Over the last month or so, we’ve written plenty of articles about Roblox Grow A Garden. The reason for that is that the title became a kind of phenomenon that no one saw coming. Instead of it being “yet another game in the universe,” it became the one that over 20 million people were playing all at once on a recent Saturday when a big update for the title came out. That’s more than any other game in history, and that got a lot of people thinking about what could come next for it. Sure, the jump in player numbers did cool off over the past weekend, but it could spike once more should things go their way.
However, what others are wondering about isn’t whether the game will get more players, but whether the dev team will be able to capitalize on the moment that Roblox Grow A Garden has brought them. Specifically, a boost in marketing that they’ve been wanting for some time. As we’ve covered, as big and layered as the game is, it’s not turning a profit. Even with stock prices rising to new records for them thanks to their “gardening success,” they’re still not making enough money to cover everything. As such, the dev team has been working hard to make a push into the marketing space to bring brands into the game.
Digiday did a big piece on this and noted that there are those within the game’s universe, specifically players, who would be up for buying stuff that ties to their games and that involves other IP entirely. Ben Sarraille of Makeshift had this to say on the matter:
“All across the entertainment industry, creator-driven platforms are disrupting incumbents. What YouTube is doing to television Roblox will do to gaming one day. But for key stakeholders outside the scene, it’s hard to keep track of this growth and know when to jump in. That’s why watershed moments usually happen when a single creator shows the ecosystem’s potential — and just as MrBeast did that for YouTube a few years back, ‘Grow a Garden’ is doing that for Roblox today.”
So, the “mission” here is for the dev team to either “open up” about how well marketing works in the game or be as convincing as possible with brands to show that they “don’t need those numbers” to do well in the game. Other brands have bought in already, but there’s still more work to be done.
