Hello and welcome to the first edition of our Community Commerce Report! These updates will be going out once a quarter to give you, our creators and community members, a peek into our in-game economy to move you closer toward making a sustainable income building in Rec Room.

Have you ever wondered to yourself what kinds of inventions and room keys are the most successful within Rec Room? Well, wonder no more! In these posts, we’ll be answering exactly that in an effort to empower you to cash in on trends and, with our new creator compensation program, ultimately cash in on...cash!

Without further ado let’s dive in.

Room Keys

First, let’s take a look at room keys. As you probably know, room keys are special items in community rooms that unlock some functionality within the room. Some keys allow players to fly, other keys unlock special areas, and still others provide a power-up against the game’s AI.

The market for keys has been growing at a pretty steady rate since we’ve rolled them out and they remain by far the most purchased community-created item type. In fact, each month hundreds of millions of tokens are spent on keys alone! Given that, here is a look at the market for keys over the last quarter:

In breaking this down, please understand that not all users tag or title their keys to accurately reflect the above categories. Thus, while these general findings hold true, there may be a minor variance between actual numbers and those reflected above. That said, here is some additional info about the categories:

Powers are keys that unlock abilities/items to make progression within the game easier. Think of unlocking night-vision for a particular quest.
Role Modifiers are keys that give players special general abilities in the room. This category is almost entirely made of up the ‘Fly’ key that (you guessed it) allows players to fly in your rooms.
Costumes are essentially outfits for your avatar specific to the room being played
Weapons are various ranged and melee items typically found in PvP rooms
Access keys give players the ability to explore and hang out in special areas within rooms
Donations are essentially tips that go to the creator as an expression of gratitude for the work they have put into their rooms

With that context, let’s dive into this a bit more. It is clear that Powers, Weapons and Role Modifiers take home the lion’s share of tokens.

As mentioned, the vast majority of Role Modifier keys are ‘Fly’ keys. However, did you know that there are other keys that you can make in Rec Room such as invisibility, voice roll-off, speed and more? If you are a creator that makes popular hangout rooms but struggles with how to monetize them, take a look at these role modifiers and think about how they might work as keys in your rooms!

In addition to these role based keys, we find a strong appetite for both unlocking special areas within rooms in the form of VIP keys as well as a substantial number of keys that unlock abilities to make progression within the game easier. Power-ups if you will. Take the very popular room, -SCP-096-- made by @SKULLGAMING. In this room, players find themselves in a dark, claustrophobic series of hallways stalked by a terrifying monster. While the experience is possible to be enjoyed without keys, having a massive flashlight or the ability to run faster certainly makes the experience more conquerable.

If you are a creator making a story/progression based experience, consider adding such room keys to give your players an upper-hand in the fight!

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that, while a comparatively small percentage, players still donate millions of tokens to creators each month. While it’s great to have paid power-ups and exclusive access to areas, adding a donation key gives players a place to simply say ‘thank you’ for the hard work you have put into your rooms.

Inventions

How about inventions? Inventions are community made items that can be anything from furniture items for your dorm, to massive wizards you can spawn, to working weapons! While the invention market is not as robust as that of keys, it has also been steadily growing over the past year. Today, tens of millions are being spent on inventions each month and more and more creators are publishing inventions daily.

Given this, let’s look take a quick look at the top invention types by tokens spent:

The trend seen here is that dorm customizations are most valuable to our players. This makes sense. There are twice as many players in Rec Room that customize their dorm as there are creators that publish rooms/inventions outside of their dorm, so there is certainly a strong desire to purchase inventions that allow more creative expression in their own spaces.

As a creator, consider channeling your own interior designer and coming up with fun and novel ways for players to decorate their spaces!

What Price is Right?

Beyond what items are selling well, you might be interested to know the optimal price-points for your wares. While it may seem tempting to price your keys at 10-20 tokens to move more units, think again! Below is a chart looking at the most profitable price points for keys:

We see here that the sweet spot for pricing is between 300-500 tokens. It is clear that players are willing and eager to support creators for the ingenious power-ups and exclusivity that room keys afford. So go nuts and if you are a creator looking to cash out, don’t be afraid to price your keys a little higher as you work your way toward your first million, and first paycheck from us!

Conclusion

Well, there you have it! To reiterate, here are three main takeaways we hope you’ve gleaned from this quarter’s report:

Room roles and power-ups sell exceptionally well. If you are a creator looking to monetize your existing rooms, consider adding such keys and watch the tokens start pouring in :)
Dorm skins are far and away the most popular invention type. Our players love customizing their spaces and it shows in the sales!
Don’t be shy about pricing your room keys higher! Keys that are 300-500 tokens move more tokens each month than any other price point.

We hope that if you are a creator or a player interested in contributing to Rec Room, this has been a helpful read.

Oh, we almost forgot, in addition to the stats here, did you know that you can now see some key stats of your own on RecNet? Simply log in and you’ll be able to see things like how many visits, subscriptions and shares are coming from each of your rooms as well as how many tokens you’ve earned through your creations!

Alternately, if you aren’t yet creating in Rec Room and you are interested in learning how, check out the litany of classes we offer over at the Creative Club.

Finally, if you want to submit an invention to be featured feel free to join the Ink Inc Discord or visit the Ink Inc Campus in-game!