The Roblox Opening Most Brands Will Miss
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
Last week we at Max Power Gaming gathered leaders from across UGC gaming in Manhattan's Flatiron district. People from Epic Games, Twitch, the NHL, GameSquare Holdings, dentsu, Super League, developers, investors, and others were in the room. Lead sponsor Exclusible made the night happen, and a specific thank you to Olivier Moingeon for partnering on the community event. And shoutout to Peter Betts of Think Influence for supporting as well.
Here are my takeaways from talking to various guests who are working across game development, advertising, UGC avatar item creation, brands, and more.
It All Ties Back to Safety
Nearly every conversation in some form or another tied back to scale and safety. Why do brands want Roblox? The scaled audience, which is massive, young, valuable, and genuinely hard to reach anywhere else. Why don't more brands show up on Roblox? Safety. The same is true for the IP owners and traditional gaming companies circling the platform. Their hesitation, almost every time, traces back to safety.
An advertising agency executive spelled it out clearly. There's no shortage of Roblox conversations happening with brands, and the interest is quite high. However, there's a wide gap between that discussion and actual activation. Brands are talking, but it's often about safety-related headlines. That leads to far fewer brands actually building on the platform.
Age-Gating Can Close The Gap
I left the event more optimistic than when I arrived. That's because Roblox's shift toward age-gated experiences, including age verification and the Roblox Kids rollout, is exactly the kind of change that can move safety from a brand's reason to wait into a brand's reason to enter the platform. If safety is the bottleneck on brand spend, these major age-gating moves are the changes likely to loosen it.
But these age-gating changes are substantial, and it's unclear how they'll fully play out for developers. One Roblox developer I talked to has a popular game that's accessible across all parts of Roblox, including Roblox Kids (in the areas it's live: Australia, Indonesia, Netherlands, New Zealand). While he hasn't seen a dip in his business results with Roblox Kids & Select, they have him thinking hard about what to build next, and whether to lean into older audiences or not. He's in wait-and-see mode, like a lot of operators who are understandably anxious about what age-gating does to their own numbers and what kinds of experiences win in the new landscape.
Now is a Golden Moment Most Brands Miss
I don't fault brands for being cautious when it comes to Roblox. Some are structurally and culturally risk-averse. Others move fast. That's just how companies are built, and you don't rewire that overnight. But Roblox, UGC, and the internet itself move extremely fast, and to reach this audience while it's still early, brands have to be willing to move at the platform's speed, not their own. The faster movers will capture audiences and more opportunities, which the slower ones will miss out on. As Roblox's safety updates pull more brands in, grabbing user attention will get increasingly expensive and difficult.
There's one important caveat I have to call out. Moving now doesn't guarantee you an instant hit. Moving now buys you a head start on getting up the Roblox learning curve. Almost none of the brands winning on Roblox today (Paramount, NFL, NASCAR, FIFA) started with a clear victory. They got there over time through iteration, through understanding the platform, the players, and the culture. Starting now doesn't guarantee success, but it puts you on the path to figuring out what actually works before everyone else does.
The Takeaway
Roblox is standing on the precipice of a massive platform change that could turn all the substantial brand interest into brand activity. The safety reckoning everyone's nervously watching is the same thing that makes the platform investable. The brands that understand that now, and start learning now, will be the ones holding the advantage when the rest of the market finally moves.
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Stephen Dypiangco is one the world’s leading experts on the topic of Roblox and brands. He has advised global companies on their Roblox strategies, including BBC Studios, Paramount, and Takara Tomy.
With 120+ articles published about Roblox and a following of over 14,000 across LinkedIn and his industry leading Max Power Gaming newsletter, he is widely regarded by gaming industry executives and investors as a trusted resource.
Stephen is building the premiere network of Roblox professionals to help this emerging sector connect and scale through his unique blend of relevant content and community events.
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