roblox.com

Roblox is a platform for online gaming and a tool for game development created by the Roblox Corporation that enables users to create games and play those made by others. The platform, developed by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and made public in 2006, offers user-made games of various genres that were Lua-programmed. Roblox was a relatively modest firm and platform for the majority of its existence. The second half of the 2010s saw the start of Roblox's rapid expansion, which has been sped further by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roblox is a free-to-play game with in-game purchases available via a virtual currency known as Robux. Roblox had approximately 164 million monthly active users as of August 2020, including more than half of all American children under the age of 16. Although Roblox has garnered generally excellent reviews from critics, it has experienced criticism for its moderation and microtransactions, as well as suspicions of child exploitation.

By using its own engine, Roblox Studio, Roblox allows users to make their own games that can be played by other users. The company's term for games, "experiences," is a derivation of the Lua language called Luau. Users have the ability to produce content that can be purchased once, through "game passes," and several times, through "developer products," or "products," which are microtransactions. A total of 20 million games are created each year using Roblox Studio, the bulk of which are created by children.

Roblox users have been recognized for their anti-racism actions, with many frequent users, including co-founder Baszucki, expressing support for the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter. An investigation by NBC News in August 2019 identified over 100 accounts related to far-right and neo-Nazi organizations. Roblox moderators deactivated the accounts after being notified by NBC about them.