Roblox will let developers sell games for real dollars as it expands beyond virtual currency
The New York Stock Exchange welcomes executives and guests of Roblox in celebration of its direct listing, March 10, 2021.
NYSE
Roblox, the popular kid’s gaming platform that generates billions of dollars a year in the virtual world, is getting real.
The company said on Friday that some game developers on the platform will be able to charge users real money rather than relying on payments through Roblox’s digital currency called Robux. The change applies only to so-called Paid Access games, or those that cost money to play.
The new model, announced as part of the company’s annual developer conference in San Jose, California, takes a cue from the traditional video game industry, allowing developers to make money from selling titles, and to raise and lower prices based on market demand. Game creators can now more easily sell to users without dealing with an intermediary virtual currency.
The goal “is to increase the appeal the platform to existing developers” who want more options to create and make money from their games, said Manuel Bronstein, chief product officer of Roblox.
Payouts will be on a sliding scale, with higher-cost games resulting in a greater percentage of revenue to the creator.
For a game that costs $50, the creator will pocket 70% of the earnings. Those that cost $30 and $10 will lead to payouts of 60% and 50%, respectively. Roblox users will be able to pay with their local currencies later this year from their computers, and the company plans to expand payments to other devices in the future.
Although the majority of Roblox games will still be free to play, the company hopes that the new pricing plan “creates an incentive” for developers and small gaming studios who “want to do something more grandiose” on the platform and earn bigger payouts, said Bronstein.
“To participate in the broader gaming market, we need to branch out to all the forms of the gaming market,” Bronstein said.
Roblox derives the bulk of its revenue from sales of Robux, which people typically use to buy virtual goods. Roblox takes a 30% cut from those sales, with the developer getting the rest.
Roblox said in August that second-quarter sales jumped 31% year-over-year to $893.5 million, while its net loss narrowed to $207.2 million from $282.8 million during the previous year.
This isn’t the first time Roblox has experimented with incorporating real-world money. Earlier this year, the company debuted a revamped digital marketplace, now called the Creator Store, where developers can purchase certain features from other creators using actual currency instead of Robux. The company’s Avatar Marketplace for buying digital goods like virtual hats still relies on use of Robux.
Other ways Roblox has been trying to diversify its business are through online ads and by giving more users a bigger menu of options for creating and selling digital goods. The company said it will soon introduce tools intended to help developers better price their digital goods, and will experiment with regional pricing options.
Developers will also eventually be able to sell some physical merchandise to U.S. users over age 13 though a partnership with Shopify. The company said Friday it will begin testing the in-game shopping feature with creators, brands and other unspecified online retailers in the fourth quarter.
Shopify said it plans for a “larger launch” early next year.
Roblox shares were down close to 3% Friday afternoon to $42.56, and are now down about 7% for the year, while the Nasdaq is up 11% in 2024.
The stock has dropped close to 40% since its first day of trading in 2021, when Roblox’s business was booming as kids flocked to the app during the pandemic.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will serve as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence hiring blitz in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. In June, Zuckerberg announced a new organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers.
Zhao’s name was listed among other new hires in the June memo, but Zuckerberg said Friday that Zhao co-founded the lab and “has been our lead scientist from day one.” Zhao will work directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI who is acting as Meta’s chief AI officer.
“Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs including a new scaling paradigm and distinguished himself as a leader in the field,” Zuckerberg wrote in a social media post. “I’m looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision.”
In addition to co-creating ChatGPT, Zhao helped build OpenAI’s GPT-4, mini models, 4.1 and o3, and he previously led synthetic data at OpenAI, according to Zuckerberg’s June memo.
Meta Superintelligence Labs will be where employees work on foundation models such as the open-source Llama family of AI models, products and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects.
The social media company will invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into AI compute infrastructure, Zuckerberg said earlier this month.
“The next few years are going to be very exciting!” Zuckerberg wrote Friday.
WATCH: Meta announces massive ‘Prometheus’ & ‘Hyperion’ data center plans
Technology
Palantir joins list of 20 most valuable U.S. companies, with stock more than doubling in 2025
Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, speaks on a panel titled Power, Purpose, and the New American Century at the Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
Palantir has hit another major milestone in its meteoric stock rise. It’s now one of the 20 most valuable U.S. companies.
The provider of software and data analytics technology to defense agencies saw its stock rise more than 2% on Friday to another record, lifting the company’s market cap to $375 billion, which puts it ahead of Home Depot and Procter & Gamble. The company’s market value was already higher than Bank of America and Coca-Cola.
Palantir has more than doubled in value this year as investors ramp up bets on the company’s artificial intelligence business and closer ties to the U.S. government. Since its founding in 2003 by Peter Thiel, CEO Alex Karp and others, the company has steadily accrued a growing list of customers.
Revenue in Palantir’s U.S. government business increased 45% to $373 million in its most recent quarter, while total sales rose 39% to $884 million. The company next reports results on Aug. 4.
Earlier this year, Palantir soared ahead of Salesforce, IBM and Cisco into the top 10 U.S. tech companies by market cap.
Buying the stock at these levels requires investors to pay hefty multiples. Palantir currently trades for 273 times forward earnings, according to FactSet. The only other company in the top 20 with a triple-digit ratio is Tesla at 175.
With $3.1 billion in total revenue over the past year, Palantir is a fraction the size of the next smallest company by sales among the top 20 by market cap. Mastercard, which is valued at $518 billion, is closest with sales over the past four quarters of roughly $29 billion.
WATCH: Palantir’s Mike Gallagher: Enforcing a ceasefire will require a greater investment of American power
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