Emerging developers on Roblox are gaming’s rising stars | The DeanBeat

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Amid the sea of bad news about layoffs and too many games coming out in the game industry, there are some bright spots.

And making games on the Roblox platform is one of them. Some of them are the millionaire entrepreneurs of a new generation.

These developers often grew up on Roblox, playing games on it for a decade or so before they started making games. And now there are people like Anne Shoemaker, who at the ripe age of 23 is CEO of her own Roblox studio Fullflower Studio, which has made games such as Mermaid Life, with more than 87.7 million visits, or plays on Roblox. Shoemaker has around 30 contractors, and she’s an example of the developers who are part of a growth market.

And while Roblox may have started in the realm of user-generated content, much of its most popular content is being made by professional developers — albeit many of them young — with growing companies. These companies have been hiring, as they’re riding big trends. Roblox itself reported in November that it had 70.2 million daily active users, up 20% from a year ago.

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Those people played on Roblox for 16 billion, up 20%, and their average spending was $11.96 in the quarter. That propelled Roblox’s quarterly bookings to $839.5 million, up 20% year-over-year. My guess is the numbers will grow as Roblox adds platforms such as virtual reality and Sony’s PlayStation.

These creators’ fortunes don’t always ride on Roblox alone. Others are making a