknown reason, which makes UGC items harder to find in the marketplace.

On April 15, 2024, Roblox rolled out the ability for all users with ID verification and Premium 1000/2200 to upload and sell accessories on the marketplace. ^[9]

Uploading and managing accessories[]

It costs 750 Robux to upload any type of accessory.^[10] When uploading, the accessory must have Plastic material.^{⁠[citation needed]} 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.

Creators cannot currently add scripts and particles such as Sparkles, Fire and Smoke to their accessories.

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

Glitches and bugs with UGC accessories[]

On June 30, 2020, a glitch affecting most (if not all) UGC accessories caused them to sporadically go offsale. This was patched the same day, and all accessories went back on sale.

Original Developers[]

When the program began, 68 well-known and established developers were selected to experiment with the program. These developers were:

Also, 9 selected accounts were/are used for testing accessories. These are:

Clothing[]

Classic clothing[]

Any user can create and publish 2D classic clothing such as classic shirts, classic pants and classic T-shirts. Classic T-shirts were first opened to player uploading in March 2007. Players with Builders Club (now Roblox Premium) could upload classic shirts and classic pants starting on April 24, 2008.^[11] Classic clothing was later implemented onto groups through the audit log when creating an item.

Originally, classic clothing could only be sold by players with Builders Club or Roblox Premium. Between January 20, 2021, and March 25, 2021, Roblox gradually removed the membership requirement from uploading classic shirts and pants, as well as the membership requirement to put them onsale. After the change, any player could upload and sell classic clothing, however it would cost a fee of 10 Robux to upload (for classic shirts & classic pants) or put on-sale (for classic t-shirts).

Layered clothing[]

On March 7, 2022, Roblox enabled approved UGC accessory creators to start publishing their own 3D layered clothing items, first starting with jackets^[12] and currently allowing UGC jackets, t-shirts, and pants to be uploaded. These creators may use a 3D modeling software, such as Blender and Maya, to create layered clothing. Once completed, the clothing can be exported as a .fbx file, but must contain an inner mesh cage and an outer mesh cage. The cage layers within the clothing must have the same UV maps, and the clothing must be weighed and parented to the correct bone or armature.^[13]

Creator marketplace items[]

Users can also create items within the creator marketplace with Premium. In December 2019, RoxyBloxyy announced plans for paid plugins.^[14] The announcement also revealed plans for many other marketplace types to become paid access. The paid plugins update was implemented later that same month for users.

Criticism[]

Accessories criticism[]

Copying from pre-existing items[]

The UGC accessories feature has mostly been criticized due to potential copies of pre-existing avatar shop items by Roblox, low effort, or unoriginal ideas. Some notable example being some early hats by tarabyte (BiggestHead, Illuminati, Despacito Spider, and Triple Headstack).

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. Due to lack of proper moderation from Roblox, the accessory catalog is oversaturated with knockoffs of dominuses and valkyrie helms being uploaded often.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Oversaturation[]

In addition, some items can also be oversaturated, like the Cartoony Rainbow items by CodyDevv, and copyrighted content based on popular/trending IPs such as One Piece, The Amazing Digital Circus, Jujutsu Kaisen, and many more. For instance, back in 2021 during Friday Night Funkin's popularity, the avatar shop saw a rise in items relating to the game, including a whopping 8 hats out of the same character (Tricky, who was actually from Madness Combat, but has his own Friday Night Funkin' mod).

Cancellation of Roblox's official sales[]

Another concern about UGC from traders and collectors in general is the fact that Roblox appears 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. This cancellation also lead to the rise in rip-offs of older and limited Roblox-made accessories.

Waist accessories[]

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 off-sale, and a new rule was added that items may not cover more than 80% of a player's body.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Copyrighted Items[]

There is also a rising concern of certain items being extremely similar to other intellectual properties, or IPs, in a sense that they end up being similar enough to potentially warrant legal actions under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). This, however, is ultimately at the discretion of the IP holder.

Two notable examples in relation to user-created accessories include the Demon Plushy Bear and Demon Plushy Bunny back accessories by LuxEyes, which are based on the characters Monokuma and Monomi respectively from the Danganronpa franchise. The items had received a mixed reception, with many Danganronpa fans praising the items for being created, while other players were concerned about the extremely strong semblance to the characters, including being from a mature-rated and sometimes adult-rated franchise. The two accessories are currently content deleted and he is now banned due to violating the copyright rules, and LuxEyes' publishing abilities for UGC items have subsequently been revoked, leading to their departure from Roblox entirely.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Throughout 2021, due to the rising popularity of the game Friday Night Funkin', there have been items relating to the game and mods for the game. While they were mainly criticized for oversaturating the catalog, they were also thought to have been a copyright violation. However, the creators of Friday Night Funkin' and creators of the mods allow the use of their characters, or permission was obtained to use the characters.

As of 2023, due to UGC creation being available to all users, there are countless bypassed items that are currently not taken down yet. For example, UGCEES is a group entirely dedicated to uploading copyrighted content.

UGC accessory creator concerns[]

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.

The user JohnAvia was accepted as part of the UGC program, after posting many UGC concepts onto Twitter. It was then discovered all of their UGC concepts were plagiarized from other artists,^[19] which resulted in backlash against them. Their items were quickly content deleted and they were removed from accessing further accessory uploads.

Fees[]

After the release of the UGC Catalog to everyone, Roblox, without warning increased the fee to upload UGC Limiteds from 10-30 Robux, depending on the accessory type, to 100 for all accessories. This update received backlash within the community as what usually would have been 75 thousand robux to create a 5,000 stock item, now costs 500,000, a 600% increase.^[20][21] Many UGC creators decided to quit due to the unsustainability of creating high quantity UGC Limiteds. After this update, Roblox's X page flooded with people demanding an end to the new UGC fees.^[22]

Clothing criticism[]

Clothing spamming[]

It has been criticised how classic clothing can be mass-uploaded and how a lot of classic shirts, pants, and t-shirts are often stolen from other creators on the platform. Frequently, the clothes are those of a popular designer or clothing set, though it could also be clothing that has been taken off-sale. A player with Premium may create a copy of a piece of clothing that is on-sale so that they do not need to spend Robux on that item.

Texture ripping[]

There has also been some instances of clothing textures ripped from real-life photos, or other programs and platforms such as games or items made by creators for online worlds, being re-mapped to the Roblox clothing template and uploaded. Some of the creators of this content have disputed with Roblox clothing designers and submitted takedown requests due to copyright infringement.

Clothing theft[]

Clothing theft has also been a point of criticism as some users steal/re-upload classic clothing designs from original creators. This usually happens when a specific clothing has gotten popular over time. The most notable form of this is where users trace back the clothing piece's numeric asset ID to find the texture image used in the clothing piece, which they can then re-upload as their own.

Gallery[]

References[]