Roblox is ready to grow up

theverge.com:

Roblox rode a wave of pandemic-era growth to a seven-fold value increase, an exploding user base, and a wildly popular Lil Nas X concert with tens of millions of attendees. That success largely all came thanks to Roblox’s core user base of young and highly engaged players.

Now, those kids are getting older, and Roblox is trying to grow up, too. The all-ages, user-generated gaming platform is announcing plans today to add age guidelines to its games and significantly expand its advertising business as it works to court an older demographic, expand its revenue streams, and still support the needs of its millions of young players.

The changes are a major step in how Roblox thinks of its users and how the company approaches advertising. Roblox — and the millions of people creating games for the platform — will soon have a new way to make money and the opportunity to target a slightly older demographic. Roblox’s ability to become a billion-person platform with thousands of creators supporting themselves on it will depend on whether it can translate these new features into growth and profit.

“When we got started out, the majority of the people on our platform were under 13. We’ve crossed a huge threshold now where the majority are over 13,” Roblox CEO David Baszucki told The Verge. “We’re very optimistic that long term, this type of technology is going to support people all around the world and in a wide range of ways of connecting and being together.”

Up until this point, Roblox has perhaps been mostly known for its popularity with children — at one point, the company said over half of US kids under 16 played Roblox. Now, as its user base gets a little older, Roblox is looking for ways to keep them coming back and give