Key Takeaways
- Roblox is revamping its Party system to streamline group play and communication to enhance player experience.
- The new Party platform aims to provide a safer communication environment for users by moderating chats.
- Roblox’s Party system may eventually incorporate voice chats and other features to create more organic user interaction.
Roblox is one of the most popular video games around right now, and part of what draws so many players in is the ability to enjoy the numerous experiences within it as a community. Although Roblox does have basic group and party features, an expansion on those systems could help promote growth for the platform. In addition, overhauling the game’s party system offers a chance to add to longevity.
At RDC 2024, Roblox‘s core team showed that they are determined to build on its existing structures, emphasizing that Roblox is not just a game to them, it is a platform that players can seek out games and more forms of entertainment. Fortnite has similarly started to expand as a platform, offering Fortnite-exclusive concerts, adding different types of game modes and more. Roblox is applying the same approach by adding in things like music streaming and a Creator Affiliate Program. Overhauling the game’s party system incentivizes Roblox gamers to stay on the platfom to discuss and interact with those things.
As a part of the Roblox Developers Conference (RDC), Roblox unveiled its revamp to group play with Party. Party is focused on streamlining communication for players who want to join matches together. The new Party platform allows anyone aged nine and up to create a group with the ability to check out various Roblox experiences and join them as a group while communicating through text. After its planned October launch, Party will eventually allow phone-verified users 13 and up to engage in voice chats as well, and it will add a feature that lets gamers join experiences in private parties and on the same teams.
Roblox Announces Party
Party in Roblox might look familiar to some gamers who spend a lot of their time chatting on Discord. It is possible that the team at Roblox saw the popularity of Discord and an opportunity by driving that activity back to its own platform. In contrast, Party lacks some key ingredients that make Discord stand out. Calling is less restrictive on Discord, and it offers quality of life features like in-app streaming, so members of a chat can watch gameplay.
Although Party and its contemporaries have key differences, they may serve specific purposes. Roblox has had issues with child-safety on its platform in the past, and providing users chat features that are more strongly moderated in some ways offers a way for the Roblox team to ensure that gamers are having safer communications. Adding streaming to Party might also help down the road, since it seems like the system’s purpose is finding organic ways to heighten user-interest. If Roblox takes the time to flesh out Party, it could change the way people interact with the game as a whole.
