Gamers Spent 16.7 Billion Hours on Roblox in Just 3 Months. Here's What Roblox Is and Why Your Kids Won't Stop Playing It

An online crippled that immerses players successful worlds they and different players create conscionable deed a grounds number of users — and an all-time precocious of hours played.

Roblox announced its financial results for January done March of this twelvemonth connected Thursday and reported that it accrued its regular progressive personification count to 77.7 million, which is 17% higher than it was astatine nan aforesaid clip past year.

The number of hours players spent actively playing nan crippled besides increased, by 15%, to 16.7 cardinal hours complete those 3 months.
Roblox sign-up page. Photo Credit: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Roblox besides reported an mean of 15.6 cardinal unsocial paying customers per month, up 13%, and noted that each customer paid adjacent to $20, aliases $19.68 exactly, a 6% increase.

Still, nan institution says it is "hard astatine work" to get maturation moreover higher, back to 20% year-over-year from past quarter.

Related: A Teen Turned His Roblox Side Hustle Into a Multimillion-Dollar Company — Now He's Working With Karlie Kloss and Elton John

"We began experimenting pinch changes successful our AI-driven find algorithm and nan positioning of various contented types connected nan Homepage," Roblox laminitis and CEO David Baszucki stated. "We reintroduced platform-wide events for illustration The Hunt: First Edition. And, we continued to amended nan value and capacity of our app and experiences."

Roblox banal was down 23% aft nan net announcement, nan worst driblet successful complete 2 years.

Related: What My Kids' Roblox Addiction Taught Me About nan Metaverse

Roblox has seen tremendous maturation since its commencement successful 2006, but what is nan level precisely for personification who has ne'er played? And why is it truthful popular?

What Is Roblox?

Roblox is simply a free 3D gaming level that allows users to play games created by different users aliases make their ain pinch friends. They tin besides talk to their friends done chat while playing a game.

Popular roleplaying games connected Roblox see Brookhaven RP, which takes spot successful a city, and Royale High, a school-themed game.

Roblox went public successful 2021.

What Is Robux?

Robux is nan integer rate utilized successful Roblox. Though nan crippled is free, players tin bargain Robux to upgrade their avatars, unlock typical features, and entree definite games.

Players tin bargain Robux from nan Roblox website aliases done a gift card.

$0.99 equals 80 Robux.

Why Is Roblox So Popular?

Roblox was first released successful September 2006, making nan crippled older than astir of its personification base. As of December, 58% of Roblox players were nether 16 years old, pinch 1 successful 5 users nether 9 years old.

The crippled had 13.5 million users arsenic of 2012.

The emergence of YouTube and crippled streaming catapulted Roblox to nan mainstream successful 2017 arsenic YouTubers and streamers recorded themselves playing nan crippled to ample audiences.

The pandemic whitethorn person furthered Roblox's reach, particularly pinch younger audiences.

An early Roblox game trailer from November 2006 shows really acold nan crippled has travel successful 17 years.

How Does Roblox Plan To Keep Growing?

The majority of Roblox users are kids aliases teenagers, but nan institution is moving to broaden its personification base, per CNN.

Wall Street analysts told nan publication that Roblox needs to show caller sources of gross growth.