Gaming company Roblox allows kids to create their own games
What's the story
Roblox is an online game creation platform that not only allows users to develop their own games but also play games designed by other users. Founded by David Baszucki in 2005, the company has 64 million monthly active users who are mainly kids and teenagers. The California-based company has around 15 million games created across phones, laptops, consoles, and VR devices.
Offering
Teaching coding, promoting education through games
In a new initiative called Roblox Education, the company is teaching kids the fundamentals of developing, publishing, and marketing their own games through coding camps and self-paced creator challenges. Kids can use fun tools to create games based on the recently released movie "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." The initiative also provides teachers with free, step-by-step tutorials regarding teaching coding in classrooms.
Funding
Can Roblox be the next Minecraft?
Roblox is raising $150 million in fresh funding, which will reportedly value it at $2.4 billion. Microsoft paid the same price for Minecraft in 2014. So do investors think Roblox has the potential to be bigger than that? In 2011, Roblox acquired $4 million from ALTOS Ventures and First Round Capital. In 2017, it received $92 million from Index Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners.
Information
Kicking off international expansion with former Apple exec
In May, Roblox hired former Apple executive Chris Misner to head the company's international expansion. Under him, Roblox is making its portfolio of games available in Spanish and will start supporting more languages later this year. The company already offers English games in 40 countries.
Monetization
Games are free, but feature in-app purchases
Roblox makes money from in-game purchases, where players can use a virtual currency called Robux in different parts of the arena. Developers can also create games within a game, which allows them to make more money and opens up more business opportunities for Roblox. There is also a subscription model that lets users access Roblox's full suite of developer tools for a monthly/yearly fee.