Roblox, which experienced a sharp increase in use as a result of the coronavirus lockdown, now has over 150 million monthly active users, up from 115 million in February. Now, the company has announced that its developers will earn over $250 million in 2020, up from $110 million in 2019.
Last weekend, the company held its annual Roblox Developer Conference (RDC) where it disclosed that 345,000 developers would benefit from its earnings less than 12 months after the user-generated content catalog program began. The huge increase in developer earnings is due to the platform’s expanding game catalog, new development tools, international expansions, and the company’s growing consumer base.
During the first part of the year, Adopt Me!, in which players raise and dress pets, decorate their home, and play with friends, reached 1.615 million concurrent users and over 10 billion visits. In addition, Piggy, a survival horror game launched in January 2020, now has over 5 billion plays.
Aside from its rising number of active users, Roblox has managed to increase developer earnings by introducing Premium Payouts, which pays creators based on the game engagement time of premium subscribers. The system, which debuted in the spring, has allowed developers to earn $2 million in June alone.
At the RDC, Roblox announced plans to expand developer tools and platform updates. The expansion will provide new collaboration tools for larger development teams, enabling developers to permit team members and contractors to work only on certain parts of a game. It will also introduce a talent marketplace to assist developers in finding game development staff and resources.
In addition, Roblox will also provide automatic machine translation for all supported languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Spanish, allowing developers to engage international users with translated versions of their games.
This summer Roblox will launch Developer Events, a new service that helps developers find local partners. The events will be held virtually at first, though Roblox expects to transition to in-person events when the pandemic has passed.
“The accomplishments of our developer community have eclipsed even our loftiest expectations; I am incredibly impressed by the unique and creative experiences being introduced on the Roblox platform,” said David Baszucki, founder and CEO, Roblox. “Our focus is to give developers the tools and resources they need to pursue their vision and create larger, more complex, more realistic experiences and collectively build the Metaverse.”
Source: TechCrunch