Roblox Growth Design

When to Load

Load for growth, discovery, retention, onboarding, packaging, or LiveOps; route implementation to domain skills.

Quick Reference

Diagnose before prescribing

1. Ask for dashboard, release, acquisition, and session evidence. Never invent metrics.
2. Find the narrowest broken transition: impression→play, join→control, action→payoff, return, or purchase.
3. Write a falsifiable hypothesis: If Y changes because evidence Z, X should move without harming G.
4. Prefer one test with a primary metric, counter-metrics, MDE, and decision rule.
5. Stop for safety, severe regressions, or invalid instrumentation; avoid significance peeking.

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Home diagnosis

• Low Play-Through Rate (PTR, was QPTR): packaging readability, promise accuracy, or audience mismatch. Also check Experience Detail Page CTR.
• High First-Play Bounce Rate (negative stat): misleading package/clickbait, join failure, performance, confusing FTUE, or delayed payoff.
• Low D1: core loop, onboarding, stability, goals, or first payoff.
• Low D7/D30: progression, variety, social value, LiveOps, endgame, or exhaustion.
• Low conversion/ARPPU: product fit, value communication, friction, catalog depth, or concentration.
• Low 7-day spend days / play days per user: consumables, purchase pathways, or event cadence.

These are hypotheses, not one-to-one causes. Segment and test. Per-stat tactics in full.md §3–§6.

Algorithm hotspots (2026)

Provenance: (official) = documented platform behavior; (practitioner) = operator observation, experience-based, not verified as a ranking rule.

• Cold traffic (practitioner): ads are the cheapest, least-qualified players; Home algo ranks the qualified audience. Launch stats look bad on ad players. Don't panic.
• Ranking: Roblox docs say benchmark games do not affect ranking; the similar-games benchmark is rough context only. A practitioner model (unverified hypothesis) adds staging: genre-wide first, then against "experiences with similar players," where better-statted competitors take your players. Use the benchmark to choose comparison cohorts, not as a ranking rule.
• Ads do not buy Home placement (practitioner); meaningful stat-improving updates do. 28-day signals (D1, D2–7, D8–28); updates take days to show.
• Beta mode hides a game from Home (official feature); tune metrics on cheap ad traffic before opening to the algo.
• The 500 highly-engaged-player requirement (official): all-ages games start 16+ only until 500 highly engaged age-checked plays within 60 days. Definition (official, evolving): account tenure + playtime in your game + a purchase anywhere on Roblox in the last 60 days. 100 = publishing-fee refund threshold (separate). Ads serve 16+ automatically. Home impressions accelerate the count fastest.
• Experience detail page matters: put your best thumbnails and a gameplay description there; it feeds overall play-through.

Monetization mental model (practitioner)

• Convert valuable one-time game passes into consumables (repeat-purchase dev products): they pump 7-day spend days per user and solve recurring pain.
• Products must be must-haves that solve a pain (effort grind, losing progress AFK, FOMO, status). Limiteds with real scarcity outsell unlimited cosmetics.
• Place products at points of interest with high foot traffic, and time prompts at the decision moment (e.g., 2x offline earnings at the collect point).
• Give players multiple purchase pathways: HUD shop icon, "+" next to currency, and a cash-shop popup after repeated failed buys.
• After shipping, check collateral damage: playtime, D1, D7, FTUE, and in-game economy.

Guardrails

Use accurate metadata. Avoid dark patterns, deceptive odds, coercive scarcity, and "whale" targeting. Treat moderation, abuse, accessibility, localization, performance, and economy health as constraints.

Full signal definitions, positioning, FTUE, packaging, social design, monetization mental model, algorithm mechanics, LiveOps, and audit workflow: [references/full.md](references/full.md)