Roblox CEO and founder Dave Baszucki rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
Roblox CEO and founder Dave Baszucki rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
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The DeanBeat: How Roblox overshadowed Microsoft’s Bethesda event this week

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

The big events came in a pair this week as Microsoft completed its $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda. And user-generating game platform Roblox went public and ended its first day of trading at a valuation of $45 billion — valuable enough to be worth six Bethesdas.

Clearly, both events are great for the industry in different ways. But it’s interesting to argue with myself about which is really more important for the industry and those following it. I see it as a contest between a promising part of the industry, as represented by the potential of the user-generated content of Roblox, and the old part of the industry, where Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda is a new step in consolidation.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.