2023 Year in Review — A Letter From Our CEO

This was an enormous 12 months for Roblox. We made nice progress towards our imaginative and prescient of reimagining the best way individuals come collectively by constructing modern applied sciences that allow richer types of communication, creation, and immersion. Throughout Q3* of this 12 months, we noticed 70.2 million every day energetic customers on Roblox, which was up 20 % from the identical interval final 12 months, and customers spent 16 billion hours coming collectively to attach, discover, study, play, and create on our platform. As Roblox has grown, our duty to our neighborhood is as robust as ever, and I’m proud that we’re keeping safety at the forefront of every little thing we do.

All through 2023, we shipped a broad vary of improvements that helped us make vital progress in the direction of our core targets:

• Enabling 3D immersive communication.
• Making Roblox welcoming for everybody, in every single place.
• Rising our vibrant financial system so creators of all sizes can launch and scale a enterprise.
• Empowering individuals to attach, create, and thrive in secure and civil experiences. 

 

Check out some key highlights above, and skim on for extra element on the good work we did collectively:

The Development of Our Platform

Immersive Communication

During the last 12 months, we’ve added a spread of recent instruments that make connection and communication on Roblox much more like actual life. We’ve made it easy for individuals to carry their family and friends onto Roblox by importing their contact checklist from their telephone or sharing a QR code with a buddy. We additionally launched Chat with Voice, and we’ve been working to make sure that all avatar heads can make the most of facial animation. These advances allow new, richer methods for individuals to precise themselves identical to they’d in the true world. This 12 months, we additionally started permitting individuals to customise mates’ names, together with utilizing their actual names (This fall 23) in the event that they’re over 17.

In 2023, enhancements we made to our superior real-time communication instruments created new alternatives for our builders. For instance, we launched a expertise that builders can incorporate into their experiences to permit individuals to name each other as their avatars for impromptu conversations and gatherings (This fall 23). This expertise makes use of face monitoring, so individuals can truly see one another’s facial expressions and physique language whereas they’re speaking, which actually helps them really feel nearer. Actually, we launched our personal expertise based mostly on this expertise, referred to as Roblox Connect, and I’ve been utilizing it to speak with my household on Roblox, which has simply been superb.

For this expertise, it’s nonetheless early. Our job is to supply infrastructure and instruments for the neighborhood and to see what our builders construct. And I’m at all times astonished by their creativity as an increasing number of turns into potential on the platform.  

Expressing Your self With Avatars You Love

We consider that when somebody can specific their genuine self with their avatar, they’ll have a greater time on Roblox. So this 12 months, we gave our neighborhood new methods to do this. This might imply constructing an avatar that appears just like the individual does in actual life, or one which resembles a jetpack-wearing ninja, an emo princess, or nearly the rest they will dream up. Right here’s how:

• We made it potential for creators to make and promote full avatar our bodies and standalone heads (Q3 23). We plan to broaden entry to avatar creation and monetization and supply extra and higher methods for individuals to speak and specific themselves on Roblox. That is just the start of those efforts. 
• We additionally wish to present everybody on Roblox with the very best expertise for creating avatars, and our new Avatar Setup software makes that simpler than ever. And we’re taking avatar personalization to the subsequent degree with the Studio beta of our mesh and picture APIs that can ultimately enable anybody to create a unique avatar in Roblox experiences. 

Subsequent 12 months, we’ll double down on creating generative AI instruments that allow individuals create avatars based mostly on photographs and textual content prompts. We’re being considerate about moderating the avatars created with AI and the interactions individuals have with them, and guaranteeing it’s completed with security and civility in thoughts.

On the identical time, we at all times need Roblox to be easy to make use of, so we’re making it simpler than ever for creators to make sure their experiences work for everybody. 

• We’re creating expertise that permits individuals to create distinctive and customized avatars and equipment (in addition to our traditional avatars). However we would like all trendy avatars to have the ability to entry experiences constructed for traditional avatars with out sacrificing options like layered clothes or facial expressions, so we constructed an adapter to make sure simply that.
• We would like all of Roblox to imitate real-world physics, which implies objects reply to issues like gravity and aerodynamics. Our researchers are creating expertise to make it possible for even hair and material on avatar outfits reacts to motion, collisions, and wind. They’re additionally engaged on methods for avatars to ultimately mimic the various complicated methods people transfer their our bodies.

The Way forward for Creation

All the pieces you see on Roblox was imagined and constructed by our neighborhood, and we’re persevering with to evolve our platform to empower an increasing number of of that creativity: 

• In Q1* of this 12 months we started utilizing generative AI as a strategy to allow extra individuals to create on our platform. We’re already seeing creators being extra productive and needing much less technical ability to get their concepts off the bottom. 
• With Roblox Assistant, our new conversational AI (This fall 23), creators can use pure language textual content prompts to rapidly prototype concepts. For instance, somebody may sort “I wish to create a recreation set in historical ruins the place the participant spawns by a campfire,” and the system will robotically construct it. This can let creators spend extra time on high-value actions like narrative, recreation play, and expertise design.
• Whereas these instruments will make it simpler than ever for present creators to precise their creativity and earn, we wish to make it potential for anybody to create on Roblox. Within the subsequent 12 months, we plan to carry a number of the options of Roblox Studio (our 3D content material creation software program) to everybody on our platform. Meaning anybody may begin to create issues like homes, automobiles, and even avatars inside present experiences. 

 

The Development of Our Group 

Creator Connections

Roblox wouldn’t be the place it’s with out our gifted, various, and international creator neighborhood. This 12 months, we rolled out our new Creator Roadmap to mirror how we’re constructing our platform hand-in-hand with creators. The Roadmap is a spot for us to provide our creators an early take a look at the issues we’re engaged on, collaborate, and get their suggestions. 

In 2023, we linked with improvement studios from all over the world each in individual and nearly. And at Roblox Builders Convention (RDC) in September, 1000’s of individuals got here collectively for informative and inspirational classes, sales space demos, and networking occasions. RDC continues to be an awesome place for builders, manufacturers, and influencers to study from one another and for us to attach with our gifted and rising neighborhood.

At Join 2023, our conference by creators for creators, greater than 12,000 creators gathered for a collection of networking alternatives and competitions. And with the launch of Creator Events, we noticed creators from all around the world come collectively to share information and study from each other by internet hosting dozens of on-line workshops.

Group Creations

This was a 12 months of breakout hits on Roblox. Actually, 38 % of the highest 1,000 experiences on the platform have been created throughout the final 12 months.*** A sampling of a number of the thrilling new experiences on Roblox contains: 

• Social style expertise Dress to Impress, which surpassed 40 million visits in simply two months.
• Obby But You’re On A Bike, a brand new (wheelie) spin on the well-loved obby (or impediment course) system.
• Pet Simulator 99, a reset on the Roblox traditional that’s geared toward new audiences.
• Drinks On Tap, an expertise with extra mature content material for ID-verified customers 17 years and older, was visited practically 5 million occasions since 17+ experiences launched****, and customers in the expertise have been ready to make use of strong language, the most recent in our communication applied sciences.

On the identical time, our Game Fund debuted ten experiences that leverage our newest improvements and push the boundaries of what’s potential on Roblox. These releases included Skullbeat by Chop Chop Games & Kong Orange, Primal Hunt by Phaser Lock Interactive, and—from the Hello Neighbor universe—Secret Neighbor by Tinybuild.

I’m completely satisfied to say that this progress extends past simply expertise creation. Throughout the first three quarters of 2023, neighborhood creators bought practically 1.6 billion digital style objects and equipment. Consequently, customers have been continually altering their look, with 165 billion avatar updates over that very same timeframe.

Honoring the Group

In November of this 12 months, we awarded 16 winners on the Roblox Innovation Awards. Nice creators at LSPLASH received each the Builderman Award of Excellence and Greatest New Expertise for Doors, and Gamer Robot Inc. received the Folks’s Selection award for Blox Fruits. 

We additionally noticed unbelievable work from influencers in our Video Stars program like Tanqr who received Greatest Video Star, Temprist for creating the Greatest Video, and TeraBrite and RussoPlays for delivering one more neighborhood smash hit season of RB Battles. This 12 months we welcomed a various solid of greater than 50 new video creators into this system, and we are able to’t wait to see what they proceed to create.

I’m so proud that Roblox is residence to one of many world’s most passionate and modern creator communities, and so impressed by their monumental year of creativity and innovation.

The Development of Our Enterprise

We’ve lengthy talked concerning the a number of parts driving the expansion of Roblox—being a platform for everybody, being obtainable in every single place, rising internationally, and constructing a vibrant financial system that serves our complete neighborhood. By combining all of these parts, the expansion of our platform will get very fascinating in a short time. 

Roblox for Everybody

In Q3 2023, greater than 57 % of our customers have been 13 or older and the quickest rising age group on Roblox was 17-24 12 months olds. And we consider there’s rather more progress to return with this viewers. 

This 12 months, we launched experiences for 17+ customers (Q2 23), which implies creators can incorporate the sorts of mature themes and storylines discovered on TV exhibits or stand-up comedy into what they construct. That is thrilling as a result of manufacturers on Roblox now have entry to a useful, typically hard-to-reach demographic, and since many builders over 17, the group that creates the vast majority of our high 1,000 experiences, wish to construct for older customers to allow them to specific themselves extra freely.

Roblox In every single place

For years, individuals joined Roblox from a variety of gadgets together with cell (iOS and Android), desktop, and gaming consoles. 

Making Roblox obtainable in every single place and on each platform is an enormous focus for us so we will be the place our customers wish to be a part of us. This 12 months, we expanded that vary by bringing Roblox to Meta Quest (totally obtainable in Q3 23) and PlayStation (This fall 23). Thousands and thousands extra individuals can now entry our platform, which opens up much more alternatives for builders to create and immediately share their experiences. They’ll now simply publish and distribute present experiences to those common international platforms or create distinctive, new experiences for VR or console.

Roblox Across the World

Our customers come from all corners of the globe, and this 12 months, we launched 4 new languages to raised assist individuals on Roblox in 180 nations. We additionally made vital progress in markets like Japan, the place we grew DAUs 66 % year-over-year** in Q3 2023. And we’re studying from these efforts. Once we develop Roblox in a brand new market, we’re systematic about ensuring the customers there’ll instantly have an awesome expertise, so we zero in on search and discovery, pure language translation high quality, and the efficiency of our infrastructure. As we take into consideration becoming a member of new markets, we concentrate on:

• Automated AI-powered language translation.
• Guaranteeing efficiency and stability on lower-end gadgets.
• Content material and our developer neighborhood in the brand new market.
• International fee optimizations.
• Platform security and civility.

This playbook has been profitable in Japan and India, and it’s guiding our work in different nations. For instance, Bookings in Germany grew 75 % year-over-year** in Q3 2023. We’re additionally excited concerning the huge alternatives we’re seeing in main markets like Brazil and India.

A Vibrant Economic system

The Roblox financial system is designed to mannequin and mirror real-world dynamics. We constructed it to supply seamless participation for anybody, serve our neighborhood, and make it potential for any creator to begin and develop a enterprise. From the start of October 2022 via the top of September 2023, creators earned $701 million in developer alternate charges on Roblox. Some methods we enhanced our financial system this 12 months embrace:

• Limiteds (Q2 23): We started letting creators in our UGC Program determine how scarce they need their objects to be by selecting what number of to supply. We’re additionally making it potential for them to revenue from each resale of their objects. Actually, a number one digital music model, Monstercat, not too long ago teamed up with neighborhood creator @WhoseTrade on six single-edition necklaces. Every bought inside minutes, together with the Ruby Pendant, which bought for about $10,000. And Lamborghini teamed up with @Yourius to create a Golden Bullhead Restricted, which bought its three copies instantly for 1.5 million Robux every. And I’m proud to say that almost all resold objects are promoting for greater than what they value initially.
• Avatar Bodies and Heads (Q3 23): As talked about above, UGC Program members can now create and promote full avatar our bodies and standalone heads in Market or inside experiences. We’re excited to supply this extra means for builders to create and earn, particularly as a result of we consider it’ll drive extra self-expression throughout Roblox.
• Subscriptions (This fall 23): Builders can now create subscriptions inside their experiences and set up ongoing relationships with their customers, whereas probably making their earnings extra predictable. This additionally means individuals will be capable of depend on a gradual movement of recent content material that’s related to them.

Monetization and Promoting

For years, Roblox has been a robust monetization engine, however with promoting and, in the longer term, real-world commerce, we’re unlocking substantial potential monetary progress. Right this moment, solely about 20 % of engagement hours on Roblox are generated by month-to-month distinctive payers. However the potential for promoting, attributable to our massive and rising Gen Z viewers, and ultimately, real-world commerce, highlights new alternatives for creators, together with manufacturers, to broaden the methods they will earn.

This comes as we’ve made it simpler for manufacturers and builders alike to earn from their experiences by displaying adverts in them. And we’re decreasing the barrier to entry for those who wish to show adverts with instruments like:

• Immersive Ads (Q1 23): Eligible builders can earn Robux by having adverts positioned in their experiences. Advertisers should purchase these native adverts and attain their audiences at scale in an modern and fascinating means. 
• Ads Manager (Q2 23): Helps advertisers create and handle their adverts with a self-serve software.
• Testing new formats like video ads (This fall 23), which we consider will improve developer payouts and advertiser worth.

Extra Manufacturers and Industries

We now have at all times aimed to make Roblox extra useful to extra individuals and in 2023, we noticed high manufacturers and expertise partaking and creating deep connections with our neighborhood. Manufacturers like Adidas, NBA, and e.l.f. Cosmetics all created unbelievable experiences on the platform, artists like Nicki Minaj and Olivia Rodrigo (This fall 23) launched immersive procuring experiences, and Karlie Kloss (Q1 23) and Paris Hilton (Q3 2024) launched their fashion-forward experiences with new avatars. Every of those used our highly effective creation instruments to construct neighborhood areas for connection and self-expression.

We additionally wish to scale model innovation and allow a self-serve, international promoting ecosystem on the platform, so we launched the Roblox Partner Program (Q2 23). The Program is concentrated on partaking a broad community of platform advocates—from Roblox developer studios to early adopters amongst businesses and third-party sellers—in international training and greatest follow sharing for manufacturers. 

This 12 months, we’ve additionally seen expanded and fascinating experiences in industries like style, music, auto, and journey, work/recruiting, and training.

• Vogue was big on Roblox in 2023, with the strains persevering with to blur between type in the bodily world and on our platform. For instance, college students on the Parsons School of Design created and bought couture items on Roblox (Q2 23) with bodily variations of them later displayed at RDC (Q3 23). Gucci additionally launched their fourth expertise on the platform, Gucci Ancora (Q3 23) which transported customers nearly to Milan to discover and work together on the intersection of style and artwork.
• Music fandom, together with Ok-Pop, is rapidly rising, particularly with the arrival of iconic teams like Twice (Q1 23) and BlackPink (Q3 23) to the platform.
• And training continues to catch the attention of us. We took some huge steps ahead this 12 months with the Roblox Group Fund, together with launching this system’s first set of academic experiences (Q3 23). Amongst them is Robot Champions (This fall 23) from FIRST Robotics and Filament Video games, which presents college students an open-ended house to design, construct, and management robots. 

In Closing

Behind all of the work everybody at Roblox and in our neighborhood did this 12 months is the infrastructure that permits us to scale quickly and effectively, empowering our builders to create with ease and our customers to have probably the most dependable expertise potential. 

We’re additionally persevering with to speculate in the technical prowess that can underpin our ongoing progress and success. Specifically, we’ll proceed to speculate in AI. We now have entry to distinctive knowledge and insights that can enable us to leverage AI to profit our neighborhood and platform, together with: 

• To speed up creation by anybody.
• To make our moderation programs quicker, extra correct, and extra environment friendly.
• And to analysis new ways in which AI may make our lives simpler and higher.

That is each our short- and long-term future. Trying again at 2023, I’m so pleased with all of the work our complete crew did to make Roblox such a robust platform, and I couldn’t be extra optimistic about what’s coming subsequent.

---