Roblox 2025 Year in Review with an Investor from Shamrock Capital
- Stephen Dypiangco
- 21 hours ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 18 hours ago
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Bringing in an Investor’s View on Roblox
Most Roblox analysis comes from inside the ecosystem: developers, brands, and platforms. I want to complement that with the perspective of professional investors who deploy large sums of capital across media and entertainment and are actively backing Roblox developers.
That’s why I interviewed Aaron Wizenfeld, a partner at Shamrock Capital, a Los Angeles–based media and entertainment investment firm with roughly $6.5 billion under management and direct exposure to the Roblox developer ecosystem.
Quick note. This information is for entertainment and education purposes. It is not investment advice. The thoughts shared here are personal views and do not reflect Shamrock Capital or any other organization.
The Defining Game of 2025: Steal a Brainrot
For Aaron, the standout game of 2025 was Steal a Brainrot. He described it as transcendent because it didn’t just dominate within Roblox; it also broke out into broader culture. That dual impact, in-platform performance plus cultural relevance beyond Roblox, is what made it his clear pick for game of the year.
How He Rated Roblox’s 2025: An Excellent Year
When asked to grade the year, Aaron called 2025 an excellent year for Roblox. In his view, this was the payoff of years of investment in AI, technology, infrastructure, and safety. Those long-term bets converged into a new level of growth and excitement, with the platform still behaving like it’s on an exponential curve, even if that will eventually normalize.
What Still Holds Brands (And Capital) Back: Safety
On what’s holding brands and investors back from going bigger on Roblox, Aaron’s answer was direct: safety and content moderation. He sees safety as the central concern for brand teams and investment committees. Roblox has made progress, but its scale and prominence have naturally attracted more regulatory scrutiny.
That being said, he also sees safety as a growth unlock. If Roblox can convincingly “get child safety right” in a way that satisfies regulators and brand risk teams, he believes it unlocks a new phase of growth for the platform and its ecosystem.
Studios Building for Brands That Caught His Eye
Shamrock’s exposure is more on the developer side than pure brand-service studios, but Aaron still noted a few teams that stand out. He mentioned Sawhorse as a group executing successful campaigns with sustained momentum. He highlighted Wonder Works for thoughtful work like SpongeBob Tower Defense, where strong gameplay is paired with major IP. He also called Gamefam’s work interesting in the context of branded and original experiences.
The Biggest Story of 2025: Concurrency and Surpassing Steam
Asked for the single biggest Roblox story of 2025, Aaron boiled it down to one word: concurrency. From roughly April onward, he watched Roblox repeatedly set new concurrent user (CCU) records, often week after week or month after month. The standout datapoint for him: Roblox’s CCU surpassing Steam, which he framed as unprecedented.
He argued that earlier “Roblox vs Fortnite” comparisons now feel outdated. Fortnite is still huge, but Roblox’s concurrent user profile puts it in a different category.
How Roblox Has Repositioned Itself in the Game Industry
Aaron sees Roblox now sitting at or near the center of the video game ecosystem in a few important ways. First, it has radically changed the economics: you no longer need to spend 200, 400, or 600 million dollars on a game to achieve meaningful economic success. Roblox allows smaller teams and lower budgets to generate real outcomes.
Second, he emphasized the operational model. Roblox developers have learned to update their games frequently, use the live audience as a testbed, and optimize gameplay in real time. That combination, relatively low upfront cost, rapid iteration, and a built-in sandbox audience, has produced a powerful pattern for developer success, with Roblox at the center.
2026 Outlook: Ads as a Bigger Part of the Story
Looking ahead to 2026, Aaron didn’t try to pick specific breakout games, but he did call out advertising as the next major growth leg. He expects ads to become a larger part of the story both at the platform level and for developer economics.
He sees brands warming up to investing meaningful dollars in Roblox as comfort with safety improves and as concurrency makes the scale undeniable. From an advertiser’s standpoint, being able to reach that many users simultaneously inside one ecosystem is rare. He drew a direct analogy to YouTube 5–10 years ago: brands first dipped their toes in, then eventually went all-in as the platform proved it could deliver.
He also highlighted rewarded ads as a uniquely strong fit for Roblox: players earning in-game items by watching ads instead of buying them outright is a mechanic that feels native rather than forced.
How to Get Started: Learn Roblox, Then Learn UGC Gaming
For professionals in brands, gaming, or finance who are new to Roblox, Aaron’s first piece of advice was simple: do the homework. There is a large body of publicly available information, Roblox investor materials, analyst coverage, and third-party industry reports, that can quickly get someone up to speed on the basics.
He then encouraged people to zoom out further and understand UGC gaming as a category. In his view, if you fast-forward a few years, UGC gaming will sit at the center of the broader gaming ecosystem. It naturally produces stickiness and virality, and it gives players a sense of proximity to creators. He expects UGC to be a durable growth area across content.
Closing Thoughts
Aaron’s investor lens adds a few clear takeaways about Roblox in 2025:
2025 was an excellent year where long-term platform investments visibly paid off.
Safety remains the largest bottleneck for brand and investor participation, but solving it is also the clearest unlock.
Roblox has repositioned itself as a central node in the game industry, not a side curiosity.
Concurrency and advertising are key areas that institutional capital is watching closely.
UGC gaming isn’t a fringe trend; it is on track to become the core of how future game ecosystems work.
Watch my full interview with Aaron here:
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