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Roblox is the biggest game in the world, but is unprofitable

With 380MM MAUs, Roblox probably counts more players than the entire AAA gaming ecosystem, is more played than Disney+ is watched, and is starting to rival smaller social networks in scale. But Roblox has yet to profit. How can it become a business comparable to its operating scale?

In 2024, Unity Technologies will spend “only” $1.1B on R&D, and even the most fantastical (and doubtless egregious) forecasts for Grand Theft Auto VI, anticipated to drop in October 2025, suggest it will cost a billion to develop in total after close to a decade. Roblox’s accounting methodology does mean that some costs (i.e., App Store fees and developer payments) are also deferred, which partly offsets the consequence of delayed revenue recognition. Again, this could be achieved through a direct deal between Nike and Developer A, but Roblox’s own platform offers programmatic placement, better analytics, a greater number of partnering worlds, related tools, etc.

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