Roblox now played by over half of US kids

When thinking about games popular with a younger audience, most of you might immediately jump to Fortnite - but another behemoth exists in the form of Roblox, an online game creation platform that only seems to be getting bigger. It's grown so much, in fact, that most kids in America are seemingly playing it.

According to figures shared by Roblox with The Verge, we now know that over half of US kids and teens under the age of 16 play Roblox. That's up from the figure reported by Bloomberg in April, in which Roblox claimed a third of Americans under 16 played Roblox. It's a pretty staggering amount, and Roblox is continuing to cater to this audience with the introduction of Party Place: an area for kids to host their own virtual birthday parties and events. Kind of useful while we're all in the midst of a pandemic.

As opposed to Fortnite's Party Royale mode, which lets players run around an island to complete activities or attend events organised by Epic, Roblox's Party Place lets players host their own events. It's currently playable in beta form for free, and has so far been visited 55.8k times. It was previously used by Roblox to broadcast the One World: Together At Home virtual concert, in which players could watch the event on a screen.

Last month, intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimated that Roblox has now surpassed $1.5 billion (£1.18 billion) in player spending.