Roblox facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Roblox |
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Logo since 2022
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| Developer(s) | Roblox Corporation |
| Publisher(s) | Roblox Corporation |
| Designer(s) | David Baszucki Erik Cassel |
| Platform(s) |
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| Release date(s) |
September 1, 2006
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| Genre(s) | Game creation system, massively multiplayer online game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Roblox ( ROH-bloks) is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. It was created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004, and released to the public in 2006. As of February 2025, the platform has reported an average of 85.3 million daily active users. According to the company, their monthly playerbase includes half of all American children under the age of 16.
The platform hosts millions of user-created games (officially referred to as "experiences"), all created using a dialect of the programming language Lua and the platform's game engine, Roblox Studio. While Roblox is free-to-play, it features in-game purchases done through its virtual currency known as Robux, and game developers on the platform are able to create items that cost Robux. Furthermore, the platform hosts a large virtual economy centered around those items and Robux. Using the platform's "Developer Exchange" program, creators on the platform are able to exchange their earned Robux for real-world currency. The platform has also been used to host virtual concerts and events, as well as advergames.
Early in Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and as a company. In the second half of the 2010s, the platform began to grow rapidly, and this growth was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2020, over 5,000 games on Roblox had been played over a million times, and over 20 had been played over one billion times. Although Roblox has been positively received by critics, it has faced heavy criticism for its content moderation. The platform has been restricted or completely blocked in several countries, such as China, Turkey, Jordan, and others.
Contents
Overview
Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system built around user-generated content and games, officially referred to as "experiences". 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 games featured on Roblox vary in genre, from role-playing games to ones centered around escaping prison, among others. 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 experiences that require payment. As with games, avatar items on Roblox are mainly user-generated, 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.
Virtual economy
Roblox features a large virtual economy centered around its aforementioned virtual currency, Robux. The currency allows users to buy, sell, and create virtual items. Roblox also has a service called "Roblox Premium", a monthly subscription that gives users monthly stipends of Robux (with the amount depending on the selected subscription tier), discounts when purchasing items, access to the item trading system, the ability to buy more Robux for less, and more.
Similarly to games, many items on Roblox are user-generated. While only Roblox developers were able to create avatar items early on, the capabilities of user-generated content has expanded greatly over time. Since 2019, select users have gained the ability to publish avatar accessories, animations, bundles, and more. Some items on Roblox have a "limited" status, with only a few being available and the price of the item based on supply and demand rather than a fixed price. These items function similarly to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The prices of limited items range, with the most valuable ones costing millions of Robux. 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. In 2020, Roblox reported that roughly 345,000 game developers on the platform earned money through the program. Avatar item creators have also been able to generate profit with the platform, with some individuals designing items as a full-time job. It has been reported that the highest-earning creators have earned over $100,000 a year from item sales.
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.
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.
As of 2020, Roblox reported that more than 2 million developers used Roblox Studio to create more than 20 million games per year. They also reported that a majority of developers were minors. While some developers might not make money by creating games on Roblox, it has been noted that the platform still assists with teaching people game design and how to code.
Games
Due to its status as a user-created games platform, Roblox has a variety of popular games; as of 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. TechCrunch noted in March 2021 that Roblox games are largely distinct from established traditions in free-to-play video games, finding that successful Roblox games were geared towards immediate satisfaction, and finding that the addition of tutorials significantly decreased player engagement, contrary to established wisdom about free-to-play games. Many companies have used Roblox to host advergames promoting their products.
History and development
The beta version of Roblox was created by co-founders David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 under the name DynaBlocks. Baszucki started testing the first demos that year. In 2005, the company changed its name to Roblox, and it officially launched on September 1, 2006. In March 2007, Roblox became compliant with COPPA, with the addition of safe chat, a change that limited the communication ability of users under the age of 13 by restricting them to selecting predefined messages from a menu. In August, Roblox applied server improvements and released a premium membership service named "Builders Club". This paid membership feature was rebranded as Roblox Premium in September 2019.
In December 2011, Roblox held its first Hack Week, an annual event where Roblox developers work on outside-the-box ideas for new developments to present to the company. On December 11, 2012, an iOS version of Roblox was released, and on July 16, 2014, an Android version was released. On October 1, 2013, Roblox released its Developer Exchange program, allowing developers to exchange Robux earned from their games into real-world currencies.
On May 31, 2015, a feature called 'Smooth Terrain' was added, increasing the graphical fidelity of the terrain and changing the physics engine from a block-oriented style to a smoother and more realistic one. On November 20, Roblox was launched on Xbox One, with an initial selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff. New Roblox games for the Xbox One have to go through an approval process and are subject to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board standards.
In April 2016, Roblox launched Roblox VR for Oculus Rift. At the time of release, more than ten million games were available in 3D. Around the same time period, the safe chat feature was removed and replaced by a system based on a whitelist with a set of acceptable words for users under 13 years old and a set of blacklisted words for other users. In June, the company launched a version compatible with Windows 10. While the game platform has had a presence on the PC since 2004, when its web version was created, this was the first time it was upgraded with a standalone launcher built for Windows.
Throughout 2017, Roblox engaged in a number of updates to its server technology, as the technology they were operating on until that point was out of date and led to frequent outages. Also in 2017, Roblox closed its official forums. In November 2018, the ability for a player to play as a "guest", without an account, which had been progressively restricted over the previous two years, was removed entirely. In July 2020, Roblox announced the creation of "Party Place", which functions as an online hangout. The feature was created using new technology that had been used during the 2020 Bloxy Awards and was designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Roblox was granted permission to release in China on December 3, 2020. In October 2021, Roblox experienced its longest downtime to date, with services being unavailable for three days.
In December 2021, Roblox shut down its Chinese servers, stating that they were attempting to create "another version" of the app that allowed Chinese players to access the platform. In July 2022, an archive of internal documents related to the platform's activities in China were leaked by an unidentified hacker. This document revealed that the Roblox Corporation had planned to roll out a variety of changes to the platform in order to comply with Chinese internet censorship laws, and that prior to shutting their operations in China they had been concerned that Tencent would hack the platform and attempt to set up a competitor.
In September 2022, Roblox Corporation announced that it planned to add an age rating system. The company stated that it was wanting to increase the platform's appeal to a young adult audience of users 17–24, which it stated was the fastest-growing demographic on Roblox. On June 20, 2023, Roblox started allowing games rated as only for players 17 years and over.
On July 27, 2023, Roblox was released as a public beta for the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro. The beta was downloaded over one million times within five days.
In September 2023, it was announced that Roblox would be made available on the PlayStation the following month, with the Meta Quest versions being made publicly available later in September. They also acquired the Helsinki-headquartered AI start-up specializing in voice chat moderation technology, Speechly for an undisclosed amount.
Community and culture
As of February 2025, Roblox has reported over 85.3 million daily active users. According to the company, the monthly playerbase includes half of all American children under the age of 16. 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. Part of Roblox's reputation was due in part to its original sound effect for when a character died, often transcribed and titled as the "oof" sound effect, which became an internet meme. The sound was originally produced by Joey Kuras and Tommy Tallarico for the video game Messiah (2000), but was replaced in 2022 after Roblox and Tallarico entered a copyright dispute.
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. Roblox has previously held virtual Easter egg hunts and also hosts 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.
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. In March 2025, The Hunt: Mega Edition started, where players competed in 25 different Roblox games for a prize of $1 million.
Toy lines
In January 2017, toy fabricator Jazwares partnered with Roblox Corporation to produce toy minifigures based on user-generated content created by developers on the platform. The minifigures have interchangeable limbs and joints similar to that of Lego minifigures, though they are about twice the size. The sets included a code that was used to redeem virtual items, as well as blind boxes that contained random minifigures. In 2019, Jazwares released a new line of toys, branded as the "Roblox Desktop" series. In April 2021, Roblox partnered with Hasbro to release Roblox-themed Nerf blasters and a Roblox-themed version of Monopoly.
See also
In Spanish: Roblox para niños
