Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift

UPDATE 5/4/24: Roblox has provided Eurogamer a lengthy statement setting forth its views on the platform, its monetisation, and the ages of those who receive revenue through it.

Regarding the comment to Eurogamer by Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza that it had "hired some teenagers that had millions of players on the platform", Roblox has now said it wants to make clear the company does not hire minors. Roblox's full response follows:

"The Roblox platform serves a broad community of creators. People of all ages and backgrounds start creating on Roblox for many different reasons - to learn to code, to share their creations with friends, or simply for the joy of building. For many, using Roblox to build a game or virtual experience or virtual item is a form of creative expression. Much like other forms of creative expression, such as learning to play a musical instrument, or filming and uploading your own videos to the internet, for many it is a hobby, for others it may eventually turn into a career.

"Our developer and creator community includes individuals with a wide spectrum of professional capabilities and team sizes, ranging from young students and independent hobbyists, all the way to full-time studios. Roblox is also an educational tool and education has been part of the company's DNA since day one. Today, educators around the world harness the platform to create immersive learning experiences that inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. We are proud of the positive difference that building on Roblox, with free tools available to all, has made in the lives of many in our developer community.

"A recent survey into the reasons the creator community builds on Roblox found that the primary motivator for most creators is not monetary gain. In a survey conducted by Roblox and completed by more than 6500 Roblox creators in Q4 2023, when asked about what motivates them to develop experiences on Roblox, having fun ranked 4x higher than monetisation. For the subset of the creator community who wish to pursue monetisation, Roblox offers a unique value proposition.

"As a user generated platform (UGC), the economics on Roblox are different from other gaming platforms. Roblox levels the playing field for developers by offering frictionless infrastructure, global distribution and development technologies at low upfront cost to developers. For instance, unlike other platforms where developers incur expenses for app store fees, payment processing, storage, hosting, infrastructure, moderation and safety features - this is all covered by Roblox. You can learn more about the economic value proposition for developers and earning on Roblox, and the percentage breakdown of the Roblox share, here.

"As our platform has scaled, our monetising developers and creators have enjoyed meaningful earnings expansion over time through the Roblox Developer Exchange (DevEx) program, which is the means by which creators monetize their games and experiences. You can see how our DevEx has increased over the years in our supplemental materials, page 11. In 2023, we delivered more than $741m to the creator community through the DevEx program. We are always looking for more ways for developers to earn on the platform (read Our Vision for Roblox Economy).

"For the experiences that monetise, the majority are created by developers who are aged 18 or older. Of the creators who are enrolled in the Roblox Developer Exchange (DevEx) program, the overwhelming majority are over the age of 18. The average age for top earning and/or engaging developers is around 25 years old. In 2023, more than 90 percent of the top 1000 experiences by hours engaged in were owned by developers who were at least 18 years old. You can read more about how we support creators here."

ORIGINAL STORY 4/4/24: Roblox remains a gigantic phenomenon, boasting monthly player numbers of over 200 million - close to double the entirety of Steam - and a pattern of growth that defies the recent struggles of the wider games industry.

It also remains controversial, as exemplified by People Make Games' accusation in 2021 that Roblox is "exploiting" young developers on the platform, with many of those developers under the age of 18.

The accusation then involved the system of paying developers a fraction of their in-game earnings via Roblox's in-game currency, Robux, and Roblox also selling those Robux at much higher price than it buys them. This largely remains the same today, with 1000 Robux currently cashing out at $3.50, while buying 1000 Robux costs the equivalent of around $12.50.

At the time, Roblox issued a statement to Eurogamer that spoke in general terms about the growth in the total amount of money earned by its creators, the coding skills they learn, and the various support programs Roblox makes available to them.

In an interview with Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza at GDC in late March, where a new suite of AI-powered creation tools was demoed, I asked about the reputation Roblox has gained and the notion that it was exploitative of young developers, since it takes a cut from work sometimes produced by children.

"I don't know, you can say this for a lot of things, right?" Corazza said. "Like, you can say, 'Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labour,' right? Or, you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income. So, I can be like 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now, with just a laptop, I can create something, make money and then sustain my life.

"There's always the flip side of that, when you go broad and democratised - and in this case, also with a younger audience," he continued. "I mean, our average game developer is in their 20s. But of course, there's people that are teenagers - and we have hired some teenagers that had millions of players on the platform.

"For them, you know, hearing from their experience, they didn't feel like they were exploited! They felt like, 'Oh my god, this was the biggest gift, all of a sudden I could create something, I had millions of users, I made so much money I could retire.' So I focus more on the amount of money that we distribute every year to creators, which is now getting close to like a billion dollars, which is phenomenal."

At this point the PR present during the interview added that "the vast majority of people that are earning money on Roblox are over the age of 18".

"And imagine like, the millions of kids that learn how to code every month," Corazza said. "We have millions of creators in Roblox Studio. They learn Lua scripting," a programming language, "which is pretty close to Python - you can get a job in the tech industry in the future, and be like, 'Hey, I'm a programmer,' right?

"I think that we are really focusing on the learning - the curriculum, if you want - and really bringing people on and empowering them to be professionals."

For more on Roblox, its new features and big push into AI, it's worth reading our full Roblux Studio interview.