The History of Roblox and Its Rise to Eminence

The young ones in your life who play Roblox daily will be shocked to learn that the game itself is much older than they are. The world's most popular online game platform and game creation system has enraptured the vivid imaginations of the youth - everywhere you look, you'll most likely spot a toddler having the time of their life in some random player-created game in Roblox. Thanks to its wide availability across Windows-enabled PC desktops & laptops, mobile iOS & Android devices, and Xbox One consoles, Roblox has amassed a player base that pours an insane amount of hours into playing and creating everything it has to offer. According to Demand Sage, Roblox has more than 58.8 million daily active users and has accumulated 13.4 billion hours in user engagement. If you've always been curious about how Roblox became such a gaming phenomenon, you've come to the right place. Here's a deep dive into the exciting history of Roblox.

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The history of Roblox can be tracked all the way back to 1989. David Baszucki, who's known as the co-founder of and CEO of Roblox Corporation, founded a company called Knowledge Revolution that very same year. The company's focus was educational physics and the creation of mechanical simulation software. During his tenure there with the company, Baszucki wrote his very own general-purpose simulation software called Interactive Physics. Knowledge Revolution remained under Baszucki's leadership as he was its president - he eventually ran into Erik Cassel, who's known as the other co-founder of Roblox Corporation.

In 1999, a company called MSC Software Corporation acquired Knowledge Revolution for $20 million - Baszucki served as vice president while still attached to that company. When Baszucki left in 2004, Cassel left right alongside him and helped found the Roblox Corporation. A couple of employees from MSC Software even followed both men into the company soon after. 2004 also marked the development of Roblox by Baszucki and Cassel - during its initial beta phase, the names "GoBlocks" and "DynaBlocks" were actually considered as the final names for the software itself. On September 1, 2006, Roblox came out of beta and officially launched.

In 2007, Roblox improved via some additional features - those features included a search bar, private messaging that included a safe chat option for users under the age of 13, ticket developers, clubs, and character customization. That same year, the first Roblox currency ("Roblox Points") was introduced as daily login bonuses for players that played minigames. Roblox Points eventually got changed to "Robux" in May 2007. Another form of in-game currency that was introduced at one point was called "Tix," which were tickets that were awarded to players each day that they logged into Roblox (Tix were soon discontinued in March 2016). In August 2007, Roblox went on to improve via server improvements and also introduced a premium membership service called "Builders Club" (this service got rebranded as "Roblox Premium" in September 2019).

The history of Roblox truly entered one of its most exciting periods to date when the game itself finally hit the New York Stock Exchange with a reference price of $45 a share. In March 2021, according to Reuters, shares of the debuting stock were already set for a 44% increase. Barron’s relayed even more good news about Roblox’s incredible chances of winning on the stock market around that time - "With about 652 million shares outstanding, the reference price indicates that Roblox’s market capitalization could be as much as $29.3 billion."