- Video-game platform Roblox is set to go public today through a direct listing.
- Alex Hicks, 24, owns game development studio RedManta, which creates games for Roblox.
- After earning $100,000 in one month from one of his games while he was an intern, he left college.
If you have a kid under the age of 16, then you’ve probably heard of Roblox. The online game creation platform that launched 14 years ago has recently become a daily fixture in households with tweens since the pandemic started last March, as kids (and their parents) search for activities to stay engaged and learning from home.
Roblox was already on the rise pre-pandemic, as the gaming site – which allows players and content creators to create unique digital experiences for free for a global community – surpassed its competitor Minecraft’s number of monthly active users by hitting the 100 million player count in August 2019.
New York Times reporter Kellen Browning wrote in August that around 75% of American kids ages nine to 12 now play Roblox. And at the Roblox Developer Conference in July (which went virtual last year), David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox Corporation, announced that the creative platform currently attracts 150 million active users a month. The company is set to go public today, with an estimated valuation of $30 billion.
