As Roblox contemplates what could be a historic start in public markets in the coming months, investors who have values the company at $ 29.5 billion They certainly look at the game company’s young and dedicated user base, but it’s the 7 million creators and developers active on the Roblox platform who are probably the most impressed.
Since 2015, Roblox has been leading an acceleration program aimed at enabling the next generation of game developers to be successful on its platform. Over the years, the program has grown from one age group to three, each with around 40 participating developers. This means that over 100 developers per year work directly with Roblox for tutoring, education, and funding opportunities to launch their games.
A medida que los esfuerzos de la compañía en este frente se han formalizado más, Roblox in 2018 contracted a ex alumno of Accelerator, Christian Hunter, a jugador de Roblox desde los 10 años y desarrollador de juegos desde los 13, para ejecutar el programa full time. After going through the experience himself, Hunter brought to the show an understanding of how the accelerator could be improved, depending on the developer’s perspective.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has ruined the company’s plans to run the program. Instead of being able to invite developers to spend three months attending classes held at Roblox’s office in San Mateo, the company had to revamp the remote participation program.
As it turned out, developers accustomed to playing and making games that took place in virtual worlds quickly adapted to the new online experience.
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“Before COVID, everyone was together. It was easier to talk to people. [Developers] you can just contact someone who was part of our product or engineering team if you had any issues, ”says Rebecca Crose, senior product manager at Roblox. “But obviously with COVID-19, we’ve had to change and think differently.”
The distance learning program, although structured differently, offers several advantages. Developers could join the show’s Discord server to speak with current attendees and past classes, communicate, and ask questions. They could also participate in Slack, the Roblox company, to ask questions of the team, and further game testing was planned to get feedback and feedback from Roblox employees.
Meanwhile, to get to know each other when they couldn’t meet in person, the developers would have game nights where they would play each other’s games or others that were popular on Roblox, linking up. in the virtual environment rather than face to face. – Meetings and face to face lessons.
However, the actual throttle content remained fairly constant during the remote experience. Attendees had weekly management meetings, discussions on topics such as game design and production, and weekly feedback sessions where they posed questions to Roblox engineers.
But by its nature, a distant accelerator developed that could assist. Rather than limiting the show to those who could make it to San Mateo and stay there for three months, the show was opened to a more global and diverse audience. This also resulted in higher demand.
The 2020 show saw Roblox receive the most apps to date – 5 times the usual amount.
As a result, the class included participants from five countries: the Philippines, South Korea, Sweden, Canada and the United States.
The developers at IndieBox Studios saw the show as an opportunity to redouble their efforts in game development. Young friends scattered across the UK and Kentucky spent their time during the Accelerator developing its photorealistic title called Tank war.
“We’ve never really met in real life, like we’ve been friends for nine years,” Michael Southern told Heaven32. “We met on Roblox.”
IndieBox is representative of many Roblox developer teams, young players who have spent over a decade learning the ins and outs of the evolving Roblox gaming platform.
“We all joined Roblox in 2008,” says Frank Garrison of IndieBox. “But we only started developing on the platform in 2019. And for us the decision to choose Roblox was easier, well, we know, why not give it a try?”
The demographics of accelerators have changed in other ways as the developer base diversifies.
“I would say that initially it was mostly young men. But as we’ve watched the program evolve, we’ve got a lot of exciting new gear, ”says Christian Hunter, Program Manager.
The 2020 program had more participants than ever, for example, with 12 in a class of 50. And a team was made up of women.
The ages of participants, who are typically between 18 and 22, have also changed.
“We saw a lot more seniors,” says Hunter. “With [the COVID-19 pandemic]We actually saw our first 50 years on the show. We’ve never had anyone over 24, I would say. And in 2020, we had 12 people over 30, ”he says.
Two of the teams were also a combination of a child and a parent.
Shannon Clemens discovered the Roblox platform through her son Nathan, learned to code, and brought in her husband Jeff to form a studio called Simple Games. Nathan’s two sisters help out with a part-time study, as does his friend Adrian Holgate.
“Seeing [my son’s] The Roblox experience by getting involved in the platform, I thought it would be nice to learn how to make our own games, ”Shannon Clemens told Heaven32.
Your title Gods of glory It has received over 13.5 million views from Roblox players since its launch in September.
“Our whole family is a little inclined to have fun with games and creating things like that,” Jeff Clemens tells us. “Why don’t we try this? That’s when we applied to the program and we said, “Well, we’ll try to see if they take us on”, and we did and it was amazing.
Besides the changes facilitated by a remote environment, Roblox notes that there were other benefits made possible by distance learning. For one thing, the developers didn’t have to get up so early to enjoy the experience.
“Being remotely, the developers worked his hours, ”Crose says. “As developers we tend to work later and stay awake at night. Getting them in at 9 am was very difficult. It was difficult for them because they’re like… a zombie. We have therefore seen that by letting them work their own hours, [there is] less burnout and increase their productivity, ”he says.
While the COVID-19 crisis may eventually end when the world is vaccinated, the accelerator’s learnings and the remote benefits it offers will continue. The developers of the program hope that the growth seen on gaming platforms like Roblox will continue as well.
“The pandemic has been tremendous for most game studios,” developer Gustav Linde told Heaven32. “Obviously it’s a very strange time, but it was a good time for us.”
The Gang Stockholm, a Swedish game development studio co-founded by Linde, creates brand experiences for its customers exclusively on the Roblox platform. Team 12 used the throttle to slow down development times and dig into some unique areas of the platform.
“If you look at Steam, the App Store, and Google Play, those markets are very crowded and Roblox is a very interesting platform for developers right now.” Linde said. “Roblox is also getting a lot of attention and there are many big brands interested in entering the platform.”
Roblox says that in the future, future Accelerator programs will feature a remote element inspired by the COVID experience. The company plans to continue to make its program available worldwide, with the limitation of English speaking participants at this time. But it is looking to expand to reach non-English speakers with future programs.
The Fall 2020 Accelerator Class graduated in December 2020 and the next Spring Class will start in February 2021. Applications are currently being reviewed and the decision will be finalized soon. The next class will have around 40 participants, as usual now, and Roblox will again seek to diversify the group of participants.