The company in charge of the game of the same name, Roblox, has reported that shares are down dramatically this quarter.
As reported by Reuters, following Roblox‘s announcement that the company missed its quarterly targets, shares dropped 13 per cent. When Roblox went public last year the company reported almost 50million active users, spending over 10billion hours on the gaming platform. Roblox is the most valuable gaming company in the US overtaking Activision Blizzard in November of last year.
The company still saw a 20 per cent rise this quarter, unfortunately, this fell $2million (£1.5million) short of its predictions. This is despite the amount of money users spent on its in-game currency ‘Robux’ rising by 83 per cent to almost $570million (£420million).
Analysts suggest that as the COVID-19 pandemic develops, children, who are Roblox‘s target consumers, are more likely to be spending time outside again, rather than inside playing games. Roblox has been trying to encourage players to remain on the platform with a number of metaverse themed events. Recently, DJ David Guetta performed inside the game. Late last year Paris Hilton also hosted a Paris World event, where she performed.
Roblox came under criticism last year for creating a stock market-style trading system in its game where the audience is largely children. While the currency Robux cannot be traded back into real money in-game, this can be done on black market sites outside the game which are not regulated by Roblox. The amount of money spent on Robux last quarter shows that the in-game currency is one of the company’s main sources of revenue.
In other news, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has reportedly donated almost half a million pounds to Republican causes. Kotick is currently at the centre of a sexual harassment lawsuit levied against the company.
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