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It is an empire built on the sale of virtual boots and hats and considering that almost half of its users are aged 13 or under, the creativity and labour of children.įrom the moment she joined the project in 2016, until 2018, when the game reached the heights of its popularity, Anna saw herself as a partner in the venture, where her skills proved invaluable. Viewed by some as a blueprint for the next generation of virtual economies where users can trade artificially scarce digital assets, Roblox has now surpassed industry titans such as Activision Blizzard and Nintendo to become the most valuable video game company in the world.

When Roblox floated on the stock market in March last year, it was valued at $41bn. According to the firm’s latest figures, an average of 49.4 million users logged on to Roblox each day in November 2021. Buoyed by the Covid-19 pandemic, by the end of 2021 more than 27m games and experiences had been published on Roblox, many by children inspired by success stories such as Anna’s (5% of Roblox players publish something of their own, the company says). More than half of all US children now have a Roblox account, an astonishing statistic for a company that hardly advertises. View image in fullscreen David Baszucki, founder and chief executive of Roblox. Roblox took a 30% cut from the sale of each pair of virtual sunglasses or sports car the rest went to the original creator and seller. These items, the digital equivalent of doll’s clothes, could be bought using Robux, the platform’s digital currency, which the company currently sells at a rate of about 80 to the pound (the exchange rate varies depending on the amount bought in a transaction). Earn Serious Cash.” The company encouraged users to create and sell costumes and accessories for Roblox avatars. On its website, it adopted the slogan: “Make Anything. Roblox began to advertise itself as a way for young game-makers to make money. Initially, there was little incentive or encouragement for children to make money from their games – a feature fraught with potential legal complexities. Best of all, one’s customised avatar could be used in any game on the platform – as if Super Mario could also moonlight as the hero in FIFA Football, Call of Duty or Pac-Man, a feature that made thousands of disparate games feel like part of the same universe.

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But children loved the fact Roblox offered access to an endless stream of new and free experiences – a kind of YouTube for video games. The roughly hewn, blocky aesthetics and ugly text that typified most user-made games on the platform were offputting to adults. Co-designed by two engineers, David Baszucki and the late Erik Cassel, who had become millionaires in the 1990s by designing and selling physics-simulation software, Roblox was built as a playful method of teaching children the rudiments of game-making. Anna cancelled her plans to go to college.Īfter it launched in 2006 Roblox was, for a while, a relatively obscure piece of educational software. She calculated that she was on course to earn $300,000 in a year, a salary equivalent to that of a highly experienced Google programmer. At 16 her monthly income somehow exceeded her parents’ combined salaries. For Anna, success had an unfathomable, life-changing impact. Within a few months, the game had become one of the most played on Roblox. She did not sign up to make money, but during a Skype call the game-makers offered the teenager 10% of any profits the game made in the future. Flattered by their interest, Anna became the fifth member of the nascent team, contributing art, design and programming to the game. When she wasn’t at school Anna was rarely off her computer.Īs she became more proficient, Anna’s work caught the attention of some experienced users on Roblox, game-makers in their 20s who messaged her with a proposition to collaborate on a more ambitious project.

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Using Roblox’s in-built tools – child-friendly versions of professional software – Anna began to learn the rudiments of music composition, computer programming and 3D modelling. There was one alluring difference: Roblox hosted Anna’s tiny world online, enabling children she had never met and who maybe lived thousands of miles away from her home in Utah to visit and play.

She used Roblox much like a child from a previous generation might have used cardboard boxes, marker pens and stuffed toys to build a castle or a spaceship and fill it with characters and story. Anna* was 10 when she built her first video game on Roblox, a digital platform where young people can make, share and play games together.