Roblox charges users a 'publishing fee' to sell custom creations

Roblox has opened up its creator economy to the public...but you'll have to pay a fee in order to peddle your digital goods.

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Roblox Corp. has found a new way to monetize its userbase, more specifically, those that want to sell their custom creations to Roblox's 70 million daily active players. Yesterday, the company announced that its User-Generated Content (UGC) store was going public. Now every Roblox player has the opportunity to make their own 3D items and sell them to the community.

There's just one fly in the ointment: It's not free. You'll have to pay a 'publishing advance' fee in order to list your items on the store. You pay the fee, and then each time that your item sells, a portion of the sale is then credited to your account. Different types of items have different advance fees and full body assets are the most costly at 4,000 Robux. Check the fee structure here.

Think of the advance fee like the premium battle passes that give you enough premium currency so that the pass "pays for itself" once it's beaten. You paid 1600 Spacebux for the pass, and then you end up getting 1600 Spacebux as a reward on the last tier. That's essentially what Roblox is doing here.

So...what happens if you pay the advance fee and your item doesn't sell? Then you might not actually get anything.

• "Now, creators who are ID-verified, have Roblox Premium 1000 or 2200, and consistently follow our Community Standards and Marketplace Policies can upload, publish, and sell in Marketplace.
• "With creation opening up, we are making changes to how people publish items and are introducing a publishing advance, a rebateable upfront fee that you pay at the time of publishing an item.
• "Instead of Roblox taking the platform commission, the commission will go towards rebating the platform advance to the creator until it's fully paid back.
• "This advance is meant to raise the bar of what is created in Marketplace and incentivize original and unique creations."

We've crunched the numbers to convert the Robux fees into USD to give you an idea of how much everything will cost:

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