2021 365 days in Review — A Letter from Our CEO

2021 365 days in Review — A Letter from Our CEO

It’s been an unparalleled year for our global Roblox neighborhood of customers, builders, and workers. We continued to reach our technology to enable deeper kinds of verbal replace, immersion, and expression per our vision to reimagine the blueprint in which folk arrive together. We listed Roblox on the Fresh York Stock Alternate, and we hosted our first-ever Investor Day. We additionally hold been lucky to assemble our neighborhood of creators, each and every in-person and with regards to, at our annual Roblox Developers Convention.

When Erik Cassel and I started Roblox, we envisioned a brand contemporary class of human co-ride the put folk may perchance well play, learn, and work together in digital worlds. Seventeen years later, Roblox is increasingly more a in level of fact crucial piece of parents’s lives. With tens of tens of millions of day-to-day active customers and billions of month-to-month engagement hours, we’re moving closer in direction of our mission of connecting one billion folk on our platform.

Our creator neighborhood of tens of millions of builders additionally continues to grow and innovate. They’re taking ideal thing about our most up-to-date applied sciences to provide more immersive experiences, pushing boundaries beyond what even we imagined. Having a peek forward to 2022 and beyond, we thought to continue to provide technology to empower this neighborhood.

The Future of Verbal replace on Roblox

As we continue to provide technology that may perchance well recreate how the actual world appears and feels on Roblox, we’re making key technological advancements to simulate how the actual world sounds. All of this allows richer, more sensible experiences. One instance now in restricted start is Spatial Relate, our proximity-based fully mumble chat blueprint that allows folk at some level of the identical ride to talk about as naturally as they would in person. The closer you is seemingly to be to somebody, the louder their mumble; the further you transfer away, the quieter they obtain. Our vision is a seamless and genuine recreation of the actual world dynamic the put that you can approach a friend at a celebration and talk about with them, then later stroll as a lot as somebody else and begin a undeniable dialog. We imagine Spatial Relate will enhance present experiences as nicely as enable contemporary kinds of experiences on Roblox the put folk can pick even more naturally in a 3D space.

As we amplify the recommendations folk can talk about on Roblox, civility and security live our high precedence. We launched an Age Verification blueprint to serve us learn and iterate as we fabricate age-appropriate facets, and we already hold tens of millions of age-verified accounts. As Roblox continues to grow and evolve, we’re committed to discovering out, adapting, and expanding the ability of our instruments to foster civil and guarded communities.

Empowering Our Creator Neighborhood

Our design is to provide the infrastructure and technology the biggest for builders to construct the becoming digital experiences within the sphere. On the present time, any developer can push files to the Roblox Cloud the utilization of our API key-based fully authentication and authorization blueprint, enhancing workflow efficiency. We additionally upgraded our engine to enable bodily based fully rendering and improved visible constancy to serve builders reach contemporary audiences. And we’ve expanded our machine translation technology, doing away with crucial boundaries between builders and our increasingly more global neighborhood.

Also in 2021, we gave builders early access to technology to construct layered dresses alternatives and facial animations for avatars. These contemporary instruments will finally enable folk to negate their identity in further recommendations than ever earlier than. Developers are already exploring their doable for even greater inventive expression. And we’re opening more kinds of person-generated dispute material to more creators. I’m taking a peek forward to seeing the combinatorial explosion these contemporary facets can hold all the blueprint in which through our platform.

With each and every of these technological improvements, the creators in our neighborhood are quickly to answer and innovate. To illustrate, Dragon Blade, an launch-world roleplaying ride, uses skinned meshes and procedurally generated terrain heightmaps to construct a fantastically immersive world. We hold additionally viewed a sequence of experiences sorting out the percentages of what’s likely with Spatial Relate. Seeing our neighborhood adopt these applied sciences helps us dream gigantic—and focal level on what to provide next.

Expanding Digital Alternatives for Manufacturers and Musicians

Manufacturers and musicians are embracing the ability to connect and work at the side of their communities and followers in 3D immersive shared experiences. In 2021, we welcomed brands from all the blueprint in which in the course of the worlds of trend, sports, and entertainment, at the side of Gucci, Nike, and Vans, who took their first steps into digital experiences with Roblox. Similarly, artists equivalent to KSI, Tai Verdes, Twenty One Pilots, and Zara Larsson introduced their performances and music straight to followers in immersive, interactive experiences.

All urged, these save of brands and musicians saw more than a million hours of engagement and tens of millions of bucks in virtual merchandise gross sales in the course of the length of their campaigns. Witnessing the recommendations these partners work to fulfill customers with distinctive experiences, creativity, and innovation has been impossible to explore, and I do know all of us peek forward to seeing what they’ll herald 2022.

Appealing the Next Technology of Creators

We’ve constantly believed within the ability of Roblox as a instructing instrument. On the present time, students from more than 70 international locations are discovering out technical talents the utilization of Roblox Studio. To boot to, discovering out on Roblox has turn into more accessible now than ever. Our Learn & Explore form attracts more than seven million company a month, and our contemporary School room Mode plugin helps builders provide educators with instruments to regulate their classes in Roblox experiences. We additionally launched the Roblox Neighborhood Fund, a $10 million fund supporting the reach of excessive-tremendous tutorial dispute material on the platform beginning with our preliminary grantees FIRST, Challenge Lead The Design, and The Museum of Science, Boston, working with developer studios Filament Games and Funomena.

Evolving the Roblox Team

Our many leaps forward in 2021, fancy in any year, save now not hold been likely with out Roblox’s workers. We added a total bunch of proficient workers to our team and saw contemporary leaders join our ranks at the side of Chief Product Officer Manuel Bronstein and Chief Scientist Morgan McGuire. We additionally welcomed, by strategy of acquisition, the teams at Guilded, Sway, and Bash Video.

Each and every day, I feel lucky to be surrounded by folk that piece our values of “Appreciate the Neighborhood,” “Intention shut the Prolonged Look,” “Intention shut Responsibility,” and “Get Stuff Done.” Nowhere was once this more evident than in our response to the danger we confronted all around the outage in tiresome October. Our complete team labored all the blueprint in which in the course of the clock to restore provider, treating one yet another with civility, kindness, and respect every step of the blueprint in which. It was once a testomony to our team’s resilience and how we can all arrive together in a obvious blueprint to learn, grow, and place huge things. Our engineering team shared a rotund prognosis of the outage and our learnings in a weblog submit.

Having a peek Forward to 2022

Our society is within the midst of a technological shift that can change the blueprint in which we live, work, and talk about. Roblox is in a particular save to innovate as the traces between our bodily and digital lives continue to blur. So, as we enter this contemporary year, we can continue to provide contemporary applied sciences to serve folk connect with regards to in a trusty and civil blueprint. And we can continue to empower creators all the blueprint in which in the course of the sphere, offering them with the instruments they must produce the experiences they’ve constantly dreamed of.

I’d fancy to thank each person—our workers, our board, and our neighborhood—for your enhance and all you attain to save deal of these many achievements likely. We hold valuable to peek forward to.

I wish you a joyful, healthy, and tremendous contemporary year.

David Baszucki, a.ok.a. Builderman

Founder and CEO, Roblox

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