Every once in a while, the Roblox numbers are released and we are reminded of their enormity. It's no secret that the platform is huge among the younger demographic, but when I wrote about the numbers this past February, they were so large that only a comparison with Canada made sense (opens in new tab). no wonder the CEO has $234 million in his pocket over the next five years (opens in new tab (opens in new tab).

Roblox, a publicly traded company, regularly releases metrics and just did so for September. The game's daily active user count reached 57.8 million, a staggering 23% increase over the previous year. Such numbers are not often published for other games, but this is the same for Minecraft (140 million monthly users), Fortnite (which peaks at 10-15 million every time a major live event is held), and the League of Legends easily exceeds the entire franchise (180 million monthly users, as of October 2021).

This is a complete beermat calculation and should not be quoted, but based on this figure and a 30-day month, Roblox has 1.734 billion users, which is about 400 million when all other games are combined.

These are the official numbers from Roblox Corporation, "4 billion hours engaged, up 16% from the previous year." 4 billion man hours per month at this location.

The report elaborates on the financials, with estimated revenues for the month ranging between $212 million and $219 million. This is about the same as last year's figures, so while the numbers are up, the average spend is down slightly (for this month, anyway); Roblox Corporation attributes this in part to the strong dollar against the euro, British pound, etc.

A final interesting metric is what Roblox Corporation calls "paid user life expectancy estimates." This number is "calculated based on historical monthly retention data for each paying cohort to predict future participation in the Roblox platform." Based on this, the company previously stated 28 months, which has now been revised to 25 months.

Is Roblox the World's Biggest Game? Perhaps the most interesting element of Roblox is how it fits into a future called the Metaverse. While other games may seem (quite) fancy and more obvious candidates, Roblox has the overwhelming numbers to succeed. While the others may seem (quite) fancy and more obvious contenders, this game has the overwhelming numbers to succeed; Roblox still has problems (it seems like every couple of months there is a new report (open in new tab) about a scammer targeting children, and sometimes worse ( open in new tab)), but it has a user base that outstrips its competitors and is quietly dominating its own corner of the digital world while Zuckerberg tinkers with his legs (open in new tab).