Roblox could be about to get more expensive for some players, following the announcement of planned subscription models by the Roblox team.
In a long blog post by vice president of economy Enrico D’Angelo, Roblox announced plans for creators to be able to introduce subscription models for access to their content.
“As we look ahead, we’re building the tools for developers to create subscriptions within their experience,” says D’Angelo. “This will help them to establish a recurring economic relationship with their users and potentially increase the predictability of their earnings. It will also help ensure our users have a steady flow of content that’s relevant to them. This is just one of our steps towards offering a broad suite of ways creators can earn.”
Roblox is free to download, and the experiences within it are typically free to enter. Players spend in-game currency Robux on characters and cosmetic items for those characters, or to buy items within games, such as virtual pets or cars. That in-game currency is bought with real money.
The planned subscriptions could be used to leverage the popularity of the platform’s top creators to paywall all their content, not just add-ons. This could also mean enthusiastic Roblox players end up with a handful of subscriptions, each of which will cost actual money.
At present, Roblox offers a Premium subscription, which costs £4.99 a month and provides 450 Robux. In-game items can range from as low as 10 Robux to 1,000 or more, and these items are made by the game’s creator community.
Roblox also wants to extend its micro-transaction reach into the real world.
“Further out, we see the ability to purchase real-world goods within an experience. Creators, including businesses and brands of all sizes, already want a place on Roblox, and when these and other features are launched, we expect even more will want the same.”
Roblox stats
According to Statista, Roblox pays these creators around 24.5 per cent of the revenue generated by their creations. The company’s blog claims revenue share of 29 per cent, but this is if the split is calculated in Robux, rather than actual pounds or dollars. Revenue splits also vary based on the kind of content sold.
Roblox says it attracts 66 million players a day, while in May 2023, the company announced roughly 45 per cent of its users were under 13 years old.
Roblox made £1.7 billion in revenue in 2022 according to Pocketgamer.biz, while Roblox claims creators were paid just £496 million in 2022, per the company’s blog.
Earlier this year rival, Epic Games announced it would share 40 per cent of generated revenue with creators as part of its Creator Economy 2.0 programme.
This coincided with the launch of the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), which lets players create bespoke experiences within Fortnite. UEFN is based on Unreal Engine 5, the game engine being used to create many of the biggest upcoming titles including The Witcher 4.
