Roblox CEO has big Plans! The Goal is to Reach 1 Billion Daily Active Users and Generate 10% of all Global Gaming Revenues
During the Roblox Developers Conference, CEO and co-founder David Baszucki revealed his big goal. He wants to achieve one billion daily active users and 10% of all global gaming content revenue via Roblox.
This is remarkable, because although Roblox's figures are very impressive, the platform in its current form does not come close to this scale. It boasts 79.5 million daily active users, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but getting from here to a billion is a gigantic step. The First thing Baszucki wants to attack, however, is the idea that all those users are little kids.
"Of the 79.5 million users who visit Roblox every day, 58% are 13 or older," says Baszucki, although the percentage of over-18s might have been more meaningful."When Erik Cassel and I founded Roblox in 2006, we were motivated by a question that still drives the company today: How do people connect through gaming?" Baszucki goes on to talk about how Roblox connects people before moving on to the size of the industry."The gaming market is huge: 3.4 billion people play games, and the gaming industry generates over $180 billion in annual revenue," Baszucki says."As the next milestone on our journey to one billion daily active users, we share an ambitious goal: we believe that 10% of all global gaming content revenue will flow through the Roblox ecosystem and be distributed within our Roblox community."
On the way to 10% of gaming content revenue, the company believes that it will probably reach 300 million daily active users, which will then be expanded to 1 billion. Around 80% of these people come to Roblox to play games together, and the rest to shop, consume entertainment, learn or simply communicate with each other.
Roblox introduces some new tools to help support the ambitious goals
Roblox has announced a couple of new tools at RDC that it believes will help drive those user numbers up. The First is "Party", which will allow Roblox friends to connect, communicate and share experiences (the platform's name for the games it hosts), with voice chat limited to those aged 13 and over. Party will have been fully rolled out by the end of the year.
Another major push is "Music", with a "What's Playing" feature that will allow users across the platform to find popular and trending songs and any related experiences. Roblox also has an idea for something it calls "Music Charts", which is set to launch in 2025. In addition, there is a partnership with DistroKid, a music distribution service, which will make it easier for artists to officially upload their music to Roblox and for creators to use the tracks. Baszucki says this is all"part of our vision" for Roblox to become"a destination for organic and immersive music discovery."
In-game sales will also be expanded
There are also several changes to how developers conduct business on Roblox and how they can price premium experiences globally. Authorized developers can now sell goods from experiences. The feature will be launched in early 2025 and the first commercial partner is Shopify. In addition, developers will be able to price access to their experiences in "real currency value" (revenue share: 50-70%, depending on price point) and a price optimization tool will help developers determine the sweet spot. Shortly after, Roblox introduces regional pricing recommendations and allows developers to vary prices by region, seemingly aiming to"build a virtual economy that is more globally inclusive and accessible".
Many of the features announced at RDC will already be somewhat familiar to Roblox users, albeit in a limited form. Walmart has been selling real items there since the beginning of the year, while you can already apply for a job (and serve virtual meatballs) on the Roblox version of IKEA. Many artists are already using Roblox to promote their music and give concerts. The company has previously boasted of an AI that will create everything for customers.
Aiming for one billion users per day seems ambitious. Only time will tell whether the company can really achieve this goal. In principle, however, business is going very well for Roblox.
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