In very simple terms, Roblox is an MMO based exclusively around user generated contents (games, items, assets...), including its own virtual currency, microtransactions, marketplaces and convertibility to/from real money. Roblox as a company takes pretty hefty cut from all transactions.

There has been a silent shift in the gaming market over a long time now. Roblox is one aspect of it. Another is the absolutely massive amount of money raked in by some free to play mobile phone titles. For example, Playrix has a revenue comparable to Ubisoft, but their main products are a series of match-3 type games for phones.

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globular-toast 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

In even simpler terms it's the current "shut the kids up" tax that parents pay.

	▲	mothballed 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's not to shut the kids up, it's to shut them in so that all the Karens that rat your ass out the minute your kid is spotted outside on their own won't be able to kick off an investigation based on a phone call that it's illegal for you to even see the complainant of in the report. Society basically expects you to hide your kids if you can't watch them every second, the externality society imposes on parents is the costs of boarding them up inside.

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ikr678 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hasnt this 'casual' games market always existed? Once upon a time Zynga/Candycrush was a behemoth on the back of facebook embedded games.

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gmueckl 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Back then, the market was much, much smaller than it is today if I'm doing the math correctly. Zynga reached an early peak in the early 2010s, but multiple companies, including Zynga (at least pre-acquisition) reach bigger revenue numbers today.

	▲	bombcar 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's so large now that most of that famous "Apple Services Revenue" is just their 30% cut of mobile game payments.