Roblox
Roblox Studio boss encourages kids to earn money on the platform
In an interview, Stefano Corazza, head of the Roblox studio, believes that Roblox developers benefit from having a way to make money and learn programming.
Update: We have been contacted by Roblox Corporation, who, through a company spokesperson, have shared their perspective on this issue in an effort to create dialogue.
The Roblox platform serves a broad community of creators
- People of all ages and backgrounds start creating on Roblox for many different reasons - to learn to code, to share their creations with friends, or simply for the joy of building.
- For many, using Roblox to build a game or virtual experience or virtual item is a form of creative expression. Much like other forms of creative expression, such as learning to play a musical instrument, or filming and uploading your own videos to the internet, for many it is a hobby, for others it may eventually turn into a career.
- Our developer and creator community includes individuals with a wide spectrum of professional capabilities and team sizes, ranging from young students and independent hobbyists, all the way to full-time studios.
- Roblox is also an educational tool and education has been part of the company’s DNA since day one. Today, educators around the world harness the platform to create immersive learning experiences that inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking.
- We are proud of the positive difference that building on Roblox, with free tools available to all, has made in the lives of many in our developer community.
A recent survey into the reasons the creator community builds on Roblox found that the primary motivator for most creators is not monetary gain.
- In a survey conducted by Roblox and completed by more than 6,500 Roblox creators in Q4 2023, when asked about what motivates them to develop experiences on Roblox, having fun ranked 4x higher than monetization.
For the subset of the creator community who wish to pursue monetization, Roblox offers a unique value proposition
- As a user generated platform (UGC), the economics on Roblox are different from other gaming platforms. Roblox levels the playing field for developers by offering frictionless infrastructure, global distribution and development technologies at low upfront cost to developers.
- For instance, unlike other platforms where developers incur expenses for app store fees, payment processing, storage, hosting, infrastructure, moderation and safety features - this is all covered by Roblox.
- You can learn more about the economic value proposition for developers and earning on Roblox, and the percentage breakdown of the Roblox share, here.
- As our platform has scaled, our monetizing developers and creators have enjoyed meaningful earnings expansion over time through the Roblox Developer Exchange (DevEx) program, which is the means by which creators monetize their games and experiences. You can see how our DevEx has increased over the years in our supplemental materials, page 11.
- In 2023, we delivered more than $741 million to the creator community through the DevEx program.
- We are always looking for more ways for developers to earn on the platform (read Our Vision for Roblox Economy).
For the experiences that monetize, the majority are created by developers who are aged 18 or older
- Of the creators who are enrolled in the Roblox Developer Exchange (DevEx) program, the overwhelming majority are over the age of 18.
- The average age for top earning and/or engaging developers is around 25 years old.
- In 2023, more than 90% of the top 1,000 experiences by hours engaged in were owned by developers who were at least 18 years old.
After knowing Roblox’s position, what do you think? The original article, below:
Roblox’s success as a content and game creation platform is impressive. Beyond being a place to play impressive creations or recreations of the most popular titles, it is the impact it has had on young people. This has led young fans of the game to investigate and learn programming to create their own games, tools that could be useful in the future if they seek a career in video game creation.
However, it is not all that simple, and there is another controversy around the game, this time on how Roblox exploits young developers to create the same content that has made the platform popular. Faced with this, the company itself has taken a stand.
During an interview Eurogamer conducted with Roblox Studio head, Stefano Corazza, at GDC in late March, the executive ruled out using minors to create content, mentioning that “there’s always the flip side of that, when you go broad and democratized - and in this case, also with a younger audience.”
“You can say, ‘Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labor,’ right? Or, you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income,” mentioned Corazza. " I can be like 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now, with just a laptop, I can create something, make money and then sustain my life.”
“Our average game developer is in their 20s. But of course, there’s people that are teenagers - and we have hired some teenagers that had millions of players on the platform. I focus more on the amount of money that we distribute every year to creators, which is now getting close to like a billion dollars, which is phenomenal.”
The other side of the Robux
While Roblox can also be seen as a tool for its developers to make money, the payment they receive is only a fraction of what they get. The latent problem is that Robux, the in-game currency of Roblox, are sold at a much higher price than they are bought, so converting 1000 Robux is only $3.50, while buying the same amount for in-game use is about $12.50.