Roblox

Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation. It allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. For most of Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and a company, due to both co-founder Baszucki's lack of interest in press coverage and it being "lost among the crowd" in a large number of platforms released around the same time. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roblox is free-to-play, with in-game purchases available through a virtual currency called "Robux". As of August 2020, Roblox had over 164 million monthly active users, with it being played by over half of all children aged under 16 in the United States.

Although Roblox has generally received positive reviews from critics, it has faced criticism for its content, chat filtration system, and microtransactions.Roblox allows players to create their own games using its proprietary engine, Roblox Studio, which can then be played by other users.[11] Games are coded under an object-oriented programming system utilizing a dialect of the programming language Lua to manipulate the environment of the game.[12][13] Users are able to create purchasable content through one-time purchases, known as "game passes", as well as microtransactions which can be purchased more than once, known as "developer products" or "products". Revenue from purchases is split between the developer and the Roblox Corporation 30–70, in favor of Roblox Corp.[14][15] The majority of games produced using Roblox Studio are developed by minors, and a total of 20 million games a year are produced using it.

Logo of the virtual currency "Robux" Roblox allows players to buy, sell, and create virtual items which can be used to decorate their virtual character that serves as their avatar on the platform.[9] Clothes can be bought by anyone, but only players with a premium membership can sell them.better source needed] Only Roblox administrators can sell accessories, body parts, gear, and packages under the official Roblox user account[18] virtual hats and accessories can also be published by a select few users with past experience working with Roblox Corporation.[19][20] There are several individuals who design items as a full-time job, with the highest-earning creators making over $100,000 a year off item sales.[21] Items with a limited edition status can only be traded between or sold by users with premium membership status.[22]

History and development

The first Roblox logo, designed in 2004[41]

The Roblox logo from 2005–2006[41]

The Roblox logo from 2006–2017 it had numerous variations, but mostly remained the same.[41]

The Roblox logo as of 2017[41] The beta version of Roblox was created by co-founders David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 under the name DynaBlocks.[42] Baszucki started testing the first demos that year.[43] In 2005, the company changed its name to Roblox,[43] and it officially launched on September 1, 2006.[2] 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 thirteen by restricting them to selecting predefined messages from a menu.[44] In August, Roblox applied server improvements and released a premium membership service named "Builders Club".[45] This paid membership feature was rebranded as Roblox Premium in September 2019.[46]

In December 2011, Roblox held their first Hack Week, an annual event where Roblox developers work on outside-the-box ideas for new developments to present to the company.[47][48] On December 11, 2012, an iOS version of Roblox was released,[4] and on July 16, 2014, an Android version was released.[5] On October 1, 2013, Roblox released its Developer Exchange program, allowing developers to exchange Robux earned from their games into real-world currencies.[49]

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 style.[50] On November 20, Roblox was launched on Xbox One, with an initial selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff.[6] New Roblox games for the Xbox One have to go through an approval process, and are subject to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board standards.[51]

In April 2016, Roblox launched Roblox VR for Oculus Rift. At the time of release, more than ten million games were available in 3D.[52] 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.[53][failed verification] 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.[54]

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.[55] 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.[56] 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.[57] Roblox was granted permission to release in China on December 3, 2020.[58]

Launch in China On July 12, 2021, Roblox was officially approved for launch in China after it secured 2 necessary licenses from the Chinese government.[59] Launched in partnership with Tencent Holdings, the game was released under the roblox.cn domain and was projected to earn Roblox over $500 million.[60]

Community and culture Activism Users of Roblox have been noted for their efforts against racism, with numerous regular users and co-founder Baszucki having declared their support for the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter.[61][62] In August 2019, an investigation by NBC News revealed over 100 accounts linked to far-right and neo-Nazi groups. After being contacted about the accounts by NBC, Roblox moderators removed them.[63]

"Oof" sound effect From its release to November 2020, Roblox's sound effect for when a character dies was an "oof" sound, which became a substantial part of the platform's reputation due to its status as a meme.[69] The sound was originally produced by video game composer Tommy Tallarico for the 2000 video game Messiah, and he and Roblox entered into a copyright dispute. The dispute ended when Roblox agreed to pull the sound from their platform and replace it with another death sound, and Tallarico agreed to allow Roblox to release the sound again at a later date on its marketplace, which game developers on the platform would be able to purchase for a price of US$1.[70][71]

Reception and revenue

Overall reception

Roblox has also been criticised for making it easy for children to spend large sums of money through microtransactions, leading to numerous instances where children have spent large sums of money on the platform without parents knowledge,[83][84] and deleting the accounts of players who file chargebacks or request refunds for Robux payments through their banks, card issuers or other third-party companies.[85]

Games See also: List of Roblox games Due to its status as a games platform, Roblox has a variety of popular games. As of May 2020, the most popular games on Roblox had over 10 million monthly active players each. As of August 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.[86] 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.[87]

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,[88] collectively earned at least $30 million in 2017.[89] 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.[90][7] Several individual games on Roblox have accumulated revenues of over $10 million,[91] while developers as a whole on the platform were collectively projected to have earned around $250 million over the course of 2020.[92] It became the third highest-grossing game of 2020, with a revenue of $2.29 billion, below the Tencent titles PUBG and Honor of Kings.[93]

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.[94] The minifigures have limbs and joints similar to that of Lego minifigures, though they are about twice the size.[95] The minifigures have limbs and accessories that are interchangeable. The sets included a code that was used to redeem virtual items, as well as blind boxes that contained random minifigures.[96][97] In 2019, Roblox Corporation released a new line of toys, branded the "Roblox Desktop" series.[98] On April 13, 2021, Roblox partnered with Hasbro to release Roblox themed Nerf guns and a Roblox themed Monopoly edition.[99]