An interesting talking point that we’ve discussed multiple times on this site over the last month or two is the fact that while Roblox is an incredibly popular platform and one that has a myriad of players coming to it every day, possibly even going above 90 million per day at times, there is one “touchy subject” that can’t be ignored. Ironically, it’s not about all the lawsuits and controversies that the game has and continues to have. Instead, it’s the fact that despite all its success, it’s not making money. It’s true; the game runs at a deficit every financial year, and this past one was no different.
That’s not to say that the dev team is taking this lying down because they’re not. They’ve initiated multiple plans to try and not just increase player count but bring more money to the table. One of the biggest ways they’re doing that is through brand collaborations, by which we mean the dev team or player creator teams creating branded content for players to explore, and by having ads from various brands in the game.
It’s not hard to see why this could be a big thing, especially with the arrival of Google helping with its own ad services. The problem, though, according to Digiday, is that not enough 3rd party groups are interested in this because Roblox isn’t sharing enough information about it. Multiple companies talked to the website about this and explained the situation. That included the CEO of the agency Gaming Attict, Jason Scorrano, who noted:
“There’s baseline media integrations, where the media is served through their [Roblox’s] first-party ad server, and then you get data back from their first-party ad server, and then from an [experience] integration standpoint, all of the metrics you’re receiving are from the developers themselves. There’s no third-party Nielsen or Comscore that is showing you what is happening.”
Long story short, these 3rd parties aren’t getting the data they need to prove that their ads are not only working but truly worth the cost of putting them into the game universe. Trust us when we say that companies DON’T want to simply “throw money away” unless there’s a good reason, and this gaming space isn’t exactly the best reason if it’s not turning a profit.
Now, that’s not to say that this situation is “Unfixable.” Many experts noted that the dev team is “close” to getting a solution made. If that is the case, then more companies could bring their ads to the title, and that could greatly improve the game’s revenue.
