Roblox will give a handful of game developers $500,000 each to build its future

techcrunch.com:

Roblox is announcing a wave of new funding for developers building the cutting edge of games on the platform. The company first introduced the Game Fund, a Roblox-flavored version of a creator fund, last summer and it initially launched with $25 million earmarked for up-and-coming games. Now, Roblox will toss $10 million more toward a handful of select projects that it believes symbolize what the platform is all about.

That amount of money is a tiny drop in the bucket for a company worth around $25 billion, but the investment hints at the kind of experiences Roblox will point to when it wants to showcase what its community and developer tools make possible. And while there aren’t many of these developer grants awarded, each project gets a minimum of $500,000 — enough to fund some sophisticated experiences on a platform best known for its blocky, simplistic graphics. Some hit Roblox games are created by individual users, but many are made by proper game studios crafting polished experiences and the big per project budget is meant to reflect that.

The company characterizes its cohort of Game Fund experiences as the future of Roblox itself and selects specifically for developers who are pushing the envelope of what’s technically possible on the platform. That means hand picking game makers with “a track record of success,” Roblox Head of Community Expansion Jad Boniface told TechCrunch. Some Game Fund recipients are building their first Roblox game, though in those cases they’re already known for creating games on other platforms.

“Designing and building a high-fidelity experience with new technology, well-known IP and rich storylines is time-intensive and requires larger teams, so Game Fund is there to give participating