Roblox

Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system built around user-generated content and games. Games can be created by any user through the platform's game engine, Roblox Studio, and then shared to and played by other players. The platform is made to appeal to a family-friendly audience, and has been described as a massively multiplayer online game (MMO). While Roblox is free-to-play, it features a virtual currency known as "Robux" that can be purchased with real-world money. Robux can be used to purchase virtual items that the player can use on their virtual character (or "avatar") on the platform, or access games that require payment. though most items on the platform were made by Roblox themselves for most of the platform's history. Through the platform's "Developer Exchange" program, creators on the platform are able to exchange their earned Robux to real-world money. In addition, Roblox features a monthly service called "Roblox Premium", with its subscribers gaining access to more features on the platform and a monthly stipend of Robux. The currency allows users to buy, sell and create virtual items. Similarly to games, many items on Roblox are user-generated. Since 2019, select users have gained the ability to publish avatar accessories, animations, After the original supply of that item runs out, players can resell them for a higher price. Additionally, users with an active Roblox Premium subscription are able to trade limiteds amongst each other. Limited items made by the community cannot be traded and this feature is restricted to official items. Developers on the platform are able to create purchasable content through one-time purchases. Through the Roblox "Developer Exchange" program, users are able to exchange their earned Robux for real-world money, as long as they have at least 30,000 Robux. A sizeable amount of scams are on Roblox, largely revolving around messages promoting websites and games that are designed to appear to give out free Robux. Furthermore, there are people in the community known as "beamers" who compromise Roblox accounts to steal and sell their items on the platform's black markets. They employ various techniques, such as creating phishing websites or create ploys in order to acquire a victim's session token. Once they gain access to the victim's account, these "beamers" steal and subsequently sell valuable limited items owned by the victims for real-world currency or cryptocurrency through marketplace sites or Discord chat rooms. The slang term "beaming" is commonly used to describe this entire process on Roblox. Roblox does offer hacking victims a "rollback" for their items, although this is only offered once per account. Roblox Studio and game design Roblox Studio is the platform's game engine and game development software. The engine and all games made on Roblox predominantly uses Luau, a dialect of the Lua 5.1 programming language. Since November 2021, the programming language has been open sourced under the MIT License. Some aspects of the engine were created using C++. To assist in the creation of games, Roblox Studio features multiple pre-made templates that users can modify. Games Due to its status as a user-created games platform, Roblox has a variety of popular games; by July 2020, at least 20 games had been played more than one billion times, and at least 5,000 have been played more than one million times. Games on Roblox greatly range in genre, Many companies have used Roblox to host advergames promoting their products. Communication and age estimations Roblox allows players to communicate with each other in a variety of ways, such as through in-game chat and direct messaging. Voice chat is also usable for players over the age of 13 that have their age verified. Players are able to add other users as friends (officially known as "connections" from 2025 to 2026). An additional 'tier' of this system, known as "Trusted Friends", allows users to send unfiltered chat messages and personal information to each other. If one of the users is over the age of 18 while the other user is between 13 and 17, then both parties must prove that they know each other in real life. This is done through either mutual QR code scanning, or importing their phone contacts. Users can only communicate with each other after they perform an age check, which is done through either ID verification or having a video of themselves analyzed by age estimation software. Communication is further restricted to only allow users in similar age groups to communicate with each other. For example, a user who is twelve years old can only communicate with users aged 9 to 15. == History and development ==

2004–2009: Creation and early history in 2025 Roblox was created in 2004 by co-founders and software engineers David Baszucki and Erik Cassel. Before the creation of the platform, both Baszucki and Cassel worked for Knowledge Revolution, a company that specialized in creating educational and physics simulation software. After Knowledge Revolution was acquired by MSC Software, the two left the company and Baszucki began investing in earlier social media sites like Friendster. Around this time, Baszucki came up with the idea of a physics sandbox with creation tools and a social networking aspect. Baszucki and Cassel began development on Roblox shortly afterwards, modeled after Baszucki's vision, and also created the Roblox Corporation. Early in its development, Roblox was known as "DynaBlocks". It was determined early on in development that the two would design Roblox to rely entirely on user-generated content, only providing the tools necessary for people to develop games, as well as the server hosting later in development. with Roblox Studio being made available that same year. Games that were made by the community early in the platform's history included paintball games, haunted houses and model trains that players could ride. In 2008, the Roblox Corporation stopped actively creating its own games to demonstrate the platform's capabilities, becoming entirely reliant on user-created games. They would subsequently add two additional tiers: Turbo Builders Club and Outrageous Builders Club. 2010–2015: Early growth Roblox's growth continued throughout 2010 and the following years. By August 2011, Roblox had about 6.8 million active users monthly, becoming the second-most popular kids entertainment site. Its profits also continued to increase, with the platform's profit that year up 75% from 2010; in June 2011, the company held a fundraiser that raised over $4 million. By January 2014, the platform's monthly player count had increased 10 to 12 million monthly players, although a majority of those players did not have registered accounts and instead played as "guests". By this point in the platform's history, several games had been played million of times. One of the most successful creators on the platform at the time was Luke Weber, known on Roblox as "Stickmasterluke", who had a following of over ten million plays across all of his games combined. It was attended by over 1,000 people. although users were not able to use Roblox Studio. After completing development on the iOS version, Roblox began looking into releasing a version for Android devices, as well as video game consoles. The version for Android was released on July 16, 2014. A version of Roblox for Xbox One was announced in September 2015 and released on November 20. This version initially only released with selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff, due to concerns regarding Entertainment Software Rating Board standards. A system that allowed users to publish their games on the platform was later released, based on an approval process. From 2013 to 2014, Roblox released several updates to its development tools, adding new features. which initially only allowed payouts of up to $500. 2016–2020: Accelerated growth and COVID-19 In the latter half of the 2010s, Roblox began to rapidly grow in popularity. By December 2016, the platform had about 30 million monthly active users, a number that had increased to 90 million by April 2019. Between March and April, Roblox reported having over 120 million monthly active players, which by that point the company said included over half of all kids in the United States that were under the age of 16. By this point, over 20 games had been played more than one billion times, and at least 5,000 had been played more than one million times. In light of the platform's newfound popularity and use during lockdowns, Roblox introduced a new "Party Place" system, which were specific spaces that players could use to arrange meetups and events, such as virtual concerts. In June of that year, the company also released a dedicated app for Windows 10. Efforts were also made towards making Roblox more accessible, with automatic machine translation being added to in-game chat in 2020, initially supporting 9 languages. and was given permission to release in the region on December 3, 2020. During this time period, several features from the platform were removed. In 2016, Roblox discontinued its secondary currency, "Tickets", making Robux the platform's only currency. It was removed due to the company believing newer players would get confused by the presence of two separate currencies. That same year, Roblox discontinued its official player forums for an undisclosed reason. Additionally, in 2019, Roblox released Roblox Premium, which replaced its previous Builders Club memberships. In March 2021, the Roblox Corporation went public, and became valued at $45 billion. At the same time, a port of Roblox to the PlayStation 4 were announced, and later released on October 10. It is playable on the PlayStation 5 via backward compatibility. In 2021, Roblox made it to where games on the platform are referred to as "experiences" following the platform's involvement in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit. In June of that year, Roblox was sued by the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), alleging that the platform allowed users to upload copyrighted music without obtaining proper licensing, and made children believe that pirating music was acceptable. The lawsuit was dropped by September, ending with the Roblox Corporation and the NMPA forming a collaboration to establish a framework for future publisher partnerships. After being given permission in late 2020, Roblox released in China in July 2021. was published and operated by Tencent, and was heavily restricted due to China's regulations on video games. LuoBu failed to grow to substantially throughout its history, and was unable to generate much profit. Roblox's business model throughout this time has continued to be based around creating a metaverse, and attempting to increase the platform's appeal. In 2021, Baszucki further detailed the company's vision for Roblox to become a metaverse, highlighting "eight different characteristics" that the platform would strive to accommodate for. He also discussed the Ready Player One and Ready Player Two books as being inspirations for the company's ideas. for users over the age of 13 that had their age verified through ID. Voice chat was then followed by facial animations based on the real-world motion tracking of the players face, which was announced in 2022 and released in 2023. In March 2024, two generative artificial intelligence tools that were added to Roblox Studio in an effort to speed up content creation. These tools were for automatic avatar customization and texture generation, the former being able to automatically convert three-dimensional body meshes into live-animated avatars and the latter creating textures of objects based on a text-to-image model. Also announced in 2022 were age ratings for games, Initially, the highest rating that games could be given was 13+, although in June 2023, a 17+ rating was introduced that would permit games to feature more graphic violence, romantic themes and alcohol usage. Similarly, in November 2024, Roblox revamped its parental controls system, adding new safety measures for users under the age of 13, such as screen time and whether or not the child can exchange private messages with other users and allowing parents to create separate accounts to control their child's account. 2026–present Starting with certain countries in December 2025 and globally in January 2026, Roblox made age verification mandatory to communicate on the platform in any capacity. A $12 million settlement served as a model for platform accountability, where funds were allocated for youth programs and law enforcement. Non-encrypted messaging for user safety was also part of the agreement terms. In June 2026, the platform will introduce more age-based restrictions by dividing user accounts into different tiers of Roblox: "Roblox Kids" (available to users under the age of 9), "Roblox Select" (for users 9 to 15), and standard Roblox (for users 16 and over). If a user does not verify their age, they are restricted to only playing games with an age rating of 9+ or lower. Age estimation or verification will also become mandatory to publish a game. A port of Roblox for the PlayStation 5 was released on April 14, 2026. ==Community and culture==

As of February 2025, Roblox has reported over 85.3 million daily active users. According to the company, the monthly player base includes half of all American children under the age of 16. In addition to traditional games, the platform also hosts social hangout places; players have used the platform to express political activism, with some users declaring their support for the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter, and some using the platform to perform activities that were paused by COVID-19 lockdowns like religious processions. Roblox's original sound effect for when a character died, often transcribed and titled as the "oof" sound effect, became a popular internet meme. The sound was originally produced for the video game Messiah (2000), and it was replaced in 2022 after Roblox and the sound's producer entered a copyright dispute. In July 2025, the sound effect was officially reinstated back to Roblox, having gained the rights to use the audio. A hyperpop-based music scene, known as "Robloxcore", became popular online after several artists uploaded their music to the game in late 2020. Merchandise In January 2017, toy fabricator Jazwares began producing licensed toy minifigures based on the Roblox platform. The sets included a code that was used to redeem virtual items, as well as blind boxes that contained random minifigures. In April 2021, Hasbro released Roblox-themed Nerf blasters and a Roblox-themed version of Monopoly. Events Roblox occasionally hosts real-life and virtual events. They have in the past hosted events such as BloxCon, which was a convention for ordinary players on the platform, as well as virtual Easter egg hunts, Halloween events, "Giftsplosions", and also hosted an annual event called the "Bloxy Awards", an awards ceremony that also functions as a fundraiser. The 2020 edition of the Bloxy Awards, held virtually on the platform, drew 600,000 viewers. In 2022, "Bloxy Awards" got rebranded into the "Roblox Innovation Awards". Roblox Corporation annually hosts the Roblox Developers Conference, a three-day, invite-only event in San Francisco where top content creators on the site learn of upcoming changes to the platform. The company has also hosted similar events in cities like London. Licensed and affiliated events Roblox occasionally engages in events to promote films, such as ones held to promote Wonder Woman 1984 and Aquaman. Roblox has also hosted virtual concerts, such as the one starring Lil Nas X; during that concert, Lil Nas X debuted his song "Holiday". Future virtual concerts starred artists like Swedish singer Zara Larsson and American band Twenty One Pilots. In October 2021, Roblox partnered with Chipotle Mexican Grill to give $1 million of burritos away to the first 30,000 people every day as a part of Chipotle's "Halloween Boorito" promotion. == Reception ==

Critical reception of Roblox has been generally positive. Common Sense Media rated Roblox 4 out of 5 stars, praising the website's variety of games and ability to encourage creativity in children while finding that the decentralized nature of the platform meant game quality varied, and recommended disabling chat functions for young players to prevent possibly harmful interactions. Patricia E. Vance of the Family Online Safety Institute advised parents to monitor their child's interactions on the platform but praised the platform for "...allowing kids to play, explore, socialize, create and learn in a self-directed way", and granting special praise to Roblox Studio for its ability to encourage children to experience game development. Trusted Reviews, in its overview of the platform, also praised Roblox Studio, stating that "for anyone seeking to develop their computer science skills, or create projects that will instantly receive feedback from a huge audience, the appeal is obvious". Roblox has been criticized several times due to the content that is present on the platform, specifically the presence of sexual or politically extremist-related material. Similarly, its chat and game filtration system has been negatively received. Examples of sexual or politically extreme content that has appeared on the platform throughout its history include places themed around virtual sex clubs and nightclubs, all of which are generally referred to as "condo" games, To combat the presence of this content, Roblox has over 1,600 people working to remove such material from the platform, a 2020 investigation by Fast Company found that sexual content was very prevalent on Roblox and likened attempts to remove the material to whack-a-mole. The platform has also seen numerous reports of sexual predation on child players, In response to perceived moderation issues, there have been instances where players have formed "vigilante groups" to mass report predatory content and users on the platform. Roblox has spoken out against the existence of these groups, claiming they cause more harm than good, such as by luring in predators by impersonating children. In August 2025, Roblox sent a cease and desist to a YouTuber alleging that he had been involved with vigilantism, leading to widespread criticism towards the company. Professor Jane Juffer at Cornell University accused Roblox of encouraging consumerism in children. Some found that the platform made it very easy to purchase microtransactions, leading to numerous instances where children have spent large sums of money on the platform without parents' knowledge. In April 2022, Truth in Advertising filed a complaint against Roblox with the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising, mainly failing to disclose when advertising is present, such as with advergames and brand ambassadors. However, these restrictions did not apply to advergames, leading to further criticism by Truth in Advertising and children's digital rights organization 5Rights. It has also been accused by Hindenburg Research of artificially inflating its monthly active player count. Restrictions by country Roblox is blocked or banned in several countries: Algeria, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Russia, and Turkey. It was also banned in the United Arab Emirates from 2018 to 2021. Kuwait briefly banned the game from August to October 2025, with the country lifting the ban after Roblox agreed to implement a set of new safety and content restrictions requested by Kuwaiti authorities. The reasons for these bans differ: Turkey cited content that could promote gambling and child sexual abuse, while Qatar referenced child safety concerns. In February 2025, Bloomberg News reported that Roblox was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for unknown reasons. Later that year in August, Indonesia requested that Roblox strengthen its chat filters to remove harmful content and enhance child safety, warning that failure to comply could result in a ban. Members of Bahrain's parliament began drafting a bill to ban Roblox in the country following concerns about child safety in 2025. Multiple other countries or regions have issued warnings to its population regarding the platform. Guatemala issued a warning to parents in 2021. Authorities in the city of Surabaya imposed local bans on Roblox in primary and secondary schools in 2025, citing multiple incidents where sexual predators had harassed minors through the platform, following requests from the local Ministry of Education. That same year, the Committee for Children's Rights Protection of the Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan issued a warning towards parents for similar reasons. The General Directorate of Internal Affairs of the City of Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan later did the same. In September 2025, the government of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, through its civil police and cyber police unit, issued a public warning to parents stating that Roblox was not a safe platform for children for similar reasons. Revenue During the 2017 Roblox Developers Conference, officials said that creators on the game platform, of which there were about 1.7 million as of 2017, collectively earned at least $30 million in 2017. The iOS version of Roblox passed $1 billion of lifetime revenue in November 2019, $1.5 billion in June 2020, and $2 billion in October 2020, making it the iOS app with the second-highest revenue. while developers as a whole on the platform were collectively projected to have earned around $250 million over the course of 2020. It became the third highest-grossing game of 2020, with a revenue of , below the Tencent titles PUBG and Honor of Kings. == References ==