The free-to-download virtual gaming world, which is available on PC, Xbox and mobile, made its market debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday and its share price quickly soared. According to CNBC, the company’s stock closed at $69.50, giving Roblox a market cap of $38.26bn. To put that into context, EA’s current market cap is $37.43bn, Take-Two’s is $18.98bn, and Ubisoft’s is $8.16bn. “We are deeply humbled by the overwhelming support for @Roblox and our public offering today,” CEO and founder David Baszucki tweeted. “To all those who helped us get one step closer to fulfilling our vision of the #Metaverse-thank you. #RobloxIPO.” Roblox lets players develop multiplayer-focused games within its platform and even make money from them. Some Roblox developers make thousands off the back of the game’s 200 million monthly active users. 56 per cent of those users are under 13. Like the wider gaming industry, Roblox benefited from lockdowns that boosted usage by 40 per cent. Over the last year, daily user numbers shot up by 85 per cent, with monthly users up 75 per cent. Last year, Roblox made $923.9m (a jump of 82 per cent) off the back of more players spending more money on Robux, the virtual currency. But its loss increased to $253.3m from $71m in 2019. In 2020 Roblox paid out a total of $328.7m to developers, an almost 200 per cent increase on 2019. More than 1250 developers made at least $10,000 last year via Roblox’s revenue sharing program (developers get 70 per cent of the Robux spent on their games). There are 300 developers making more than $100,000 annually on the platform. The expectation is Roblox’s growth will slow this year as lockdowns lift and kids return to school, but revenue is still expected to climb between 56 per cent and 64 per cent (to between $1.44bn and $1.52bn).
