February 7, 2025
Ivy Liu.
As Roblox grows, in-game item creators and world builders are making money — and creating a new type of content creator.
In the fourth quarter of 2024 for Roblox, which covered the period between October 31, 2024 and January 5, 2025, the platform’s creators made more money than they ever had before. In Q4, Roblox creators made $280 million in revenue from the sale of in-game goods, a 27 per cent increase over the previous year, according to CEO Dave Baszucki in yesterday’s Roblox quarterly earnings call. Roblox takes a 30% cut of all in game item sales and shares the remaining revenue with a group of Roblox has published figures showing that there are approximately 20,000 creators.
Roblox’s growth in the past quarter is a direct result from the company’s overall growth. Roblox reported a 32 percent increase year-over-year in revenue, to a total $988 million. Bookings also increased by 21 percent, from $1.129 to $1.362 billion. Roblox’s share price has risen despite the company exceeding its own revenue and bookings expectations for the quarter. The company’s earnings were below expectations, as reflected by the fact that the website crashed after the earnings call on February 6. Roblox’s average number of daily active users fell by 7% from Q3 2024 to Q4 2024, to 85.3 millions people.
We are constantly investing in growing our economies to further expand opportunities to creators. From professional studios to individuals content creators, brands and digital clothing designers, we have estimated that there will be nearly 18,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the U.S. alone between 2017 and 2023. Report by Roblox published in August 2024.
Roblox content creators, who the company refers to as “developers”tend to take a different approach to creators of other platforms. Roblox creators, who often have loyal fanbases of hundreds of thousands, are usually faceless. They prefer to be known through their avatars and game creations, rather than through videos or social media posts.
Joe Ferencz is the CEO of Gamefam, a Roblox developer studio. He said, “It’s a very individualistic way for creators to interact with their audience.” “On the one hand, you have Foxzieis the creator of a ‘ Car Dealership Tycoon (19459043), who branded his social media accounts as Foxzie but what they post about is “Car Dealership Tycoon.” On the other hand, someone like Prestonis the creator of ” Roblox creators can have a different approach to creating content, which can affect how they structure their relationship with brands and advertisers. On February 6, for instance, Roblox creator Jonathan “WhoseTrade” Courtney collaborated to launch a virtual “movie shop” on the platform. He designed and sold virtual clothing items in order to promote Lionsgate’s properties such as Twilight.
Although Courtney plans to share the movie store’s launch across his social channels — which boast a combined following in the hundreds of thousands — he is not getting paid for this promotion. Instead, Courtney said that he receives a “very generous” cut of every item sold, although he declined to specify exactly how much. (Lionsgate’s pack of “Twilight” items sells for 2,965 Robux, or roughly $30.)
“A lot of these things are IPs that I’m personally a fan of — there is obviously a big factor to work with a franchise that you enjoyed as a fan, which is a very unique thing to ever do in any field,” he said. “So, there is a lot of creative fulfillment on my end.”
Roblox’s growing revenue share numbers show how users on the platform are putting a new spin on what it means to be a content creator. Like creators elsewhere, Roblox developers build a following by entertaining their fans, then monetize that following by connecting brands with that audience. The difference comes down to Roblox creators’ medium of choice: in-game productions rather than video or livestreamed content.
“Even the most famous individual Roblox creators have a fraction of the fame and influence of the games themselves,” Ferencz said. “These are remarkable people, and we’re privileged to work with so many of them at Gamefam — but they make a game, right? They are not the show; the game is the show.”
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