Reception and revenue

Roblox has generally received positive reviews. Common Sense Media gave it 4 out of 5 stars, praising the website's variety of games and ability to encourage creativity in children, while finding that the decentralized nature of the platform meant game quality varied, and recommended disabling chat functions for young players to prevent possibly harmful interactions.[71] Patricia E. Vance of the Family Online Safety Institute advised parents to monitor their child's interactions on the platform, but praised the platform for "allow[ing] kids to play, explore, socialize, create and learn in a self-directed way", and granted especial praise to Roblox Studio for its ability to encourage children to experience game development.[72] Trusted Reviews, in its overview of the platform, also praised Roblox Studio, stating that “for anyone seeking to develop their computer science skills, or create projects that will instantly receive feedback from a huge audience, the appeal is obvious”.[73] Craig Hurda, writing in Android Guys, gave a more moderate review, praising the number of games available and finding that the game was entertaining for children, while also finding that the platform's audio was "hit-or-miss" and declaring that it had limited appeal for adult players.[74]

Criticism
Roblox has received widespread criticism for its chat filtration system.[75][76] Although Roblox 's filtration system, Community Sift,[77] censors and removes most inappropriate messages and content, some can still avoid the system. To combat these issues, Roblox has 1,600 people working to remove such content from the platform.[75] Roblox offers privacy settings; parents can limit what people a user can contact, restricting access to private servers, and turning on parental control.[78]

Though sexual content is prohibited on Roblox, the platform has received substantial criticism for the presence of sexually explicit games and imagery within it. This content includes items like virtual sex clubs and nightclubs, with creators of said content largely communicating through third-party platforms which cannot be regulated by Roblox moderators.[79] A 2020 investigation by Fast Company found that sexual content was still prevalent within Roblox, with attempts by moderators to remove it being likened to "whack-a-mole",[80][81] though it was also found that the situation had generally improved in the recent years prior to the report.[80]

Roblox has also been criticised for making it easy for children to spend large sums of money through microtransactions, leading to numerous instances where children have spent large sums of money on the platform without parents knowledge,[82][83] and deleting the accounts of players who file chargebacks or request refunds for Robux payments through their banks, card issuers or other third-party companies.[84]

Games
See also: List of Roblox games

Due to its status as a games platform, Roblox has a variety of popular games. As of May 2020, the most popular games on Roblox had over 10 million monthly active players each. As of August 2020, at least 20 games had been played more than one billion times, and at least 5,000 have been played more than one million times.[85] TechCrunch noted in March of 2021 that Roblox games are largely distinct from established traditions in free-to-play games, finding that successful Roblox games were geared towards immediate satisfaction, and finding that the addition of tutorials significantly decreased player engagement, contrary to established wisdom about free-to-play video games.[86]

Revenue
During the 2017 Roblox Developers Conference, officials said that creators on the game platform, of which there were about 1.7 million as of 2017,[87] collectively earned at least $30 million in 2017.[88] The iOS version of Roblox passed $1 billion of lifetime revenue in November 2019, $1.5 billion in June 2020 and $2 billion in October 2020, making it the iOS app with the second-highest revenue.[89][7] Several individual games on Roblox have accumulated revenues of over $10 million,[90] while developers as a whole on the platform were collectively projected to have earned around $250 million over the course of 2020.[91] It became the third highest-grossing game of 2020, with a revenue of $2.29 billion, below the Tencent titles PUBG and Honor of Kings.[92]

Toy lines
In January 2017, toy fabricator Jazwares partnered with Roblox Corporation to produce toy minifigures based on user-generated content created by developers on the platform.[93] The minifigures have limbs and joints similar to that of Lego minifigures, though they are about twice the size.[94] The minifigures have limbs and accessories that are interchangeable. The sets included a code that was used to redeem virtual items, as well as blind boxes that contained random minifigures.[95][96] In 2019, Roblox Corporation released a new line of toys, branded the "Roblox Desktop" series.[97] On April 13, 2021, Roblox partnered with Hasbro to release Roblox themed Nerf guns and a Roblox themed Monopoly edition.[98]