Roblox creators have been successful for years in genres like lifesim (roleplay), battlegrounds, and platformers, while others, like horror, are showing extremely high growth.
That’s one of the insights that Tian Lim, vice president of product, creator and engine at Roblox, talked about in a blog post about genres that are emerging on Roblox, the game platform with 77.7 million daily active users. Roblox shared these details exclusively with GamesBeat.
Data on user interest shows there’s a real opportunity for creators to address latent demand and benefit from growth in Roblox categories like open world action, social co-opetition, driving and racing, and arcade sports, Lim said in the post. If you’re one of Roblox’s emerging stars, or want to be one, you might want to pay attention.
“Our research also identified ways creators can boost their experiences’ success such as localizing them for a geographic region or building sports games that cater to specific teams,” Lim said.
When people talk about roleplaying games on Roblox, they mean something different from what the broader games industry considers an “RPG.”
“What we call ‘roleplaying/lifesim’ is a genre unique to Roblox that emerged as a result of our long-term investment in real-time co-experience and real-world simulations,” Lim said.
Coupled with the community’s creativity, this has led to highly-social and emergent gameplay genres on the platform. Examples like Welcome to Bloxburg, Work at a Pizza Place, and Adopt Me! exemplify this.
“Now, we want to help our creators flourish by identifying the next set of genres we believe will blossom on Roblox. And that’s why we’re sharing the results of research we did recently that shines a light on the genres we think are ripe for innovation,” Lim said.
Roblox creators have always helped innovate and shape the genres the platform is most known for, such as roleplay, battlegrounds, and horror.
Examples include the Roblox classic Brookhaven, with more than 50 billion visits, team-based competition BedWars, with more than 9 billion visits, and breakout hit Doors, which garnered more than 5 billion visits in just over two years. They are among the most popular roleplay, battleground, or horror games, respectively, on any platform.
“Innovation is in our DNA, and that’s why we recently did some research to identify growth opportunities and what the next successful genres of Roblox experiences could be,” Lim said. “We studied what both our 77.7 million daily active users and those new to our platform searched for, and in doing so, spotted exciting, untapped areas of demand.”
Open world action
Picture players in immersive worlds navigating freely and rapidly around a city’s skyscrapers to complete in-game missions. Roblox users searched for terms associated with this genre 14 million times in Q1 2024.
“This suggests there’s a great opportunity for creators to cater to Roblox users drawn to games like Apocalypse Rising 2 that feature parkour in open environments (an evolution of obbies with more radical traversal or jumping mechanics),” Lim said. “They also often include questing, combat, or shooting in expansive spaces.”
Many hit off-platform open world action titles are single-player or have limited multiplayer options, but Roblox is different: it’s an inherently social platform, Lim said.
“Our users want games like these where they can explore, connect, and play with friends in real-time,” Lim said.
Sports on Roblox
Everyone knows that there’s sports fans everywhere, and for them what’s more fun than hitting 3-pointers or taking on friends in heated games of soccer or American football? On Roblox, they can face off with friends across the globe and on their favorite device.
“We offer something for diverse tastes—both realistic simulations and arcade versions with simplified gameplay,” Lim said.
Examples include Super League Soccer, Ultimate Football, NBA Playgrounds, and Basketball Legends.
During Q1 2024, Roblox users conducted 13.5 million sports-related searches, and it discovered plenty of unmet demand for soccer, American football, and basketball experiences. And that was in addition to substantial interest Roblox found for volleyball, pool/billiards, boxing, gymnastics, and often, localized experiences.
People in Brazil, for example, indicated high interest for experiences set in that country, especially those that let them dive into worlds tied to their local sports teams or competitions. One great example is Copa Roblox, which enthusiastic creators, influencers, players and commentators use to come together to enact broadcast-style soccer matches on Roblox, Lim said.
Driving simulation and racing
In this category, players jump into cars, motorcycles, planes, and buses for exciting driving, riding, or even flying simulations.
These can be player-versus-player or feature larger group racing. Some great Roblox examples are Emergency Response: Liberty County, Vehicle Legends, and Driving Empire. Globally, we saw nearly 12.5 million related searches in Q1 2024, Lim said.
“Our research showed players want much more of this genre, especially those who are racing, stunts, and driving tricks enthusiasts. At the same time, we saw that extremely local content, like Japanese train simulators and train stations, which blend simulation with role play/lifesim, generate a lot of demand,” Lim said.
Social co-opetition
This is a fast-growing cluster of genres and experiences that typically feature working with others to solve or create something.
Visitors often get to vote on others’ designs or creations—like in Salon Makeover or Fashion Klossette. Or, they might have the chance to partner on a game show or problem solving task like in Outlaster or Eviction Notice.
There’s already lots of great experiences in this category, and users want more. They showed that by searching 7.5 million times for related keywords such as bingo, board game, or fashion in Q1 2024.
How Roblox identifies high-demand genres
At Roblox, Lim said the lifeblood is matching users with content they’ll love and creators with their audience.
“An important way for us to do this is to highlight the genres that have the most promise. And to do that, we studied the searches that took our users to great experiences, while others uncovered genres with unmet need,” Lim said. “Based on our analysis, we identified four areas offering creators lots of new opportunity.”
This includes:
Hidden demand on the platform: People are already searching for specific types of experiences and they want more of that genre.
Off-platform genre interests: Games similar to those that are successful on other platforms could be big hits on Roblox, and we help creators identify those opportunities.
Genres that are on Roblox and already growing: Users are already excited about genres like horror, fighting/battlegrounds, and roleplay, which have sustained growth. Roblox is demonstrating there’s significant upside for creators from users eager for more.
Things happening in popular culture: Roblox users are hungry for experiences based on pop culture moments driving global conversations like memes from TV shows, sporting events, or holidays.
Three research-based tips for finding an audience
As Roblox analyzed the genres it believes have the greatest growth potential, the team spotted several levers creators can pull when thinking about building an audience for what to create next:
Grow community
The more Roblox users who love a creator’s experiences, the more they’ll invite their friends. So creators can grow and connect with their communities on Roblox with tools like Guilded and new community-building features recently added to Groups like Announcements and the ability to highlight Marketplace items.
Creators can also build excitement around their experiences by encouraging users to make and share content based on what they do when they visit.
Consistently iterate and involve the community
Lim said Roblox is proud that almost every top experience on Roblox started small, and grew over time by listening to its users, monitoring analytics, and iterating constantly.
“This is a core superpower of Roblox—our users are extremely passionate and vocal, and creators can easily give their community what they want by releasing global updates to all devices quickly. That’s unlike many other platforms, where getting iterations approved can often take days or weeks,” Lim said.
There are many other ways to engage community. For example, Twin Atlas invites fans of Creatures of Sonaria to submit artwork that might be featured on its social media pages.
Identify ways to make experiences stream- and meme-worthy
Roblox content is huge on major social video platforms. That’s because people love short, emotionally-engaging clips and streamable gameplay moments. These can quickly become memes and generate buzz.
Examples include funny physics that lead to humorous interactions, jump scares in horror games, or intense powers or abilities that can be unleashed in action RPGs. Creators can also work with influencers to stream gameplay sessions from their experiences.
For more best practices for game mechanics and other tips on getting started, check out the following resources:
Everything you need to create, scale and monetize
Create on Roblox documentation
Designing experiences on Roblox
“Throughout our history, what’s made Roblox unique is the compelling range of experiences where users can connect, create, play, learn, shop, explore, and more,” Lim said. “This has always been driven by our community of creators who constantly surprise us with their inventiveness. And we always want to empower our creators to make amazing content. It’s essential to our vision of connecting a billion people with optimism, civility, and safety.”
Lim added, “We’re excited to see the innovations from our community based on the research we’re sharing today. And we’re considering ongoing recurring insights based on the feedback we get that creators can leverage to make amazing things.”