Roblox’s growth comes with growing pains between creators and ad sales

Here’s a rundown of the biggest announcements at this year’s Roblox Developers Conference — and how they signal both successes and growing pains for the metaverse platform as it continues to scale.

The key numbers

• Roblox currently has 111.8 million daily active users, per company figures released over the weekend, with users spending an average of 2.5 hours on the platform per day. That’s a 41 percent increase year-over-year from the 79.5 million DAU figure shared by Roblox at last year’s conference. “What we are seeing is a very clear direction in which gaming is increasingly becoming consumed by Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences on platforms like ours,” Roblox vp of ads and commerce products Louqman Parampath told Digiday.
• 60 percent of all Roblox users are now over 13 years old, according to the company.
• Over the past year, Roblox paid out over $1 billion to creators on the platform, with Roblox svp of engine and creator engineering Nick Tornow claiming the company is “on track to pay well more than that in 2025” during a press briefing last week. Top 10 creators on Roblox earn $38.5 million per year; top 100 creators on the platform earn roughly $7 million per year; and top 1,000 creators earn approximately $1 million per year, according to numbers shared by Tornow. 

A programmatic push

Roblox has not been coy about its goal of building a robust ad business, and Parampath was quick to connect the platform’s climbing numbers to the opportunity for brands. The Roblox executive said that the proportion of ads that had been purchased programmatically on Roblox “definitely has been increasing,” but declined to share specific numbers, citing the early nature of the platform’s programmatic offerings.

Roblox has never publicly disclosed its overall ad revenue, but an April Morgan Stanley report predicted that the company’s ad revenue would reach $1.2 billion by 2026. During the opening keynote of this year’s RDC, Parampath announced that “Brookhaven,” one of Roblox’s most popular experiences, was generating “five figures” in ad revenue per month.

“What we are trying to do is offer much more standard, liquid formats that they can buy, whether it is billboards or video or UGC-based formats,” Parampath said. “We’re trying to scale them up and support it in such a way where they can buy directly from a sales team and through the programmatic channels where they buy such formats like video, and then offer the kind of targeting and measurement that they use so they can see the incremental value of moving their budget over to Roblox, versus other platforms.”

The growth of Roblox’s targeted ad business isn’t welcome news for everyone. News of its plans to expand its programmatic ad products has sparked ire among both individual Roblox creators and the platform’s creator studios, who view Roblox’s advertising push as potential competition with their custom maps and brand integrations.

“Programmatic video is an important piece of the digital media mix, but brands can buy that anywhere — YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and beyond,” said Joe Ferencz, the CEO of the Roblox creator studio Gamefam. “What makes Roblox unique is the ability for brands to show up authentically inside the most popular games, creating premium, fully-custom experiences that meet players where they hang out with friends.”

Roblox creators’ wary reaction to the platform’s programmatic expansion highlights the company’s challenge in balancing platform-run targeted ads with creator-led game integrations — the Roblox equivalent to sponsored videos on YouTube. On YouTube, brands regularly engage in both branded content deals and programmatic ad buys, with few marketers viewing the two formats as being in direct competition. Creators are optimistic that the friction between their integrations and Roblox’s ad products will subside as more ad dollars flow onto the platform.

As Roblox grows its ads business, brands may be tempted to ditch custom activations in favor of standard paid ads, said the Roblox creator Junozy. But doing so risks losing the authenticity of the platform and the chance to engage broader audiences, he stressed. “UGC collaborations, game integrations, and licensing have proven themselves to be great successes for a number of brands on Roblox who have been able to leverage community creators to make their brands feel more authentic,” said Junozy. “Sticking with only ads loses this core element and will put other brands, who are sticking to authentic methods, way ahead.”

RobTok? TikBlok?

One of the splashiest announcements of the weekend was Roblox’s rollout of its own TikTok clone. The beta version of Moments, the platform’s homegrown short-form video feed, launched on Friday, allowing users to capture short-form videos and share them on an algorithmic feed without leaving the platform. The product comes with built-in editing tools, as well as the ability for users to teleport into the experiences shown on video. Currently, Roblox is not serving ads in its Moments feed.

“Direct monetization features aren’t really part of this initial launch; we’re fundamentally designing moments to drive engagement and discoverability for experiences,” said Roblox vp of product, user and discovery Rajiv Bhatia during the briefing. “We really want to support creator success on the platform. Looking ahead there, we’re excited about future expansion of Moments to include additional content types and new opportunities for monetization and brand integrations, but nothing for now.”

Roblox’s Moments feed is not the first short-form video feed to appear on the platform. “Clip It,” a third-party Roblox experience that similarly recreates many features from TikTok, has been a popular game on the platform since last year, and has already done integrations with advertisers such as the musician Sia. The success of “Clip It” over the past year set the stage for Roblox to develop its own short-form video product in-house. 

“TikTok and [YouTube] Shorts are one of the main ways players find new games on Roblox,” said the Roblox creator Chrollo. “I think it’s a good idea for Roblox to have a built-in version like Moments. I will definitely use it or at least try to, since I already promote my games using TikTok.”

Safety updates

Roblox announced a suite of safety and moderation updates at this year’s RDC. Notably, the platform will require users to verify their age to use any communication features by the end of 2025, with Roblox blocking any communication between adults and minors who don’t know each other in real life. Roblox also updated its maturity ratings, banning sexual content and blocking any unrated experiences unless creators assign them a rating. 

In recent years, critics of Roblox have increasingly focused on the platform’s perceived child safety issues, ranging from a November 2024 report by short-sellers Hindenburg Research listing anecdotal child safety risks on the platform to a 270,000-signature Change.org petition demanding the resignation of Roblox CEO David Baszucki. Since July, the law firm Dolman Law Group has filed six lawsuits in courts in Georgia, California and Texas claiming damages due to perceived child safety issues on Roblox. Roblox has repeatedly rebutted the claims made in the reports, pointing to its pre-existing rules against child exploitation and its ongoing efforts to beef up its safety and moderation practices, including the announcements made at this year’s developers conference.

“Even if age verification is added, kids will still use their parents to verify for them or get accounts that are already verified,” Chrollo said. “I don’t really think this change will do much, but I also am not sure of what Roblox could really do to fix safety as a whole, since it’s a very complicated problem.” 

Despite some skepticism, creators welcomed Roblox’s safety updates, seeing the lawsuits as a potential brand safety issue that may have prevented some brands from engaging with creators on the platform. 

“As it stands, Roblox is deeply associated with poor moderation and child-safety concerns,” said Empyror, another Roblox creator. “They will have to get rid of that in some way in order to truly attract brands once again.”

More money for creators

For creators, perhaps the most exciting announcement of RDC was an 8.5 percent increase in the exchange rate of Roblox’s developer exchange program, which allows the platform’s creators to trade in their hard-earned Robux for real-life currency.

“100,000 Robux earned Friday or later, which would normally equal approximately $350 U.S. dollars when converted to cash, will now equal $380,” Tornow said during last week’s press briefing. 

The increased developer exchange rate is particularly impactful for Roblox creators who focus on designing custom items and avatars, as they often receive a substantially lower revenue share on their creations than creators making games and experiences, per Junozy. 

“I am shocked that they’re doing this,” Chrollo said. “It’s a big win for developers.”