Baobab Studios, the Emmy Award-winning animation studio led by game and entertainment veterans, has acquired exclusive transmedia rights—including film and television—to a broad slate of the most widely played Roblox titles.
This week, the studio unveiled the first three properties heading to market: Natural Disaster Survival, Barry’s Prison Run, and Deepwoken. I interviewed Maureen Fan, CEO of Baobab, about these
Baobab is actively developing these properties as animated feature-length films and series, working in collaboration with the original creators to expand these worlds for global audiences.
Together, the three titles have generated nearly 10 billion visits. The studio’s slate focuses on games with long-term staying power, active multi-generational communities, and strong foundations for storytelling, prioritizing deep, prolonged engagement over short-term spikes.
“We’re not just looking at scale—we’re looking at what sustains,” said Fan. “Having built our own Roblox games, we sought titles that combine reach with retention, deepen engagement, and clear world-building that can carry powerfully into film and television.”
Baobab Studios is an Emmy Award-winning animation studio that sits at the intersection of tech, gaming, and Hollywood. Fan was previously VP of Games at Zynga, where she oversaw six studios—including the original FarmVille franchise. The Baobab team includes CCO Eric Darnell, director of all four “Madagascar” films ($3.5 billion at the box office), Co-CCO Osnat Shurer, producer of “Moana” (No. 1 streamed movie), and CTO Larry Cutler, who led DreamWorks Animation’s Character Tech.
Darnell, cofounder of Baobab and director of all four Madagascar films, and Osnat Shurer, co-chief creative officer and producer of Moana, said in a statement, “Roblox is one of the most powerful platforms for entertainment, with games reaching audiences at a scale that rivals traditional media. These games have fans who are genuinely invested in these worlds, and that level of engagement is the foundation we’ll build on to welcome new audiences while preserving the passion that already exists.”
Baobab’s approach builds on its hybrid background in both animation and games, with the studio working directly with creators and their audiences to develop adaptations that remain true to the original experience while expanding them for broader audiences.
Natural Disaster Survival
Created by iconic games maker Stickmasterluke (Luke Weber) in 2008, this game is one of the platform’s earliest breakout titles having amassed more than 4.1 billion visits and remains one of the longest-running titles on Roblox.
Known for its replayable, physics-driven survival scenarios, it’s an environmental survivalist game located on an island using the engine’s physics to create chaotic, unscripted moments. Astoundingly, the game has remained in the top 50 of all Roblox experiences for 16 years and successfully courted new generations of fans for over a decade and a half, resulting in billions of visits and an evergreen audience spanning current kids to Millennials and Gen Z players driven by deep nostalgia.
The game is 18 years old — meaning a whole generation of kids have played it.
Stickmasterluke (Luke Weber) said, “For nearly 20 years, Natural Disaster Survival has been part of the Roblox community, so finding the right partner to expand this world was critical. Baobab understands our games because, as one of us, they make Roblox games themselves, and I fully trust them to authentically develop exciting new content for both the fans and new audiences.”
Barry’s Prison Run
Created by PlatinumFalls (Osian Taubman-Edwards), a famous Roblox YouTuber and game creator, this title represents the “Cinematic Obby” genre and in just four years has surpassed 4.1 billion visits. Widely considered a staple of modern Roblox games, the title has over 42 billion minutes of engagement.
Unlike traditional obstacle courses, it utilizes first-person perspectives, scripted events, and boss encounters to provide a narrative-driven experience. A top 50 game of all time and a prominent favorite among YouTubers and streamers that spawned a wave of story-driven platforming imitators.
A core differentiator is its strong comedic engine, driven by an iconic main character and a cast of sidekicks who resonate deeply with younger demographics. Its broad appeal recently led to an official partnership with Lego.
Said PlatinumFalls (Osian Taubman-Edwards), “I’ve always envisioned Barry’s Prison Run as more than a game, with a story and character that unfold more deeply over time. Baobab understands my vision and the game’s storytelling potential, so I’m excited to see where they take it.”
Deepwoken
Developed by Monad Studios and headed by creators Ragoozer and Arch_Mage, Deepwoken is a dark fantasy paid-access action RPG, widely celebrated for having the deepest, most established lore on Roblox.
“The game has a rabid fan base that is so engaged and it’s been around since 2021 too. So that’s been around for a long time and maintains its presence as top monetizing, top engaging game,” Fan said.
Released in December 2021, it has drawn nearly 1.5 billion visits, with over 50 billion minutes of engagement, and is the platform’s most successful paid-access title, boasting unparalleled engagement and monetization levels. Its Gen Z audience has cultivated a robust, highly active fan community that extends far beyond the game itself, driving massive off-platform engagement across YouTube, Reddit, and Discord.
Said co-owners Ragoozer and Arch_Mage, “Deepwoken’s dark and magical setting has left a lasting impact on our fans, letting their imaginations run wild. Baobab have shown they’re passionate about the world we’ve created alongside our community, and we’re thrilled for our fans to see its stories told in a wholly new medium.”
The backstory of moving into IP
Baobab got into the Roblox developer scene about four years ago because it took its Momoguro animated franchise into Roblox gaming.
“We started this because we were doing Momoguro ourselves, as we make Roblox games,” Fan said. “It was people in the Roblox community who actually approached us. This was many years back before Hollywood people realized that Roblox was a thing. These devs actually started approaching us, asking us if we could do for their intellectual property what we do for our own IP, which is to take IP into transmedia.”
Fan’s reaction was, “This is a great business idea. We should totally do this. But I just didn’t want to take just any IP, right? I want to have the ones that we really believed in. So I just applied my Zynga metrics training background to this, having run games as a live service for a long time. So I know what game metrics matter, especially since we needed longevity in the game. Reach is obvious. So every single metric you can think of that underpins reach, retention, engagement and monetization.”
That led the company to the Roblox game developers behind the games listed above.
“A lot of Roblox games peak and then they die. It’s really important to have something that retains for a long time. So we take the metrics in many different points of time. And we also really care about the team. Does the team love that IP? They’re not just people who want to milk that IP for all of its money. They have to really believe in that IP, and then, of course, taking a filter on that makes it a great business proposition and guarantees success for adaptation.”
Fan also looks at what is adaptable. Can a Roblox game become a good movie or TV show? What could be good to take into merchandise? And is there a good story, world and characters? For that, I rely on my creative team to vet and make sure that this is something that they are also excited about.”
How to identify the right franchises
Fan said that many of the best games are run as live services, constant updating in a way that draws players back. She explores if the game has a great core loop that captures everyone.
The Roblox scene is attractive because it’s so dynamic. Creators can strike it rich, and the content can often be made by one or two people. Those firms often don’t turn into large teams, even after great success.
“Like with Squid Game, within a day or two after the show drops, the creators can get a game up, which is so exciting about platforms like Roblox,” Fan said.
But it is getting hard to succeed against the odds of so many large numbers of games. And some games succeed with engagement but don’t succeed with monetization.
“That’s where we come in with our expertise in transmedia and taking IP across every single category, from film to TV to merch. We want to be able to do that for these developers and help turn them into humongous franchises and grow their audience even larger, outside of Roblox as well,” Fan said.
Hollywood recognizes gaming IP and audiences
Games like Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., The Last of Us and Fallout have paved the way for a new generation of film and TV shows based on familiar game franchises. But this is the next step into content that resonates with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Fan said.
It might seem weird for Hollywood to care about Roblox games, but that attitude prevailed until more recently.
“The film industry used to look down a little bit on the games industry, and so there were a lot of bad adaptations in the past, and one of our main competitive advantages is that we come from games. They know that we understand their audience, we understand their IP, and we’ll do right by their IP,” Fan said.
Fan added, “I would like to see this IP everywhere on every single platform ever made. Gen Z forums as well as traditional platforms. But one of the awesome things about these IP is they’re so beloved. Natural Disaster has been around for 18 years. I challenge you to find any Roblox player who has not played natural disaster. That means that there’s also nostalgia built into that IP.”
The advantage of being a Roblox developer at the same time is that the community is small and they all talk to each other. That makes it easier to track the creators down when their content is spiking.
Fan said a lot of IPs are being pitched to Baobab. And the company aims to make the transmedia as quickly as it can, assigning great movie and TV directors, writers and others to make projects great.
While Baobab has competition, Fan said one of the reasons the devs trust it the company is that it is also an indie dev studio focuesd on making Roblox content. And those creative people are focused on making entertainment become a cultural phenomenon, especially content focused on the IP.
“We can create a love letter to their audience and IP in a way a big conglomerate might not be able to,” she said. “One of the reasons they love us is because, when they talk to Eric and Osnot, they see that we have legitimate, super serious people who know how to make beloved worlds. We know that Gen Z likes the content. I’m very excited about the business prospects of this. It’s all about fandom — about working with the fans. So we’re taking this approach where we’re working very closely with the developers, because they know their audience really well, but also with the actual community and the fans.”