Roblox pushes AI game creation beyond its walls

Roblox used its annual developer gathering to lay out a set of changes that push the platform in two directions at once: making it easier for people to assemble games with a sentence, and making sure those games show up somewhere other than Roblox itself. At the Roblox Developer Conference, the company announced new creation tools, broader non-player character capabilities, cross-platform publishing, and a pair of financial products aimed at the creators who build on the service.

The centerpiece is the widening rollout of a generative AI feature that lets users turn natural language prompts into playable games.

Build grows past New Zealand

Roblox first announced the feature, called Build, in July. At launch it was only available in New Zealand. The company is now expanding it to Serbia and Singapore.

Build is also picking up desktop access for creation on larger screens, along with a new asset library and iterative control, according to the company. Later this year, Roblox plans to add a prompt-based scene-generation feature and extend it into Roblox Studio.

The staged country-by-country rollout suggests the company is testing prompt-to-game generation in smaller markets before committing to a wider release.

Games that leave the platform

Roblox said creators will soon be able to publish their games as separate apps on mobile, PC, and consoles, with Roblox acting as the game engine underneath. By year-end, players are expected to be able to join a game in-browser through a link.

The company also said it is debuting the ability to create 2D games through its engine, with an orthographic camera, animated image containers, and direct sprite-sheet import for animation.

Together, the changes describe a platform less focused on pulling players into a single app and more focused on distributing what developers make across the wider internet and app stores.

NPCs that playtest and offline play

Beyond the creation tools, Roblox is adding new capabilities to its NPCs. Those include characters that can playtest a game, a feature slated to arrive later this year.

Creators will also be able to add an offline mode to their games, letting players keep going when they are in an area with a weak network connection.

On the player side, Roblox is introducing a Friends chat tab that follows users across the game, with support for voice typing.

Discovery tuned by age

Roblox said an improved discovery algorithm will suggest shorter-format games to younger users and games with longer playtime to older users.

The platform is also adding a shopping hook inside its Moments vertical feed: players will soon be able to tap any avatar in a clip and purchase items.

Both moves point to a company trying to tailor what players see based on who they are and how long they tend to stay.

Paying creators in real money

Roblox said game makers have earned more than $5 billion on the platform since 2013, with earnings over the last 12 months reaching $1.7 billion.

To give creators more ways to use that money, the company is launching a Roblox Wallet that pays creators in real money by the end of each business day and lets them transfer funds to other bank accounts.

• $5 billion — total earned by game makers on Roblox since 2013
• $1.7 billion — creator earnings over the last 12 months
• 29 billion hours — cumulative player time in the last quarter across 180 countries

The wallet is being built with Airwallex for U.S. users aged 18 and older, with plans for future global expansion. Roblox also teased a Roblox Card, arriving next year, that would let users spend their earnings at places that accept the card.

Scale behind the announcements

Roblox founder and CEO David Baszucki said that in the last quarter, players spent over 29 billion hours cumulatively across 180 countries.

"in the last quarter, players spent over 29 billion hours cumulatively across 180 countries."

— David Baszucki, Founder and CEO of Roblox

The figure frames why the company is willing to spend on AI creation tools and creator payouts at the same time: the audience is enormous, and the pipeline of games feeding it has to keep growing.

What the bundle adds up to

Taken together, the announcements describe a platform investing in both sides of its marketplace — the people making games and the people playing them.

Build lowers the barrier to entry by letting a prompt stand in for code, while the new publishing options push finished games out to mobile, PC, consoles, and eventually the browser. The Wallet and Card, meanwhile, address the practical question of how creators get paid and spend what they earn.

Roblox has not said how many users have tried Build in New Zealand, nor how many games the tool has produced, so the real-world impact of the expanded rollout is not yet documented.

The stakes for creators and players

For developers, the most consequential items may be the ones that loosen Roblox's grip on distribution. If games can live as standalone apps and be joined through a browser link by year-end, the platform becomes a place where games are made rather than only a place where they are played. That could make Roblox-built titles compete for attention on the same footing as any other app.

For creators earning on the platform, the Wallet's same-day payouts and bank transfers could make it practical to treat Roblox income like other freelance or studio revenue, though the service is initially limited to U.S. users aged 18 and older. The Roblox Card, arriving next year, would close the loop by letting that money be spent elsewhere.

For players, the offline mode and the cross-game Friends chat tab address two long-standing friction points — flaky connections and fragmented social contact. The age-tuned discovery algorithm and in-feed avatar shopping change how games surface and how money changes hands inside them.

What remains unclear is how much of this lands on schedule. Roblox has given a year-end target for browser-based game links and a next-year target for the Card, but has not detailed pricing, revenue splits, or the terms under which creators publish outside the platform. Until those details arrive, the announcements describe intent more than completed products.