This previous weekend’s Roblox Builders Convention highlighted the platform’s speedy progress — but additionally the continued rigidity between the platform’s creators and its advert gross sales group.
On Sept. 5 and 6, roughly 2,000 Roblox creators and entrepreneurs traveled to San Jose for the platform’s annual creator convention. This 12 months’s RDC got here throughout a very busy interval for Roblox, which is quickly increasing its promoting enterprise — asserting a partnership with Google to develop its programmatic advert enterprise in April — whereas concurrently dealing with a wave of lawsuits claiming the platform is just not correctly defending its underage customers.
Right here’s a rundown of the most important bulletins at this 12 months’s Roblox Builders Convention — and the way they sign each successes and rising pains for the metaverse platform because it continues to scale.
The important thing numbers
- Roblox presently has 111.8 million day by day lively customers, per firm figures launched over the weekend, with customers spending a mean of two.7 hours on the platform per day. That’s a 41 % improve year-over-year from the 79.5 million DAU determine shared by Roblox ultimately 12 months’s convention. “What we’re seeing is a really clear path wherein gaming is more and more turning into consumed by Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences on platforms like ours,” Roblox vp of advertisements and commerce merchandise Louqman Parampath advised Digiday.
- 64 % of all Roblox customers are actually over 13 years previous, in accordance with the corporate.
- Over the previous 12 months, Roblox paid out over $1 billion to creators on the platform, with Roblox svp of engine and creator engineering Nick Tornow claiming the corporate is “on observe to pay properly greater than that in 2025” throughout a press briefing final week. High 10 creators on Roblox earn $38.5 million per 12 months; prime 100 creators on the platform earn roughly $7 million per 12 months; and prime 1,000 creators earn roughly $1 million per 12 months, in accordance with numbers shared by Tornow.
A programmatic push
Roblox has not been coy about its purpose of constructing a strong advert enterprise, and Parampath was fast to attach the platform’s climbing numbers to the chance for manufacturers. The Roblox govt stated that the proportion of advertisements that had been bought programmatically on Roblox “undoubtedly has been growing,” however declined to share particular numbers, citing the early nature of the platform’s programmatic choices.
Roblox has by no means publicly disclosed its total advert income, however an April Morgan Stanley report predicted that the corporate’s advert income would attain $1.2 billion by 2026. Throughout the opening keynote of this 12 months’s RDC, Parampath introduced that “Brookhaven,” one among Roblox’s hottest experiences, was producing “5 figures” in advert income per 30 days.
“What we are attempting to do is provide rather more commonplace, liquid codecs that they will purchase, whether or not it’s billboards or video or UGC-based codecs,” Parampath stated. “We’re making an attempt to scale them up and help it in such a manner the place they will purchase immediately from a gross sales group and thru the programmatic channels the place they purchase such codecs like video, after which provide the sort of concentrating on and measurement that they use to allow them to see the incremental worth of transferring their funds over to Roblox, versus different platforms.”
The expansion of Roblox’s focused advert enterprise isn’t welcome information for everybody. Information of its plans to develop its programmatic advert merchandise has sparked ire amongst each particular person Roblox creators and the platform’s creator studios, who view Roblox’s promoting push as potential competitors with their {custom} maps and model integrations.
“Programmatic video is a vital piece of the digital media combine, however manufacturers should purchase that anyplace — YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and past,” stated Joe Ferencz, the CEO of the Roblox creator studio Gamefam. “What makes Roblox distinctive is the power for manufacturers to indicate up authentically inside the most well-liked video games, creating premium, fully-custom experiences that meet gamers the place they hang around with buddies.”
Roblox creators’ cautious response to the platform’s programmatic growth highlights the corporate’s problem in balancing platform-run focused advertisements with creator-led sport integrations — the Roblox equal to sponsored movies on YouTube. On YouTube, manufacturers repeatedly have interaction in each branded content material offers and programmatic advert buys, with few entrepreneurs viewing the 2 codecs as being in direct competitors. Creators are optimistic that the friction between their integrations and Roblox’s advert merchandise will subside as extra advert {dollars} circulate onto the platform.
As Roblox grows its advertisements enterprise, manufacturers could also be tempted to ditch {custom} activations in favor of ordinary paid advertisements, stated the Roblox creator Junozy. However doing so dangers dropping the authenticity of the platform and the possibility to interact broader audiences, he pressured. “UGC collaborations, sport integrations, and licensing have confirmed themselves to be nice successes for quite a few manufacturers on Roblox who’ve been in a position to leverage group creators to make their manufacturers really feel extra genuine,” stated Junozy. “Sticking with solely advertisements loses this core ingredient and can put different manufacturers, who’re sticking to genuine strategies, manner forward.”
RobTok? TikBlok?
One of many splashiest bulletins of the weekend was Roblox’s rollout of its personal TikTok clone. The beta model of Moments, the platform’s homegrown short-form video feed, launched on Friday, permitting customers to seize short-form movies and share them on an algorithmic feed with out leaving the platform. The product comes with built-in enhancing instruments, in addition to the power for customers to teleport into the experiences proven on video. At the moment, Roblox is just not serving advertisements in its Moments feed.
“Direct monetization options aren’t actually a part of this preliminary launch; we’re essentially designing moments to drive engagement and discoverability for experiences,” stated Roblox vp of product, consumer and discovery Rajiv Bhatia in the course of the briefing. “We actually wish to help creator success on the platform. Trying forward there, we’re enthusiastic about future growth of Moments to incorporate extra content material sorts and new alternatives for monetization and model integrations, however nothing for now.”
Roblox’s Moments feed is just not the primary short-form video feed to look on the platform. “Clip It,” a third-party Roblox expertise that equally recreates many options from TikTok, has been a well-liked sport on the platform since final 12 months, and has already achieved integrations with advertisers such because the musician Sia. The success of “Clip It” over the previous 12 months set the stage for Roblox to develop its personal short-form video product in-house.
“TikTok and [YouTube] Shorts are one of many fundamental methods gamers discover new video games on Roblox,” stated the Roblox creator Chrollo. “I believe it’s a good suggestion for Roblox to have a built-in model like Moments. I’ll undoubtedly use it or at the least attempt to, since I already promote my video games utilizing TikTok.”
Security updates
Roblox introduced a collection of security and moderation updates at this 12 months’s RDC. Notably, the platform would require customers to confirm their age to make use of any communication options by the tip of 2025, with Roblox blocking any communication between adults and minors who don’t know one another in actual life. Roblox additionally up to date its maturity scores, banning sexual content material and blocking any unrated experiences except creators assign them a score.
Lately, critics of Roblox have more and more targeted on the platform’s perceived youngster issues of safety, starting from a November 2024 report by short-sellers Hindenburg Analysis itemizing anecdotal youngster security dangers on the platform to a 270,000-signature Change.org petition demanding the resignation of Roblox CEO David Baszucki. Since July, the regulation agency Dolman Legislation Group has filed six lawsuits in courts in Georgia, California and Texas claiming damages as a result of perceived youngster issues of safety on Roblox. Roblox has repeatedly rebutted the claims made within the stories, pointing to its pre-existing guidelines in opposition to youngster exploitation and its ongoing efforts to beef up its security and moderation practices, together with the bulletins made at this 12 months’s builders convention.
“Even when age verification is added, youngsters will nonetheless use their dad and mom to confirm for them or get accounts which are already verified,” Chrollo stated. “I don’t actually suppose this variation will do a lot, however I additionally am unsure of what Roblox might actually do to repair security as an entire, because it’s a really sophisticated downside.”
Regardless of some skepticism, creators welcomed Roblox’s security updates, seeing the lawsuits as a possible model security problem which will have prevented some manufacturers from partaking with creators on the platform.
“Because it stands, Roblox is deeply related to poor moderation and child-safety considerations,” stated Empyror, one other Roblox creator. “They must do away with that not directly with the intention to really entice manufacturers as soon as once more.”
More cash for creators
For creators, maybe essentially the most thrilling announcement of RDC was an 8.5 % improve within the alternate fee of Roblox’s developer alternate program, which permits the platform’s creators to commerce of their hard-earned Robux for real-life forex.
“100,000 Robux earned Friday or later, which might usually equal roughly $350 U.S. {dollars} when transformed to money, will now equal $380,” Tornow stated throughout final week’s press briefing.
The elevated developer alternate fee is especially impactful for Roblox creators who concentrate on designing {custom} gadgets and avatars, as they usually obtain a considerably decrease income share on their creations than creators making video games and experiences, per Junozy.
“I’m shocked that they’re doing this,” Chrollo stated. “It’s an enormous win for builders.”
