How Dandy's World Is Turning a Roblox Hit Into an IP Franchise
Dandy's World is having a huge October. After a major update went live on October 2, the game's daily visits jumped from about 2.5 million to more than 25 million the next day, and it climbed from around #50 into the top 10 of Roblox's top earning games, according to RoMonitor Stats. As of this writing, it has about 139,000 concurrent players and 7.64 billion lifetime visits. Dandy's World had been in the top 10 before and dropped out, so this update has propelled it right back near the top of the platform.
I'm impressed by what BlushCrunch Studio is doing with the game, but I'm even more impressed by how the team is building a franchise around it. They don't see Dandy’s World as a video game first and foremost. What they're really building is a multimedia IP with a cast of relatable characters, and the game is one piece of a much bigger business.
Merchandise through CultureFly and other licensees is sold at retailers like Walmart, Target, Hot Topic, Amazon, and Five Below. A new licensing deal gives InfoLens the rights to produce and sell Dandy's World merchandise in Japan. There's music on Spotify, there's animation on YouTube, and there are live fan events, including one happening right now at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where thousands are gathering daily to enter their pop-up store.
I recently spoke with Joe Jurbala, president of BlushCrunch Studio, about how the team was built, why most Roblox games never get past the game itself, and how they think about turning characters born on Roblox into a lasting franchise. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Max Power Gaming: How did you come to lead BlushCrunch Studio?
Joe Jurbala: I've been leading the team since late 2024. I was originally the creator's licensing agent, working with many IPs and games, and I had previous experience helping run a Roblox studio. Dandy's World felt like the most special IP I had ever seen or been a part of in this ecosystem. The creator had a vision for where she wanted it to go, was young, and wanted somebody to help build that with her. So I came on to build a legitimate team around her and her creative vision and help scale it.
MPG: You've said a lot of Roblox developers never get past just keeping up with the game. What's the gap?
Joe: At first, it was all about shipping updates, cleaning up some tech debt, putting good stuff out for fans, and doing some little merch drops here and there. Then you get your footing, and that's where a lot of Roblox devs get stuck. You need a team solid enough that the game doesn't consume every hour of your week. Once we had that, around early 2026, we could step back and focus on the bigger picture.
We don't think we're any different from a traditional franchise just because we were born on Roblox. If anything, it gives us some unique advantages. A lot of really meaningful IP gets built today through algorithms. Our business is completely reliant on them, whether it's Roblox's, YouTube's, TikTok's, or Spotify's. The question is how we stay relevant in all of those algorithms for as long as possible, and we can only do that by consistently and frequently putting out great content with a lot of heart in it.
MPG: What's your benchmark?
Joe: Five Nights at Freddy's is the gold standard. It's been relevant for over 10 years and is one of the most successful indie IPs of all time. Little kids enjoy the plushies and the cute side of it, and adults who have been playing the games for 11 or 12 years go see the films with their friends. I don't think the model that many mascot horror properties scaled with by releasing a new game every 12 months works today, especially if they’re starting from scratch. It's more competitive.
We have an “always on” approach. There is something to look forward to almost every week. With a live service game on Roblox, we're serving our fans with content nonstop, and we think about how to stack things on top of that, eventually every single week, that give fans something meaningful to care about. Not just a cosmetic you can buy. Story and character development that creates fan art, fan theories, and fan animations. There has to be real depth and heart to all of it. That's what perpetuates an online fandom.
MPG: How did you build the team to get there?
Joe: It's really just normal company building. Usually I and one or two other people on the team wildcat anything new for the first few months. We make it good enough to put out, not perfect. Once we see it's working and our fans really like it, we find somebody better at it than ourselves, put them in charge, and let them run with it.
The game is the hardest one to give up. I think our updates have some of the most polish of anything on Roblox, and we're not putting out much more content than we used to. It's just way more polished. The past few days I've stayed up until 2AM playing and adding minor polish to this Friday's update. Not because I have to, our team did a great job, but it's hard not to when you really care, and the whole team does so.
MPG: Why invest in live events?
Joe: Somebody on our team convinced me. Going to fan conventions is how they bond with their teenage child, and they thought we had the audience. My first thought was absolutely not. It's something only 3,000 people experience, and it takes so much time and focus to do it right. We tried it, and LVL Up, the first convention we did, was a great partner that helped us get off the ground. It was still a mess to pull together. I underestimated how hard live events are.
But seeing how kids reacted was really special. Kids cried meeting our team. We had a father and daughter travel from Japan and people visiting from the Czech Republic. Parents told us how playing together brings them closer or got them through a tough time with their kid. Then there's the earned media and incredible reactions online to the event. For us, it's an investment in and way to give back to the fandom.
MPG: How did the American Dream activation come together?
Joe: We're friendly with a lot of people in the Five Nights at Freddy's community. A fabricator who worked on the animatronic designs for the FNAF 2 film is working with American Dream on the Five Nights at Freddy's pizzeria opening there next year. He saw our Director of Consumer Goods at LVL Up and brought up American Dream. Last year we did a meet and greet at our merch partner CultureFly's booth at New York Comic Con, with a few hundred people lined up to meet the creator. We considered our own booth this year, but the bigger cons are so expensive. We're spending about what we would have spent at Comic Con, but it's open for about 20 days instead of four, allowing so many more fans to experience it.
MPG: How do you think about the business today?
Joe: We don't view ourselves as just a game company. We view ourselves as a character IP company. The game is still the biggest and most important piece, but we're building other legs of the stool over time without slacking on the existing ones.
Music has been a big one for us. It's a cost-effective way to tell a character's story. We're not making a 20-minute animated episode that costs half a million dollars. We're making a song and a music video, being scrappy about it by using our existing assets that fans recognize, and pulling in great talent who share and understand our audience.
MPG: Where are new fans coming from?
Joe: The game is still the primary driver by sheer scale. About half the players each month are new to the game. But we see an increasing number of fans who have never played. They don't want to play Roblox, but they saw fan animation or a music video and became fans. The creator did something genius with the character designs. They're simple enough that an 8-year-old can draw them, but complex enough that if anything is a little off, it all falls apart. That's encouraged a lot of fan art and made the fandom really accessible.
MPG: Lots of Roblox games are getting movie announcements. What's your take?
Joe: I don't think every game needs a movie. Not every game outside of Roblox gets one, and for some reason everybody thinks every Roblox game, which are generally more hyper casual, needs a movie. I get it, the reach is crazy. But it takes a long time to get there, and most games have short lifespans. The one I'm most excited for is 99 Nights in the Forest. For a lot of teams, it's logical to put more time into the game rather than build a toy business, because the game is so large and it is hard to take your eye off that ball.
Dandy's World is at American Dream in East Rutherford, NJ through November 1, 2026.
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