Roblox has announced two new programs, dubbed Jumpstart and Incubator Program, to help creators break through to larger audiences on the platform.
The aim is to create the next generation of iconic games on Roblox, said Vlad Loktev, chief creator ecosystem officer at Roblox, in an exclusive message to GamesBeat. Applications are kicking off in time for the GDC Festival of Gaming this week.
Roblox’s audience is growing rapidly — it’s now at 144 million daily active users in the December 31 quarter. In fact, Roblox is now the singular driver of total video gaming growth in the non-China part of the game market, according to Matthew Ball of Epyllion. Roblox’s quarterly engagement is now as large as that of Steam, PlayStation and Fortnite combined.
To keep that growth going, Roblox is focusing on these two new programs to support these creators as they build the next generation of games.
The Roblox Incubator program will help experienced development teams turn promising concepts into commercially successful games.
The Roblox Jumpstart program will help creators who are new to Roblox, or are exploring new types of games, publish on Roblox Studio.
Loktev said Roblox will continue to scout for early-stage and in-development games on the platform and proactively partner with creators to bring new ideas to life on Roblox.
“We’re amazed by the imagination creators bring to Roblox,” Loktev said. “They invent entirely new genres, use the tools we provide in ways we never imagined, and come up with more ways for players to have fun together.”
He added, “As we look to the future of the platform, we want to help everyone push the boundaries of what’s possible, with support and technological innovation.”
The two new programs are designed to help both early-stage and experienced developers create and market hit games, he said.
The audience on Roblox today is not the audience of ten or even five years ago and the makeup of our audience continues to evolve, he added.
Of the daily active users who have completed an age-check, 27% are over the age of 18, as of January 31, 2026. In the U.S., Roblox estimated that the number of users in the 18-34 age group is growing at over 50% year-over-year, based on 2025 data.
With these shifting demographics comes an opportunity to create experiences that appeal to this expanding cohort of older players, with different tastes and motivations.
“We’re excited to help creators find success with games that expand into new genres and have a different look and feel than classic Roblox games, Loktev said.
A big effort for Roblox
Roblox has had a number of past developer programs that were point in time or a set budget (ie the Roblox Game Fund was a $35 million program).
“We’re constantly evolving our programs to fit creators’ needs as their work changes, and launching Jumpstart and Incubator in these new formats is one way we’re doing this — a fresh format building on past programs and community evolutions,” Loktev said. “We’ve done a lot of work focusing on figuring out what our players are looking for, and we put these programs together purposefully to drive the creation of that.”
Rather than invest money for equity stakes or give grants, Loktev said, “At this point, our focus is on helping creators build and scale their games, offering guidance and promotional support, but we are also planning to explore additional incentives in the near future.”
Loktev told GamesBeat, “This effort extends across the business, and is really permeating so much of what we do. It’s one of our biggest programs. On a program level, we have Jumpstart and Incubator to facilitate the creation of novel games — a new wave of games that push the boundaries of genre, gameplay, and visual style to meet the demands of Roblox’s rapidly expanding audience.”
He added, “On a product level, we have updates to our Discovery system — both from a curation perspective and an algorithmic perspective as we optimize to better recognize high-quality games. In the past year, we’ve rolled out a number of technologies to enable boundary-pushing development. Instance Streaming, Texture Streaming, Server Authority, and SLIM, our scalable asset compositing technology, give developers the power to realize high-fidelity worlds across platforms and devices.”
He said global infrastructure immediately scales to support tens of millions of concurrents without burdening developers with the cost and complexity of global operation.
“We track performance with analytics including acquisition, playtime, retention, and monetization. Our Experiments tool helps creators A/B test ideas and analyze the results. And at the heart of the Roblox ecosystem is Roblox Studio, a professional IDE that enables teams to collaborate in a shared environment. We continue to upgrade Studio creation technologies to better support creation of boundary-pushing games, and have much more planned throughout the year,” Loktev said.
With the inaugural classes for Jumpstart and Incubator, the hope is that it continues to scale over time. The 18+ demographic represents a significant growth driver. As of our Q4 earnings, in the U.S., the 18-34 cohort is growing at over 50% and monetizes 40% higher.
“Incubator, Jumpstart, and our broader novel games strategy are targeted at this rapidly growing demographic of users over 18, and we’re prioritizing enabling the creation of high-fidelity novel games across popular genres to serve an increasingly diverse, older, and high-value audience,” Loktev said.
Roblox Incubator: Scaling for success
Incubator is a six-month, milestone-driven program designed to help experienced teams refine promising concepts of novel games into polished, scalable, commercially successful games.
By novel, the company mean games with genres, gameplay mechanics, and visual styles that expand what’s possible on Roblox. Each Incubator cohort will include up to 40 teams, who will work toward milestones that unlock resources and tailored support.
All program participants will gain access to Roblox subject matter experts who’ll provide mentorship and support. In addition, Roblox will help developers build an audience for your games.
Who qualifies: Experienced small teams who have a strong prototype of a game (or plan to build one) and are ready to dedicate a significant effort to development during the program. Find more information about selection criteria and apply for the 2026 cohort today.
Roblox Jumpstart: Kickstarting the journey
Jumpstart is a continuous program designed to help creators who are new to Roblox learn the platform, and help experienced creators explore novel games. Applications for the Jumpstart program open today and will stay open on a rolling basis, ensuring that e Robloxan support great ideas whenever they strike. Pitches for new games will kick off in person at this year’s Game Developers Conference and continue on a rolling basis.
Similar to the Incubator, all Jumpstart participants will gain access to Roblox subject matter experts and assistance with on- and off-platform user acquisition programs.
Who qualifies: Small teams who are exploring what’s possible on Roblox and working toward releasing their first novel game on the platform. Find more information about selection criteria and apply today.
Supporting novel games beyond Incubator and Jumpstart
Roblox is also investing in and supporting novel games already on the platform or in development, in addition to the Incubator and Jumpstart programs.
“We have teams dedicated to scouting for promising early-stage games and partnering with creators to refine core loops, improve retention, and optimize monetization design,” Loktev said.
Once these games launch, Roblox amplify their reach through tailored promotion and strategic curation on Roblox. And Roblox will also have co-marketing programs intended to significantly amplify investments our creators make in off-platform user acquisition.
Asked if the focus is on double-A or triple-A games that have not been on the platform before, Loktev said, “We’re calling on ambitious creators with bold ideas to build the next generation of experiences, pushing the boundaries beyond anything that exists on the platform today.”
He added, “Double-A and triple-A-quality games are certainly part of the vision — I’d love to see a hyperrealistic FPS, a complex multiplayer strategy with a sprawling map, and a highly stylized massive open world RPG on the platform personally — but we’re also looking at games that introduce different gameplay mechanics, like stylized 2D or a genre mashup that could only happen on Roblox.”
Loktev is a game developer himself.
He said, “The past few months have shown me the creativity of this community truly knows no bounds. We’re hoping creators can push beyond anything we could imagine and create something truly fresh for the platform.”
As for having talks with triple-A developers, Loktev said, “We’re always building relationships with key players across industries – entertainment, sports, fashion, gaming. Various brands across industries launched over 600 activations as of Q4 2025, generating seven billion visits from players worldwide, so definitely lots of work happening on a 1:1 level as well.”
What Roblox is looking for in novel games
Genre, gameplay, and visual style are common factors in a player’s decision to try a new experience. Entrance into Roblox Incubator and Jumpstart hinge on innovation in these areas.
- Genres: RPG, strategy, and shooter games are heavily underrepresented despite strong demand from older age groups. The company is seeking bold games in these core genres, plus unexpected genre mash-ups and projects that blend traditional mechanics with Roblox’s avatars, social features, and cross-platform support.
- Gameplay: Deep game mechanics, metagame systems, and skillful challenges keep players coming back. Roblox is looking for creators who seamlessly blend depth with Roblox’s intuitive nature, massive multiplayer scale, and emergent social dynamics to craft highly replayable, memorable experiences and moments players can’t find anywhere else.
- Visual style: We’re looking for games that push aesthetic boundaries and make players think “Wait, that’s Roblox?” We’re looking for teams innovating with hyperrealistic 3D assets, stylized 2.5D sprites, high-fidelity avatars, or any other technique that brings their vision to life in ways that are entirely new to Roblox.
The platform powering game creation
Roblox’s creation tools, engine, and infrastructure make it easier than ever to rapidly iterate and release a game to a captive audience. Roblox is investing in platform-level updates to help support creators as they expand Roblox’s game library and venture into uncharted territory. The company developed a comprehensive ecosystem of tools that give creators everything they need to create, scale, and monetize hit games.
World class studio: At the heart of this ecosystem is Roblox Studio, a professional integrated development environment that enables teams to collaborate in a shared environment. Studio is paired with Luau, a powerful and easy-to-learn language, and a built-in, cloud-based version-control system to track changes and prevent any loss of work.
Powerful game engine: Features like Instance Streaming, Texture Streaming, and SLIM, our scalable asset compositing technology, give creators the power to realize high-fidelity worlds across platforms and devices. Capabilities like custom matchmaking and server authority allow for heart-pounding and secure competitive gameplay. Roblox’s global infrastructure scales to support tens of millions of concurrents without burdening creators with the cost and complexity of global operation.
Integrated AI capabilities: Studio boasts a wide set of AI capabilities out of the box, including a built-in MCP client in Assistant, which can generate code, build worlds, and help creators learn and debug. It also operates as an MCP server, meaning any MCP client, including Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex can execute creation flows. Finally, tools in Studio allow generation of 3D and 4D objects, automatic rigging and skinning of avatars to bring them to life, and more.
Creator analytics and tools: Once a game is published, creators can track performance with analytics including acquisition, playtime, retention, and monetization. Roblox’s experiments tool helps creators A/B test ideas and analyze the results to learn whether an onboarding tweak actually improved retention or whether a new mechanic was embraced by the target audience. As changes are made, they can be released across all platforms in seconds.
Intelligent discovery to reach a massive audience: The average Roblox user plays 22 different games per month, per 2025 year-end data. There are more games vying for players’ attention than ever before—which is why the homepage intelligently connects users to the games that will resonate for them. Roblox continually evolve Roblox’s discovery algorithm, UI, and sorting options to ensure that high-quality games stand out to the right audiences.
The future of gaming is being built on Roblox, where users around the world are trying out new games and turning the ones they love into longtime favorites. With Roblox Studio, creators iterate and test new ideas with less friction and more support, so new games reach players faster than ever.
To be part of this future, apply today for Roblox Incubator or Roblox Jumpstart.
I also asked about what Roblox can do to boost eyeballs for a given game.
Loktev said to incentivize novel creation, Roblox needs to make sure novel games find their audiences. It wants to let developers focus on making great games and realizing their creative vision, while Roblox takes care of the rest.
“Discovery will be vital in enabling this, through both tailored promotion and strategic curation on our renamed Standout Games sort, a new row on our Home page dedicated to highlighting novel games, including those in our new programs and also other novel games created by developers across the platform,” Loktev said. “We’ll also be upgrading our discovery algorithms to better recognize high-quality games and improving recommendations to be device-aware, helping to ensure that novel content finds its best audience. “
He also said Roblox has co-marketing programs designed to amplify games made by Roblox creators off-platform, and novel games are an important part of this strategy, especially as they reach growing cohorts of Roblox audiences.