David Baszucki and Erik Cassel began developing Roblox in 2004, building a platform for user-created games with development tools, hosting and social features. They released the first edition of Roblox Studio in 2006, giving community members the tools to produce games for the platform.
Cassel had worked at Knowledge Revolution, Baszucki’s earlier educational software company. Its physics simulation software allowed students to build experiments, an activity that Baszucki described as an influence on Roblox. “The fun seemed to be in building your own experiment,” he said.
Building the creation platform
Baszucki and Cassel worked on alpha and beta versions during 2004 and 2005. Roblox’s approach combined several functions: tools for building games, servers to run them, a portal for discovering them and features that connected players.
The company initially made games itself to help establish the community. After Roblox Studio’s introduction, users began producing their own games. By 2008, Roblox had stopped routinely making games because the creator community was supplying most of the content.
Roblox introduced Builders Club in August 2007. At launch, the paid membership offered up to 10 places on one account, the ability to sell shirts in the catalog, a daily allowance of 15 Robux and access without external advertisements. Roblox remained free to play.
Mobile play and creator payments
Roblox released its iOS app in 2012 and announced the launch of its Android app on July 16, 2014. The Android app allowed users to play and communicate with people using desktop computers and other mobile devices.
Playing on mobile did not initially include the full development environment. In 2013, Baszucki said Roblox Studio had not been ported to mobile. He said mobile and desktop players shared game servers, with touch controls and smaller screens distinguishing the mobile experience.
Roblox also developed a way for creators to earn cash through its Developer Exchange program. In its July 2014 Android announcement, the company said developers could exchange virtual currency earned from their games for money. Roblox said the program had paid creators more than $315,000 by that point.
Early moderation systems
In 2013, Baszucki said Roblox filtered chat messages and provided a feature for reporting abuse. He also described moderators reviewing chat logs and discussion forums, responding to abuse reports and screening uploaded content. These statements described the company’s moderation practices at the time; they did not establish how effectively those measures protected users.
