Roblox, a glimpse at the future!

Hey all, hope everyone is well. Soo, Roblox, the game that kids just cannot get off, some may even call it this generation's Minecraft! Yes, an incredibly successful game, props to the founders, but what I am really interested on is how Roblox will influence and shape future behaviors of the next generation of employees, students and customers.

The numbers behind the Hype

Roblox is a multiplayer game, mainly aimed at young kids, with over 50 million different user-generated worlds. The game is available in multiple devices such as PC, Smartphones, Tablets, Consoles and recently added into Quest VR headsets. The game itself can be comparable to Minecraft, where users can easily create their own worlds where they can meet their friends or play with random players.

The numbers from Q2 2023 are interesting and does justify the hype:
* 65.5 million daily active users
* 214.10 million Monthly Active Users
* Users from 180+ Nations
* 43.96% of users are under the age of 13
* Roblox community developers earned $348.2 million in H1 2023

Players create some amazing experiences, for example, a community of players created a Roblox world where they simulated virtual Ryanair flights, they have recently reached 1 million flights in their game! Players check in, drop off their luggage, enter security, wait for their gate and board the flight. This is an UNNOFICIAL experience, has no links to Ryanair... Now, what if this was actually created by the flight company, that marketing intern with the idea would have gotten a promotion or two!

Virtual identity phenomenon

According to a report by Backlinko, Roblox users spend an average of 156 minutes (2.6 hours) per day on the platform. That is quite a considerable amount of time. Why do are kids spending so much time in these virtual worlds and experiences?

For this heavily digitalised generation, there is no difference between 'real world' and virtual experiences. They cherish the 'Virtual' memories, interactions and relationships on the same level as whatever happens in 'real life'. Their avatar, or what we can call 'Virtual Identity', is simply an extension of themselves, where they can be whoever they want.

Influencing the future

When observing the the incredible numbers coming out of Roblox and the Virtual Identity phenomenon, I see some trends that should signal to organisations that some of their experiences and products will have to go through change in order to please the next generation of users. There are two areas that I think should be of focus to organisation.

Customisation - Why is communication and interaction through avatars being adopted in many platforms? What is the need to have 50 Million different user-generated worlds on Roblox?
I think it's simple, the next generation of users want to be able to freely express themselves, either by creating an unique avatar with limited edition skins or they want to create their own little worlds that represents their ideals.
I see this as a huge opportunity for a combined play between the clothing and NFT industry, where owning a limited token will allow you to redeem an unique piece of clothing, and to go further into that, there could be collaboration between those brands with social platforms, where owning the NFT would also give you a new skin for your avatar. Creating tremendous utility for that token, which is a great value driver. Additionally, combining this with VR/MR, will allow users to create custom furniture, clothing and art in real time, whilst getting a realistic preview of what it looks in real life.

Virtual experiences - Organisations will need to duplicate their 'real life' experiences into Virtual versions of it. For example, car dealerships will have the opportunity to showcase and sell cars in virtual environments. I don't think this would work with the current generation of buyers, as we still like to 'see the thing', but the next generation of buyers will probably be completely comfortable with it, infact I believe there are already some user-generated car dealership role-playing servers on Roblox. These experiences will become even more realistic with advancements in VR & AR, spatial mapping and Cloud Streaming.

In conclusion, we can look at Roblox to get a glimpse of the future, I would recommend all brands and organisations to do this exercise and see how it may impact their future. This will not be an immediate shift, as those users still have to grow up to become decision maker customers, but running initial POCs now, will allow you to get a head start and collect valuable data.

See you next week,
Davi, MetaVisions