ROBLOX Sales - The Good Times That Need to Return

Introduction

There is a vast landscape of items in the Avatar Shop, containing content that is user generated by different users across the platform, as well as Roblox themselves. They come in many different types of accessories: Head, Face, Back, and many more. These are either offsale, onsale, or also… Limited or Limited U. These Limiteds start off as an onsale/offsale items, and become limited usually when a special event Roblox hosts, such as sponsored events and what used to be known as sales.

Before we dive into the history of these items, we must first differentiate and understand what Limited and Limited U items are. Limiteds are items that usually have been discontinued or that have been on sale before, and they have become limited items out of the blue when an organized event takes place. Limited U’s act differently - they are serialized and usually are on a timer with a certain stock and price to pay for before it goes limited straight away. These two different types of collectibles are tradeable and resellable… though what had happened to these limiteds - and these special events that slowly vanished from the website entirely?

With over a whopping two thousand virtual collectibles on Roblox, we’re going to dive into the history of these special items and explore the reasoning of why these sales were removed and the chances of return.

The Beginnings

Black Friday 2010 Sale

A blog post had been posted on November 26th, 2010 by John Shedletsky, announcing the Black Friday 2010 sale which had 10 popular items that were discounted. It was the commencement of something beautiful to come, something that tons of users would love to participate in, but would progressively fade away over the years.

It was a 24-hour sale held by Roblox in which items would go on sale for a certain amount of time, and eventually go back to their normal price when the small event was officially done.

The Problems

Glitched Items

There have been many problems with limiteds being released - 25 of them have been scrapped and left as being unobtainable so that traders can’t trade these particular items. To combat these problems, Roblox simply just left it as is or they re-uploaded them so users had a chance to buy them. Some instances like these are Evil Skeptic and Evil Skeptic Face, Leopard Fedora and Leopard Fedora, etc.

Some of these problems derive from simple mistakes (for example, Evil Skeptic Face being a mistake upon release with the word “face” in it), some posted during the 2012 April fools incident, or purchase API problems with exploit usage like the Peppermint Top Hat.

President’s Day Sale 2019

Roblox had rolled out a new blog post, announcing that there’d be a sale coming out. To the average trader, these leaks were incredible and everyone was quickly selling their items to have a chance to cop these amazing limiteds. Tons of theories were spiking out because of the sale. Everyone was excited by the announcement of what was to come out. The feeling of dopamine came in each hour, spamming “🌊☑️” in the Rolimon’s discord server, hoping that new items would come out each hour during the sale. Although, the people who had experienced this sale would soon come to realize that this would be the last sale they would ever love.

Weeks before the sale, there were hints at new releases for a new series of Rthro faces in which people hated at first - antlers, buckets, and many other classics people dreamed of getting… but that wasn’t it all. The Emerald Valkyrie and Disgraced Baroness were leaked, and that’s when stuff got seriously interesting.

The sale had consisted of 4 days of items going on sale or going limited, and they had come in separate hour waves in that four day timeline. Different types of bundles and accessories had gone on sale. New items had been released and what everyone was hyped for…: offsale items and especially the leaked limiteds.

Day one consisted of waves that came with cheap newly released items, bundles that had gotten a price reduction, as well as some that had gotten put on sale. There was a brand new item that had gone limited called the Ivory Bloom Pauldrons, though people were confused on why 1 out of the 3 were released only during that day.

Day two consisted of waves that started off with an item called Noob Attack - Frozen Crossbow Collision. They had also released other limiteds such as Immortal Sword: Shattered Earth, Ornate Creature Horns, Ornate Back Katana and the rest of the series of the Bloom pauldrons (Ebony Bloom Pauldrons and Crimson Bloom Pauldrons) and Golden Emperor of the Night. That didn’t stop the fun - there were also a bunch of offsale items that had gone on sale like Headstack, Red Clockwork Headphones, and many more in which the community adored. There were other items which had gone on sale or were newly released as well.

Day three consisted of waves with some of the items from the antlers series going on sale. Other accessories and gears had gone on sale as well. Disaster had come when the Torque faces (Torque the Red Orc, Torque the Blue Orc, Torque the Green Orc) had gone limited - users were able to get them for free shortly after they were supposed to be out of stock.

Day four was the day that was hyping everyone up - the final day of the sale. People were doubling down on the leaks from RBXLeaks, scratching out every item that had been already released, and there it was… Emerald Valkyrie (formerly 45,000) and Disgraced Baroness of the Federation (formerly 50,000). People were freaking out. For many users, Roblox+ had very delayed notifications, and each hour, alternatives were made. People refreshing zlib’s inventory in order to be the first ones to get it, others had used R+ Notifiers on twitter in order to be the first ones as well. Other items had been released, such as more variants of the traffic cone. A new series of the faces called the “Archfey Visage’s” (Emerald Archfey Visage, Sapphire Archfey Visage, Ruby Archfey Visage) had made its way in the catalog and an offsale item that went limited is known today to be Agonizingly Red Bucket of Cheer.

Traders had adored this sale, though not the ones in which had their Robux taken away. Items like Disgraced Baroness of the Federation - as well as some of the Torque faces had been glitched. Users who had suffered from losing their Robux had demanded from Roblox that they would get a refund because of all of the people who had gotten it for free after the sale. Over time, they had received their refunds but despite that, many people had loved the sale because of the over supplementation of limited and classic items going on sale. This would go on to be one of the cherished moments in which people had loved. Although eventually, it had gotten worse.

The Slow Downfall of Roblox Sales

Memorial Day Sale 2019

May 24th to May 27th was Roblox’s sale that everyone was hyped about. Although there weren’t many leaks, players anticipated that they had not been leaked. Players had eventually started to sell their limiteds in preparation for the sale, although to their luck, nothing was to be seen. As many items did release and go on sale, it’s not what players would have really wanted. All that released in the 4 day timeline were classics, accessories and Rthro bundles going on sale for a certain percentage. Although Bighead and the Workclock series (Workclock Shades / Workclock Headphones) did end up releasing in the end, that didn’t put the icing on the cake. That cake was missing a specific flavor in the recipe in which was the Roblox collectibles. Many traders were puzzled and confused, not knowing what happened to the collectibles they had once loved.

Problems continued to arrive in this sale, with even more mistakes and more glitches in the process. Bighead had been on 4 day rental, Emerald Valkyrie Shades had gone on a timer too and as time went on, the timer was mysteriously removed and the item was later put off sale.

Labor Day 2019

August to September 1st was Roblox’s repeated sale of the Memorial Day Sale 2019, but somehow made it worse. As leaks did come out, there was a lack of appearance for limiteds within the sale. The Labor Day sale had received backlash from Roblox traders and users alike participating in the sale, saying how there should be more limiteds within the sales. As classics did come out, it wasn’t enough to suffice for the lack of limiteds there were. UGC accessories had their prices reduced in decision to participate along in the sale.

Presence of UGC Catalog

A dev forum posted by the user “coefficients” had released an announcement in the month of August 2019, giving details about the new implementation of the UGC catalog and how it’s going to perform. A select handful of developers who Roblox had worked with in the past and trusted individuals who were chosen by Roblox would be able to participate in this program. Over the course of three years (2022), they have expanded this number slowly but surely. There has been lots of controversy surrounding this, including plagiarism and questions of how Roblox will soon run this out to be available for everyone in the community.

In the Q&A section, they go on to explain what has been happening about Limited items these past few months, and they had hinted at the possible implementation of UGC limiteds.

Many have theorized that this is the possible reason why Roblox sales have been slowly becoming worse as each sale goes on. Their focus on UGC and RTHRO have caused Roblox sales to be less focused on.

The Fight for a Change

Younite, a famous Roblox developer, had created a document on the 23rd of September, explaining his thoughts about the current state of Roblox sales and how they could be improved. He was troubled by the future of the sales, hoping that he could possibly make a change in Roblox’s market team which creates these sales in the first place.

Hoping that the document would reach the team, he attempted to constantly contact the users who were involved or were close to the team, attempting to succeed at his goal, but he only met with failure in the end.

A new document was then created in December of 2019 - his thoughts and what had happened, and how they did to a sale but not to what he had anticipated for it to be.

The Resurgence of Roblox Limiteds

Tease of Rthro Bundles being limited

On October 28th, 2018, the twitter account of RBXLeaks had found a “Rthro LTD” tag in the CSS of Roblox, a possible implementation of Rthro Bundles being limited in the future. Many have been confused and puzzled on how it’d work, and doubted the possibility of it being a thing. People had found this information and it had resurfaced years after.

Halloween

On October 30th, 2019, an item had dropped into the catalog during Halloween of 2019 for 13,000 Robux. Many didn’t believe their eyes - a new dominus had been released. The name of the dominus was called Dominus Formidulosus. Many speculated that this item wouldn’t go limited, as in the past, items didn’t go limited (as seen in the Labor Day 2019 sale and Memorial Day 2019 sale) but fortunately they were in the wrong. This had sparked up a light at the end of the tunnel, and the appearance of limiteds in potential future sales.

Black Friday 2019 Sale

To many users in the community in which participated in these sales, this was considered to be the very last Roblox sale to many which involved Limiteds. 6 different limiteds had been released, then went off sale and turned limited. The items that were included in the mini-sale was:

• Ice Valkyrie Helm
• Diamond Crystal Circlet
• 8-Bit Immortal Sword: Venom’s Byte
• Viridian Domino Crown
• Viscount Of the Federation
• Viscountess of the Federation
• Disgraced Starstone of the Federation

Although in this sale, there weren’t any classics going on sale, the complete opposite of what had happened during the Memorial Day 2019 sale and Labor Day 2019 sale. From the past months of being in a confused state, players have begun to speculate what was finally happening.

Eventually, this would be the end of limiteds until they were eventually used for items in recent times for sponsored events.

Leaked Progression of Roblox Limiteds

On April 10th, 2021, Roblox had one of their test sites accidentally leaked to the public. On Twitter, CloneTrooper1019 had tweeted about this discovery, documenting three listed screenshots that had shown limiteds being worked on. It gives out the indication that Roblox limiteds haven't been discontinued, which could hint that they are still currently working on the bug that we had seen during 2019 President's Day sale. We’ve seen this in the past where Roblox would upload random groups for testing the system of UGC creators having the ability to upload their creations to their own groups.

Sponsored Events

On May 17th 2021, Gucci Garden was an event that opened to the public. It was a sponsorship with Gucci, which almost had the placement of being the worst event in Roblox's history with a staggering amount of 18% of like to dislike ratio.. Mountaineers sits at 21% of being the worst event ever, and Gucci Garden had almost taken its place until there was a notice of limiteds. Without anyone noticing and the lucky few who had purchased the Gucci Bee Bag 1.0 and 3.0 variants, they had made a quick buck for sure. They were selling close to 100,000 Robux (but eventually fell down as its price couldn’t sustain its demand).

This had given Roblox an idea that if they used the feature of items becoming limited again, in which players once loved, it would aid them in their sponsorships to get more people attracted to their events. This idea would be similarly used for the KSI event, the Vans event, and many more.

Theories

Other Focuses

Roblox has been focusing on different areas of the catalog, including the UGC and RTHRO category. Roblox sales bring in a lot of hype which may distract users from other things. They constantly want to shove RTHRO down people’s throats in hopes that users will accept the idea of humanistic character forms inside of a Lego game, and over time, people have learnt to cope with the idea of RTHRO being a thing. With distraction, it could cause many different negative effects towards UGC as well, as it brings attention more towards items made by Roblox instead of items that’re made by other users.

Loss of Potential Revenue

Usually what happens is that people tend to buy Robux and wait until the sale comes so they can spend that and wait to gain a profit, overall stunning Roblox's potential revenue growth from those people and getting people to spend more money to get their achievements. Roblox's intentions are for people to spend the most amount of money / Robux they can on virtual items. If people know that there is going to be a sale, they wait to spend it until it actually arrives. You cannot make the argument that it’s free money for them, because it starts progressively becoming a problem if they continue to do the same routine they did a couple months back with all of the Roblox sales going on monthly.

Glitches

Because of the glitches, Roblox is finding new ways to implement sales as a way to combat the bug that they are currently facing. This would be the reason why items have been timed - starting off as being on sale with its description reading that it’s on sale for a limited time, then offsale and as 24 hours pass, it turns limited again. This creates problems though as in the past, items have been delayed before and sometimes descriptions don’t update. For example, for the recent 24kGoldn event, some of the items like Golden Eyes - 24kGoldn had no description for a bit, confusing players if it’ll be limited or not.

Slowly Killing off Sales

Roblox's intentions to remove sales overall would be confusing, although they’ve done this in the past where they have progressively stopped events and slowly have made them worse overtime.

Take Gift Explosion as an example - an old event in which had died slowly because it had progressively gotten worse. These events would come with gifts in which users could buy, and at a certain due date (at the end of Christmas for example), these items would reveal a secret item inside.

As Roblox continues to grow by the year with millions of users playing monthly, this would be understandable as they don’t want to have a bad reputation from the media. The media will do anything for clicks and Roblox is simply attempting to avoid these problems with them.

A Possible Solution

There are many solutions in which Roblox can easily bring in the aspect of Roblox sales again. The Roblox UGC Program is growing in number everyday, and sometimes it’s hard to be accepted into the program if you’re just a simple 3D Modeler.

Similarly to the Rthro contests they use to hold, Roblox can easily implement a sale in which is user generated based and create a contest on their Roblox Twitter. This creates a communicative interaction between their player base and them, holding a contest in which users can participate by making their own concepts of hats. Roblox can decide which items to implement into their sale, and depending on the sales in which an item receives, they could determine an applicable candidate for the program. This exposes the smaller majority of creators of 3D Modeling, allowing them to get much more of a following and expose their creations to a bigger audience.

Conclusion

The special factor that Roblox sales had is that they had brought the community together - to predictions of what items would go limited and the end result of the sale. Each wave of items coming out hourly is what represents a good sale. Although, unfortunately now we don’t have that anymore. Roblox envisions limiteds to be utilized in sponsored events in order to obtain more eyes on these events. Hopefully, some day, Roblox sales will eventually come back with a new implementation, something that was worth the three year absence of it, but we’ll only have to keep on hoping.