Roblox and the Market for Virtual Experiences

Digi­tal enter­ta­in­ment moves away from one-time events and games towards susta­ina­ble expe­rien­ces in which people can par­ti­ci­pa­te toge­ther. The­se types of vir­tu­al eco­sys­tems sup­port the­ir own eco­no­mies with the exchan­ge of vir­tu­al cur­ren­cy, digi­tal items, and user-gene­ra­ted con­tent. Howe­ver, despi­te the­ir gro­wing impor­tan­ce, they rema­in lar­ge­ly unstu­died, espe­cial­ly from a quan­ti­ta­ti­ve side. 

To unco­ver what dri­ves the­se eco­no­mies, we focus on one such vir­tu­al eco­sys­tem – Roblox – which cur­ren­tly boasts more than 200 mil­lion uni­que users mon­th­ly. Roblox is an onli­ne plat­form that allows any­one to play over 24 mil­lion user-gene­ra­ted games (cal­led expe­rien­ces) and con­tri­bu­te with the­ir own con­tent. In this stu­dy, we aim to inve­sti­ga­te what deter­mi­nes the suc­cess­ful­ness and susta­ina­bi­li­ty of vir­tu­al expe­rien­ces. We have col­lec­ted daily records on more than a mil­lion uni­que expe­rien­ces from the Roblox API, with an addi­tio­nal web-scra­ped data col­lec­tion on a sub­sam­ple of new­ly cre­ated ones using. 

In line with cur­rent deba­tes in the digi­tal enter­ta­in­ment indu­stries, we find that to reta­in play­ers the expe­rien­ces need to evo­lve, but also to allow for social inte­rac­tion. More­over, the newer expe­rien­ces seem to bene­fit from inte­ro­pe­ra­bi­li­ty (i.e. allo­wing to car­ry «gear» from one expe­rien­ce to ano­ther) and pro­vi­ding incen­ti­ves in the form of spe­cial «bad­ges» to the­ir par­ti­ci­pants. Final­ly, we pro­vi­de addi­tio­nal insi­ght on how the vir­tu­al expe­rien­ces are mone­ti­zed and what dri­ves the con­tent cre­ation in the­se kinds of eco­no­mies. We con­si­der this stu­dy as one of the ear­ly looks at the gro­wing vir­tu­al eco­no­my and the­se kinds of ecosystems.