When the children’s digital game Roblox launched on the New York Stock Exchange last week, the company’s share price rapidly took off. By the end of the day, it was valued at US$38 billion.
How can a game for kids be worth so much?
What is Roblox?
Roblox has been around since 2004, but it’s often overshadowed by the more popular and easily understandable game Minecraft. Bought by Microsoft in 2014 for a comparatively paltry US$2.5 billion, Minecraft players create and explore pixelated worlds and share them with friends. In Roblox, players can create and share entire games — or play any of the millions of games created by others in the community.
Some of the most popular games are My Restaurant, which lets you build and run your own restaurant, Theme Park Tycoon 2, a play on the Rollercoaster Tycoon Series, or Tower Defence Simulator, which lets you fight waves of…
