Roblox: all the news about the popular social and gaming platform

08.09.2023 - 20:55 / theverge.com / Jay Peters / David Baszucki

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By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

Roblox is a massive app — as of September 2023, Roblox says it has more than 65 million daily active users — and it’s becoming an increasingly interesting platform to watch amid growing competition from social and metaverse platforms like Epic Games’ Fortnite and Meta’s Horizon Worlds.

While Roblox has traditionally been associated as a platform for kids, the company has done a lot of work as of late to make it more appealing to older audiences. The platform now allows developers to make experiences that are exclusively accessible to users that are 17 and over, for example, and is introducing its own spin on video chat. It even has ambitions to be a place where adults can meet and date.

The company is also investing heavily into generative AI tools to help creators make experiences more easily, including a new Roblox Assistant AI chatbot.

Here’s all of our coverage of Roblox.

TODAY, Two hours ago

Jay Peters

Roblox is launching its own take on video chat called Roblox Connect, the company announced at its Roblox Developers Conference (RDC) 2023 on Friday. The feature, which is set to launch later this year, lets you chat with other people as your Roblox avatar, and your avatar will be able to mimic your real-life facial movements. The call will also take place in a shared virtual space that you can run around in, like a campsite or a dock.

Roblox is already designed to be a social app where you can use text and voice chat to keep in touch while exploring virtual experiences with your friends, so it’s not too much of a stretch for the company to make a video-focused feature that’s also designed as a place to hang out and talk. It’s also an easy way for Roblox to show off its recently launched facial animations. (I have to imagine Roblox Connect will be Roblox’s preferred way to do interviews at its in-Roblox career center, especially when paired with Roblox’s plan to introduce support for real names.)

TODAY, Two hours ago

Jay Peters

Roblox will finally be available on PlayStation soon. At its 2023 Roblox Developers Conference (RDC) on Friday, Roblox announced that its popular social and gaming app is coming to PS4 and PS5 in October.

Roblox, which is free to download, is already out on a bunch of platforms, including PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Xbox, but the lack of support for Sony’s consoles has felt like a notable hole in Roblox’s lineup. There have been some clues that a PlayStation version has been in the works, though: a 2022 job listing indicated that Roblox was hiring for a PlayStation engineer, and CEO David Baszucki