At the end of 2022, Roblox had 59 million daily users, after a year that saw music embrace the platform, with many notable activations and performances from Spotify, The Grammys, and numerous superstar artists. It was still seen as a very youthful platform, but according to data in a new Fast Company article, this is changing.
Roblox is now “reaching older players and welcoming brands; the 17-to-24 age group, up 33% YoY, is Roblox’s fastest growing,” the article says, with “55% of its users” now older than 13. The toy-like look and feel of the game is changing too, with more human-like avatars and more detailed world-like environments: this too is in response to the needs of a slightly older user demographic.
Presumably the increasing age of users is also reflected in the number of brands piling into Roblox, and offering virtual things for sale. H&M and Gucci sell versions of real-world clothing, and conveniently, the new human-like avatars can now layer these clothes, so they can wear more branded virtual items at once. Those brands are presumably very interested in Roblox’s newly launched limited-edition item functionality too.
So: is Roblox *the* metaverse at the moment? Perhaps: its ease of use, accessibility, cross-platform availability, the store – and the fact that experiences can be easily built, with users being comfortable if these experiences are a little rough-and-ready – means that it’s at the very least in a strong position as the metaverse continues to expand into the public consciousness.
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