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Roblox Is On Track To Pay $30 Million To Children Content Creators

By the end of the year, independent developers among their 56 million players will have earned a chunk of $30 million.

Charles Singletary Jr

July 24, 2017 3:45 PM

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Roblox is a free-to-play game that has evolved into a creative platform that is home to over 29 million games created by their community, which is largely made up of kids of various ages. In a report from Venturebeat, it turns out some of those kids are making enough money to pay for their own college education.

The game works by giving users access to this "imagination platform" where they can make in-game assets from their ideas and sell them to other players for an in-game currency called "Robux". That currency can then be turned into real-life money. Roblox has surpassed 56 million users and that wave of users uses Roblox for over 496 million hours every month so, in the right creative hands, someone could turn Roblox into their personal ATM.

The report confirms that Roblox has paid out $18 million to their 1.7 million creators so far and CEO Dave Baszucki announced they expect to exceed $30 million in payouts by the end of 2017. This is no doubt a great opportunity for kids with a creative inclination, but Vice President of Developer Relations Grace Francisco points out in an interview with Gamesbeat that the company recognizes its "opportunity to change the diversity of the tech industry in a grassroots, bottom-up way".

The game has a growing number of women in its company (40% in the US currently) with the majority of developers aged 13-20. With their evolving internship program, Roblox could certainly turn into a pipeline that influences Silicon Valley for the better. Roblox is available on PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Amazon Devices, Xbox One, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive.

Charles Singletary Jr

News Editor

Charles Singletary Jr keeps the updates flowing as the News Editor, breaking stories while investigating the biggest topics in gaming and technology. He's pretty active on Twitter, so feel free to reach out to him @The_CSJR. Got a hot tip? Email him at Charles.Singletary@Shacknews.com.