

Thanks to their own creativity, Robloxers can now walk fashion show runways, experience an eagle’s flight, or figure out how to flee natural disasters with friends. Sixteen years later Roblox boasts nearly 50 million active daily users and millions of developers, who have created experiences such as Let’s Be Well, a game about recovering from depression, and Royale High, a virtual high school. Everyone agreed that user-generated content (UGC) would be the key to making the platform great. The idea was simple but ambitious: create an online space where people from anywhere in the world could do anything-construct buildings, run businesses, battle enemies, play sports, attend concerts-together. When Roblox launched, in 2004, its user base was made up of friends, family members, and about 100 tech enthusiasts recruited via Google ads to serve as impartial advisers.
