Profits of the game platform Roblox fell sharply against the background of massive investments. This made fans wonder if the company is working on creating its own metaverse.
The game platform Roblox has recently been making big losses, despite the fact that the number of its users has reached a record high. According to the results of the 2nd quarter, the size of the company’s losses amounted to $176 million, an increase compared to last year’s indicators.
As the company itself explains, “the increase in losses was associated with an increase in expenses for maintaining business growth.” This has given rise to speculation that Roblox may be working on creating a full-fledged metauniverse.
Losses or investments?
The company informed shareholders that it is actively investing in the future. In the current year 2022, Roblox’s property and equipment expenses reached $135 million. For comparison, for the whole of 2021, the same indicator amounted to only $45 million.
As the head of the company’s business development department, Craig Donato, said, Roblox is now investing in employees, building technical capacity, and international data centers.
“We are in the mode of active investment, and this will put some pressure on revenue, but these investments are the right decision on our part. They will pay off in 3-5 years.”
Metaverse Roblox
At the beginning of this year, Donato stated that the company considers the metaverse as a “long-term trend”, but has not yet decided whether it is necessary to enter this market.
Earlier, he also noted that the development of this topic is at the very initial stage. Yes, Roblox is still far from supporting the operational compatibility of metauniverses and the effect of full immersion. According to Donato, the company is still only laying the foundation and taking the first steps on this path.
Meanwhile, the platform has long cooperated with other well-known companies, such as Gucci and Spotify, which create their own virtual worlds for brand fans on the basis of Roblox. So, last year, Nike opened its version of the metauniverse called NIKELAND in Roblox. Here, players can compete in various mini-games and share their experience.
Thus, the whole situation with Roblox looks very “metauniversal”.
Active users of Roblox
It is important to note that, despite the decline in Roblox’s revenue, the daily indicator of the number of active users of the platform (DAU) is growing at a rapid pace. In July, it renewed its historical maximum, reaching 58.5 million users. This is largely due to the activity of children and adolescents who were forced to stay at home during the pandemic and lockdowns around the world.
As Roblox CEO David Bashuki comments, the company continues to expand around the globe, and its goal is to expand the user base in all age categories and countries of the world.
He noted the new functionality aimed at creating highly personalized avatars and launching a voice control system. In his opinion, the latter is an eloquent indication of the prospects for communication and user interaction on such platforms as Roblox. The next step will be the development of systems that increase the realism of the immersion effect.