If you go in-game and check the store right now, you’re gonna see that almost every single page is filled with Avatar Studio UGC. Not that it’s bad to have Avatar Studio UGC be pushed more, a lot of the stuff is pretty cool!! However, as someone that’s been making custom shirts since the feature released over three years ago, anyone that also makes custom shirts will agree with me when I say that it’s harder now more than ever to make any sort of earnings from ordinary UGC.
Even though the custom shirt board got a big overhaul recently and now supports custom hoodies, hats, pants, and even shoes - Rec Room hasn’t actually changed anything when it comes to getting these UGC items to sell. There isn’t a SINGLE section in the current store UI that shows UGC made with the shirt board. No hoodies, shirts, pants, etc. The only tabs in the store that MIGHT show that are the VERY lucky few people who just so happen to make something to get on the “Trending” or “Hot” section (which 9/10 times is just a slop item like a 67 meme shirt or something)…
I think that us players are VERY overdue for a store overhaul. I‘m very confident in believing that it’s harder now than ever for the average player to be “successful” when trying to earn any tokens. ESPECIALLY from UGC. Every single custom shirt creator that I’ve spoken to all agreed that since the big store redesign earlier this year to showcase almost exclusively avatar studio UGC, we’ve all collectively had our earnings drop lower than ever before. The only exceptions being creators with UGC in a storefront in an active room like ^PrisonLife for example. The only way to find custom shirts on the store page, is to search for them; and THAT doesn’t even work very well. There’s no way to sort the UGC types at all either.
I think that the (relatively) simple fix here, is to have AT LEAST a section or two on the left side of the store to show exclusively player created UGC. No avatar studio. Just a section or two of just custom shirts, hoodies, hats, pants, and shoes. I think that many people will agree with this approach. It’s obvious that Rec Room is taking inspiration from Roblox with UGC, but even Roblox separates 3D UGC that needs special permissions like avatar studio, from the 2D “classic” UGC that anyone can upload; and tons of players earn lots from classic UGC on there as well thanks to that representation. Why isn’t Rec Room doing the same??
The gap between a “successful creator” and the “average player/creator” gets wider and wider every day. And now with tons of gutted programs like Invention Tower’s custom shirts showcase, featured shirts, and “top selling custom shirts” on the main watch, that USED to help the average creator - we have a widening gap of communication from devs and players that don’t understand why they can’t have a fair shot against the exclusive club of like 60 people that get MILLIONS of tokens EVERY DAY… while ordinary players have to be VERY lucky to get even 10k tokens.
I know that if done effectively, a big change like this would significantly benefit the average Rec Room creator, which in turn would benefit everyone. Lots of players think that RR is way less community driven than it was a few years ago and instead feels more “corporate”, but I think this could really change that perspective too.
