S&box situation is just sad

Hello Garry,

I’m writing this as someone who genuinely wants S&box to succeed long-term.

Since the introduction of Playfund, the current incentive structure appears to reward fast, low-effort engagement loops over ambitious or well-crafted games. As a result, more and more projects seem designed primarily to maximize retention metrics rather than to deliver meaningful gameplay.

This is concerning because it shapes the platform’s identity. If new players mostly encounter shallow clicker-style experiences, they may conclude that this is what S&box is about — which could discourage both players seeking depth and developers working on serious projects.

I would like to suggest a potential solution inspired by the old Steam Greenlight model:

Developers could still publish anything freely, preserving S&box’s openness. However, only projects that pass a quality review by Facepunch would be eligible for  Playfund rewards and prominent discovery placement.

This would:

Such a system wouldn’t need to be overly restrictive — even a lightweight curation pass could make a significant difference.

S&box has the potential to become a landmark sandbox platform, not just another content feed optimized for short-term engagement. A curated Playfound tier could help ensure that the ecosystem rewards craftsmanship as much as activity.

Thank you for your time and for building this platform.

If I had access to the admin panel I'd solve s&box's image in an hour.
It would also be a PR disaster but I'm sure people will forget about it.

i 100% agree with the diagnosis. i find myself often thinking "why make a well-made, beautiful experience when someone can just churn out some Idle clicker AI garbage and potentially get more food on their plate".

this system can also be open to exploitation (measuring "real" playtime can be hard. especially when these type of games literally have "Idle" in their name (their point is to not spend time actually playing lmao).

i prefer an ecosystem where people are given ultimate freedom to make whatever they want (even shitty idlers) but should be encouraged to make high quality content when possible. this system just encourages the shitty idlers.

This is dumb.

Players will play games that they want to play, if you want your game to succeed just make a better game.

we dream of the day when s&box is described as "imagine roblox but the games are very high quality and fun to play"

not saying some of the games aren't fun, just most are chasing money

I still think the fix is just a better discovery system

Nah, I think it's better to "remove the cause not the symptom".

Certainly something needs to change to steer it away from Roblox's course. Maybe the playfund should be more of a 'player's choice award' with definite categories and metrics so users can consume brainrot without rewarding it as much.

@MrSkidood Roblox can have high quality games, I did offer Garry an idea where high quality Roblox games & developers are poached, porting and moving communities over here, as a jumpstart of things, I don't think he's interested in that, so it appears they'd prefer a more natural approach.

This is more about: "I'm scared that some low effort game will make more money than my high effort game." and completely missing the point that if players play some low-effort game more than your high-effort game it's issue with your game not some made up issue with how Playfund is set up.

@Zaslohael  what do you think if we could have a report button to flag brainrot content so it could be shadowbanned.  I wouldn’t want a repeat of youtube style strike wars, but this might be a step in the right direction. Help people keep the garbage where it belongs perhaps?

problem is that higher playtime DOES NOT equal "better game". case in point: Roblox slop

that's like saying "if you want people to quit smoking just make a more addictive substance"
another thing is, even if you do make a high-quality game and people play it, if your game lasts mere hours (maybe due to story constraints, match lengths, or content brevity), you STILL lose to infinite-style slop games in the end when it comes to monetization.

Also how the fuck do i reply to people properly in this place? and how do i remove my reactions on comments after i accidentally press them?

Optimisation has to be done carefully, the Roblox algorithm prioritises slop games due to their microtransactions and addictive design, s&box needs to have it written in the rules that make it forbidden to use dark patterns in games.
see https://www.darkpattern.games/

Roblox is designed for young kids, young kids naturally gravitate towards fast paced dopamine loops.
S&Box has a different audience.

There's no slop game that will be able to compete with a fully featured fun game, imagine some idler game trying to compete with Rust 2 on this platform, it's not a thing.

Have you found a good game on sbox that doesnt receive any attention and nobody plays it? Or are we trying to preemptively solve a hypothetical problem? 

Maraat119,

The top 5 most popular games on s&box right now are DXRP, S&Miner, SPRAIN, Sandbox++, and Dark Descent. There are several really good game candidates, in my opinion, that have not come out yet or are still in active development such as Strikeforce and S&box Rivals. The top 5 are either objectively good games or derivates of objectively popular games from the past. I just think it's too early to tell.

https://sbox.game/metrics/finance

Clicker idle games (edit: except for Clicksino) do not even crack the top 10 according to the metrics, indicating that the Playfund is headed in the right direction to prioritize games that people like to play the most. Sure, games like SPRAIN are idle games, but what we're basically saying is the players decision about what they want to play should not trump what s&box game designers decides to put out themselves through an approval process. 

I understand why some people might criticize certain gamemodes like DarkRP derivatives, but the game selection is incredibly small right now compared to where it will be when it's on Steam's frontpage. The model it seems like Facepunch has picked is adjacent to Roblox's model, where games can be published with little scrutiny as long as they don't use morally inflexible frameworks such as gambling with real items or money, pornography, the creation of games with stolen assets, or something deeply controversial (i.e. controversial regardless of political framework).

If a player wants to play an idle clicker game, I'm all for it. Let it be their decision, but according to the charts it does not seem like they are winning the popularity contest the way we think they are. 

Best wishes,

Joshua

@Ardi Vaba now  we’ve already experienced a dark rp situation even before the game was officially released. (Braxen I dont have anything againts you  personally, you are cool) By 'different audience,' do you mean people who would still play the game as GMod 2 drop in replacement? Yeah, can't wait to see |%ServerName% RP | FAST DL | FREE VIPS AND GIFTS| 100/100  in my server browser. That would definitely be a nostalgia hit

what a lovely server name and it is full now(dont know how many of them are just bots)

@marat119 people play DarkRP because they like it. There is nothing wrong with that.

@Doctor Law with all due respect you are blind. did you just glance on clicksino and think "hmm yes... this deserves 4 times the amount of money dark descent gets"

no offence i think they are both well-made games. but lets not pretend that the monetization system favours the latter.

@marat119 yeah it would be a nostalgia hit. and it would have 100/100 players because people would probably enjoy playing it. get a grip, the majority of gamers like it.

@man of piss and shit; Yes I did see Clicksino, and to credit you I did not mention it, but I actually like Clicksino and thought it was done pretty well. It has a good selection of card games, and does not violate the rules to encourage any real gambling strategies.

D: in here with the win.

Right now S&Box has a very focused community of mostly developers and enthusiasts. Once the game releases, demographics will change quickly. When there's money in the playfund and undiscerning users to manipulate, things can turn predatory very quickly.

it is, and i like it aswell. but in my opinion these types of uninspired easy-to-sloppify games can be a bane if encouraged. one clicksino game is nice, the next 100 variations will be horrifying

Additionally, Clicksino made three grand less than Dark Descent. Clicksino made more money this month, and it's probably because the game is new. When Dark Descent came out it was also really popular, and now it's not, because it's not as new. Overall, Dark Descent is still winning the popularity contest.

As long as people HAVE FUN and ENJOY the games nothing else really matters. It's sad that slop can do better than "high art" but some people enjoy McDonald's more than fine dining but that's just the way life is. Policing what counts as a worthwhile game to any degree over removing illicit and stolen content is just dumb. 

There also hasn't been a long enough time to make a claim like this. First we havent really given enough time to have necessarily " higher quallity games" The engine is just recently becoming stable enough to attract devs who havent been in the sbox community. Give it some time and I think most will agree good projects that attract players will come. Also, I think down the road if sbox is just becoming slop facepunch will be one of the first to act, I think theyve proven with sbox marketing ( terry, and also just distancing it from a pure gmod sequal) that they arent just taking the easy way to get players and profit. 

@Cogwork you say you hate policing but the fact of the matter is: rewarding playtime and ignoring review scores & authentic playerbases (as opposed to bots and 12 year olds) is inherently "policing" in a certain direction

@Doctor Law I thought Garry was going to compete with unity. Im expecting to play a bunch of cool indie games, no matter the graphics as long as they are fun to play. But they wont happen because the platfrom will be filled with rp cancer and  everyone will be just be milking that for cash. It was fun in 2010-2014, but you already know how it all turned out. A complete p2w cancer with admin talks on the roofs.