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SILICON VALLEY — Roblox, the world’s largest game creation platform, will support the development of two-dimensional games aimed at adult users. It will also provide artificial intelligence tools to make games easier and faster to build in greater numbers. The moves come as the gaming industry searches for a way forward amid falling user numbers and shrinking revenue.
At RDC 2026, its annual developer conference held in San Jose, California, on the 11th, Roblox said it would add features to support 2D game development, including an orthographic camera that renders a flat field of view and animated image containers.
Roblox operates a metaverse platform built as a three-dimensional virtual space and supports game creators there. Development has centered on 3D games until now, and the announcement means that support will widen to 2D games. The company pointed to the fact that some of the most popular games worldwide are simple 2D titles such as puzzle games.
The gaming market has run into trouble recently as competition for users’ attention from YouTube and streaming services has intensified and user growth has stalled. Roblox recorded 123 million daily active users in the second quarter. That was up 10% from a year earlier but down 7% from the previous quarter. In its most recent earnings release, Roblox forecast that third-quarter bookings would decline for the first time in four years.
One notable development is the rising share of adult users. As of the second quarter, users aged 18 and over accounted for 27% of age-verified daily active users. In the United States, the company’s largest market, users aged 18 and over generate more than 50% more revenue than those under 18. Kidults — adults who keep the hobbies of children — have become important customers not only in the comics and character markets but in gaming as well.
Richard Chae, head of Roblox Korea, met with reporters that day and singled out the expansion into 2D as the most notable item in the RDC announcements. “This is something I have wanted during my long time at Roblox,” he said, “because it lets us target more age groups, especially adult users.” He added: “For example, mothers in their 40s and 50s play a lot of puzzle games like Candy Crush, and with the expansion into 2D they will have a chance to enjoy Roblox.”
Roblox is also making active use of AI in game development in step with the AI era. Build, a tool that lets users create and publish a game simply by entering a text prompt in a mobile application, will also be released in Serbia and Singapore. Since its launch in New Zealand last summer, creators have published about 9,000 games using the Build feature. Some 71% of Build users had never used Roblox Studio, the company’s existing creation tool, yet still made games with ease.
The company is also widening where games can be developed and played. It will help creators showcase their games on platforms familiar to users. Creators can offer their titles as standalone apps on mobile, PC and console. Roblox will also support a feature that lets players keep playing during flights or when network connections are unstable.
With concerns raised in various countries over youth gaming addiction and the creation of political content, Roblox is strengthening age verification and parental controls. “We block the creation of harmful content through our guidelines,” Chae said. “In Korea, we have set up a separate safety team that identifies problematic content directly.”
#Roblox#RDC2026#GameDev#AIGaming#Kidult#Metaverse
Original reporting by Kim Chang-young for Seoul Economic Daily.
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreignxact original wording
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