roblox
The gaming platform Roblox announced on Friday (Sept. 6) that it will roll out music charts early in 2025, bringing songs a new level of potential visibility for its nearly 80 million daily active users.
At the Roblox Developer Conference, the company also said it was entering a new partnership with DistroKid, allowing the distributor’s acts to make their music available in the Roblox ecosystem, which consists of millions of games. This marks the platform’s first partnership with a major rightsholder in the music business. However, the independent artists who avail themselves of this opportunity won’t make any money from Roblox when their songs are used, underscoring the thorny relationship between the music and gaming industries.
Artists and labels are dying for better ways to reach gamers — a hefty chunk of the world’s population, many of them young, who often get just as enthusiastic about music as they do about the games they love. But artists and labels also want to be paid for their work.
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Across the aisle, games would love to benefit from artists’ credibility and add pizzazz to their soundtracks. But they often have little patience for the music industry’s licensing system, which they view as old-fashioned and overly complicated, and its interest in steep up-front fees. And games’ success usually does not depend on music industry involvement.
The chasm between these views has limited the opportunities for artists in gaming — especially those who aren’t already stars — outside of a few titles.
But the music industry would still like to bridge the gap, and Roblox’s virtual universe is a particularly tempting target. That’s because it has a tantalizing number of users whose avatars are wandering around, hanging out with friends, or flocking to games like Adopt Me!, where they raise virtual pets. Labels would love to reach these crowds.
Roblox chief product officer Manuel Bronstein says the platform wants to help. To drive more music discovery, it will add a sort of audio player that can show users what track is playing in the Roblox experience they are enjoying.
As a result, “users are going to be able to see the name of the song, the artist [behind it], and even like the song,” Bronstein says. That information will then flow into the platform’s music charts, which will rank tracks according to engagement. In an ideal world, charts function like a two-way mirror — they reflect listening habits but also facilitate discovery for curious listeners. (Roblox will also set up a separate ranking that tallies the popularity of music experiences on the platform to help players seeking out what are known as “rhythm games,” where activity is usually linked with playing an instrument or dancing.)
The music industry’s approach to Roblox has evolved gradually in the last few years. Initially, stars like Lil Nas X made headlines with one-off concerts. However, these are expensive and time-consuming to put together, and the payoff is short-lived. They have largely gone out of vogue.
Artists and labels have also built their own Roblox experiences. But it’s tough to stand out in the land of a million-plus games, and a big name does not ensure a big audience.
On Aug. 29, for example, the electronic producer Zedd announced that he was taking over Universal Music Group’s Roblox experience, Beat Galaxy. Visits jumped up from around 4,000 on the 28th to around 10,000 a day later, according to the site RoMonitor, which tracks Roblox activity. Not bad, except that that amounts to a drop in the platform’s ocean-sized audience. Piggy, where players try to escape a homicidal swine wielding a baseball bat, attracted more than 2.7 million visits the same day. And RoMonitor’s data indicates that there are over 30 Roblox experiences earning more daily visitors than Piggy.
“There are so many games on the platform,” says Mat Ombler, who works as a music and gaming consultant while also editing MusicEXP, a newsletter about the intersection of the two worlds. “There is absolutely no guarantee that launching an activation will get artists in front of those 80 million players.”
Some artists have had success “activating in already thriving experiences,” according to Jessie Wylde, senior director of artist and business development at Artist Partner Group (APG). “And short-form Roblox UGC edits across socials” — clips of Roblox activity posted on TikTok and elsewhere — “continue to be a key driver for consumption across APGs roster.” (In the future, Wylde would love to see “more native means for players to save songs and/or follow artists on streaming services while remaining in Roblox.”)
For Ombler, Charli XCX’s recent collaboration with the wildly popular game Dress to Impress represents a new high-water mark for artists in Roblox. In his newsletter, he noted that “daily visits for Dress to Impress jumped from 22.49 million on Aug. 16 to 34.09 million on [the collaboration’s Aug. 17] launch, an increase of 41%.” Concurrent users also jumped from a peak of 290,000 to a peak of 641,000.
But Charli XCX, a well-known artist with major hits, doesn’t need Roblox to break through. The Holy Knives are interested in the platform’s partnership with DistroKid because it could afford smaller acts like them a chance to find new listeners. “Majors probably don’t need more exposure,” says Kody Valentine, a member of the duo along with his brother Kyle. “As independent artists, that’s the number one thing we need. If that can come through Roblox, that is amazing.”
The band opted to make their music available on Roblox so that game developers can put it into experiences. (DistroKid artists must opt in to be part of the program.) The hope is that they will gain enough fans to offset the fact that they won’t be directly compensated for any use of their songs.
Bronstein points out that if artists like The Holy Knives are discovered on Roblox, “they also have means to monetize outside of the platform” — if players go stream the band elsewhere, for example. (It’s also easy for artists to start selling virtual merch on Roblox, which has been lucrative for some stars; Ombler believes more artists should try this.) But Roblox is “starting as a promotional vehicle to begin with,” Bronstein notes.
Artists only have one career, so they will often trade royalty income for exposure. DistroKid earns money when artists sign up to distribute their music and doesn’t share in the royalties they make, so it doesn’t have a dog in the fight. For the major labels, on the other hand, giving away music for free is a tough pill to swallow, especially recently.
UMG CEO Lucian Grainge made this clear during a speech in 2022. Initially, “[we] were given a lot of reasons why our artists shouldn’t get paid” by MTV and YouTube, Grainge recalled. “People said, ‘It’s great promotion,’ or ‘you can use it as a platform for discovering new artists.’ Technology platforms were built on the backs of the artists’ hard work.”
When asked about the potential for future monetization opportunities, Bronstein says, “We want to get there. Once you get the momentum, you have the opportunity to think about creative ways in which artists can monetize.” (Karibi Dagogo-Jack, who previously served as Roblox’s head of music partnerships, is no longer with the company.) But the music industry’s fear is that the opposite thing happens: Platforms get momentum and then use that leverage to argue they should pay even less for music.
Alex Tarrand, COO/co-founder of STYNGR, has tried to come up with a way for rightsholders to get their music played on Roblox but also get paid for it. STYNGR has licenses with all the major labels and publishers; game developers can then use that music without paying up-front.
In the Roblox universe, this music comes out of a boombox — old-school radio in a newfangled virtual world. Users either shell out for listening time, or developers can put an ad-funded version of the product into their experiences. The revenue from user payments and advertisements is then shared between major labels, publishers, game developers and STYNGR. “Session lengths go up for the people who are actively engaging with the music player,” according to Tarrand. “And we see session frequency go up.”
Despite some of the ongoing friction between the music industry and Roblox, the search for common ground continues. This week, Tarrand flew to the Roblox Developer Conference to meet with more developers. “Music is a big topic of conversation at this RDC,” he says. “That’s promising.”
At the end of 2023, the gaming platform Roblox announced that it had more than 71.5 million average daily active users. While it still remains best known to teens and their parents, evangelists see gaming hubs like Roblox and Fortnite as the new frontier of social media — another space where musicians will need to establish a presence if they hope to remain commercially relevant with younger listeners.
“Just the way every artist has an Instagram account and a TikTok, eventually everyone’s going to have a Roblox presence,” predicts Nic Hill, co-founder of the company Sawhorse Production. Hill has worked on Roblox projects for Olivia Rodrigo and Elton John, while Spotify, iHeartMedia and Warner Music Group have all launched Roblox experiences, and Sony Music has an in-house team developing music-focused games or experiences for both Roblox and Fortnite. (The latter boasts of having more than half a billion player accounts.)
In Roblox, players create an avatar and access an ecosystem of millions of games, many of which are developed by creative teenagers rather than massive gaming companies. Roblox lovers, nearly half of whom are female, pay to acquire Robux, a currency which allows them to buy an assortment of items for their avatars, and devote an average of 2.5 hours a day to roaming Roblox’s colorful, blocky virtual byways.
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“There are different ways that they spend that time,” says Karibi Dagogo-Jack, head of music partnerships at Roblox. “Sometimes it’s playing a hardcore first-person shooter game. Sometimes it’s just hanging out with people that have an affinity for a thing they have an affinity for” — like music.
Fornite, in contrast, came to prominence as a fight-to-the-death survival game — its audience skews older than Roblox’s, and it’s male-dominated — but has been trying to diversify its appeal. Most notably, in March of 2023, Epic Games launched Unreal Engine for Fortnite (UEFN), which means creators can now develop their own worlds and experiences and make them available for the Fortnite audience, giving it some of the user-generated flair of Roblox.
Initially the music industry’s main way of engaging with Roblox and Fortnite audiences was through virtual concerts from the Lil Nas Xs and Travis Scotts of the world. But concerts, even virtual ones, are massive undertakings, often taking six months or more to develop and fine-tune, according to sources who have worked on them. That means concerts make sense primarily for a small number of big-name artists. In contrast, sources say putting together a Roblox shop may take closer to four to six weeks.
Even beyond budgetary constraints, concerts are one-time experiences in environments that prioritize constant interaction, an old-school approach to a new-school platform. “Artist events can have a lot more longevity,” says Ricardo Briceno, chief business officer of Gamefam, which built Harmony Hills, the virtual space that also serves as the home of Warner Music Group’s Roblox concerts.
Tony Barnes, founder of Karta, which worked on a popular Roblox experience for TWICE — a “fan hub” where supporters of the K-Pop group can play games, hang out virtually, and buy digital goods for their avatars — advises clients to think of the platform as “a new community channel that needs to be nurtured.” “You need to maintain your engagement,” he says. “It’s an always-on strategy.”
The music industry is now in a period that Hill describes as “a constant test and learn” with Roblox and Fortnite; some projects have generated serious revenue, while others are lucky to break even. “We’re still scratching the surface,” Briceno says.
Yet competition is already fierce. “Roblox is becoming a crowded space,” Hill notes. “Even if you’re a popular name and you show up, you can’t just expect everyone to be so excited and somehow find you. A lot of brands are marketing their experiences on the platform.”
Both Roblox and Fortnite incentivize artists and labels to treat the platforms as revenue generators. Artists can sell items on Roblox which players use to customize their avatars; the creator of the item takes home 30%, the creator of the experience — which could also be the artist — where the item is sold gets 40%, and the platform takes 30%.
Briceno sold ice antlers for Cher, for example, while TWICE has sold more than 3 million emotes, and an Elton John emote was purchased over 1.5 million times, according to a Roblox representative. Gavin Johnson, director of syncs and partnerships at the electronic music label Monstercat, oversaw the sale of a limited edition Ruby pendant necklace for 1,000,001 Robux (around $10,000) — “the highest primary sale ever on the platform.”
Over on Fortnite, if a label creates its own customized game-play environment, known as an “island,” they receive an “engagement payout.” (Roblox offers these too.) “40% of the net revenue from Fortnite’s Item Shop and related real-money purchases” is set aside for this purpose, according to Epic Games’ website, and then disbursed among island creators according to a complex calculation that takes into account the island’s ability to attract new players, re-engage dormant players, and keep both types coming back. (One gaming executive says that while the top UEFN experiences “drive a lot of gameplay and repeat visitors,” there’s a huge gap between the top few and most of the rest; a rep for Epic Games did not respond to a request for comment.)
For now, artists and labels often find it easier to jump into Roblox, in part because the barrier to entry is low — “basically anyone can create anything and sell it,” as Briceno puts it. In contrast, “Fortnite doesn’t allow studios or creators to sell items in-game,” says Michael Herriger, co-founder of Atlas Creative, which built iHeartMedia’s Roblox environment. “Everything that is a Fortnite skin [an outfit to customize a player’s look in the game], for example, comes directly from the Epic Games store.”
Selling items, designing artist-themed experiences — these can help raise awareness of an act and drive what Barnes calls “fan culture,” but may not involve actual music. Artists and labels are still trying to figure out what effective music integrations might look like. “The idea of using Roblox to drive discovery of your song is really cool, and maybe untapped,” Dagogo-Jack says.
When Metallica released 72 Seasons in 2023, the band partnered with five popular Roblox games to pipe its music into their creations. (“It’s a fantastic way to promote these brands, be it Metallica or any other musical artist,” says Kohl Couture, who goes by MiniToon, and created the game Piggy, which was part of the Metallica rollout.) Earlier this year, Sony Music unveiled a Fortnite game called Nitewave, where winners of a capture-the-flag-like experience get to control the soundtrack of Sony artists, including songs by Flo Milli and Calvin Harris.
While Briceno “very much believe[s] in a future where there will be music discovery in these platforms,” he’s not sure “the right tools are available in these platforms just yet.” One potential tool is being developed by the company STYNGR: An ad-supported boombox full of pre-cleared songs — at the moment, just tracks from Universal Music Group — that players can equip their avatar with.
In early experiments, when players need to turn on the boombox themselves, 15% do so; if the boombox starts automatically, 90% choose to leave it on. Session lengths increase by as much as 10% while players have the radio blasting musical accompaniment, according to Alex Tarrand, STYNGR’s COO and co-founder, and for a small group of “power users,” session lengths are tripling.
“The reason the engagement goes up is people stay longer in games if they like what they’re listening to,” Tarrand says. “Our thesis is that recorded music makes stuff better.”
Universal Music Group (UMG) announced the launch of Beat Galaxy, a new “music hub” on Roblox, the popular gaming platform that boasted more than 66 million daily active users as of March 2023.
Beat Galaxy includes a rhythm game component — the subgenre of games devoted to interacting with music — set to tracks from UMG artists as well as a future venue for virtual concerts, according to a press release.
“Beat Galaxy creates a next-generation music discovery experience on Roblox that not only provides an opportunity for a fun social gameplay, but creates true utility for music discovery beyond the algorithm in a community-driven way,” Yonatan Raz-Fridman, founder/CEO of Supersocial, said in a statement. (Supersocial makes games for Roblox.)
In recent years, the music industry has been increasingly interested in tapping into the gaming audience, which is massive, youthful and scattered around the globe. In 2021, the analytics company Midia Research called gamers “the new frontier of music’s fan-centric growth.”
That’s in part because there are plenty of statistics suggesting that gamers are actively interested in music. In 2022, the IFPI reported that 44% of gamers watched a virtual music concert on a gaming platform in the last three months. “42% of Gen Z gamers listen to other music while gaming,” according to a Deloitte study, “and 34% hear music in a game and then look it up online to stream or buy.”
In the case of Roblox, which grew rapidly during the pandemic, music industry interest has resulted in a steady stream of partnership announcements. A smattering from the last 19 months: Spotify teamed up with Roblox on a virtual music island, Elton John created his own virtual experience, Warner Music Group launched Rhythm City (a “music-themed social roleplay experience”) and the K-Pop group TWICE dove into the (virtual) fray. On Dec. 8, Cher announced a four-week Roblox event to promote her new Christmas album.
Alvaro G. Velilla, senior vp of new business at UMG, described Beat Galaxy as “a living, breathing music experience.”
“Alongside Supersocial,” he added, “we believe that we’ve created the go-to music getaway on Roblox.”
The first UMG artist to partner with Beat Galaxy is YUNGBLUD.
Roblox players are about to get an eyeful — and potentially an earful — of KINGSHIP, the metaverse “supergroup” comprised of and managed by a shrewdness of Bored-and-Mutant Ape NFTs.
10:22PM, the Web3 label of Universal Music Group founded by Celine Joshua, announced on Thursday the launch of KINGSHIP Islands — an immersive in-game experience wherein Robloxers can work to unite the four band members on something called the “Floating Villa,” plus earn reward accessories and “acquire emotes for their avatars.” For minors with parents who are cool and totally not a drag, players can purchase customized animated heads and bodies for their avatars using Roblox’s facial animation technology.
As the game environment ages, more free virtual goods will be added along with new music produced by Hit-Boy and James Fauntleroy, the KINGSHIP “sonic creative team” that was announced a year ago. The band’s label said the pair — officially co-executive producers — are “overseeing the evolution of the group’s music direction and sound.”
The supergroup has yet to release music, and their manager Manager Noët All could not be reached for comment.
KINGSHIP Islands is free to play for any Roblox user, who must first complete various quests to gain access to the Floating Villa. Wanna skip all that? Owners of one of the 5,000 KINGSHIP Key Cards qualify for VIP access, along with special badges and other metadoodads. Key Card holders can access the villa at any time because they will have a special Roblox badge, which provide unique roles inside experiences, the label said.
The aforementioned Floating Villa, part of KINGSHIP Islands.
When they were released in July of 2022, the entire batch of Key Cards sold out in the span of a day, though they continue to trade on the secondary market. Over the last 30 days, 66 cards have been resold on OpenSea at an average price of 0.0592 ETH, or roughly $120 at the current exchange rate. The cards were designed to unlock forthcoming partnerships with major brands (see: Roblox), as well as unique artwork and immersive digital experiences.
10:22PM’s KINGSHIP project made its debut in November 2021 and is comprised of mutant ape Captain (vocals, bass) and bored ones KING (lead vocals), Arnell (beats, producer, drums) and Hud (guitar, keyboards, vocals). Avid NFT collector Jimmy McNeils supplied the apes for KINGSHIP from his own collection. At the time of launch it was billed as a “landmark, first-ever exclusive agreement to create a metaverse group.”
Hey look, a trailer:
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Saweetie has scored here very own touchdown, by fronting an NFL metaverse concert during Super Bowl week. The “Best Friend” rapper is the headline performer at the Saweetie Super Bowl Concert, a free virtual show presented by Intuit on Roblox and set to premiere Feb. 10.
The Warner Records artist will step into the metaverse on the heels of the launch of WMG’s Rhythm City, for what’s said to be a first-of-its-kind “music-themed social roleplay experience” on the Roblox gaming platform.
According to WMG, which partnered with NFL on the latest initiative, Saweetie will perform a “family-friendly, fully motion-captured” set featuring her hit singles and presented as official part of the Super Bowl LVII event lineup.
The virtual concert will drop next Friday at 7:00pm ET and will re-air every hour, on the hour, until Sunday, Feb. 12.
“As our ecosystem evolves,” comments Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer & executive vp of business development at WMG, the music major “is focused on building open, interactive and dynamic virtual experiences that deeply connect artists with their fans. It doesn’t get more iconic than the Saweetie Super Bowl Concert Presented by Intuit on Roblox. We are so thrilled to be working in support of this event and incredibly excited to kick off our first concert in Rhythm City.”
Saweetie is the latest WMG artist to make the crossover into the Roblox world, namely Twenty One Pilots, Why Don’t We, Ava Max, David Guetta and Royal Blood.
This year, she’s on a mission to expand her creative horizons. Saweetie is reportedly stepping back onto the small screen with a guest starring role on Peacock’s Bel-Air, the streaming platform’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air spin-off. The 29-year-old previously appeared in several episodes of Freeform’s Black-ish spinoff show Grown-ish, as rapper Indigo.
As for music, Saweetie most recently released her six-track EP The Single Life in November 2022. And she has hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Triller U.S. chart with three numbers: “Tap In” in mid-2020, followed by “Fast (Motion)” in mid-2021, and “Closer,” featuring H.E.R., in February 2022.
With the Rhythm City project, WMG is the latest music company to partner with Roblox, which boasts more than 61 million daily active users and exploded in popularity with young gamers during the pandemic.
Sony Music and BMG announced partnerships with Roblox in 2021. Spotify became “the first music-streaming brand to have a presence on Roblox” last year.
Warner Music Group will launch Rhythm City — a “music-themed social roleplay experience” — on the gaming platform Roblox on February 4th.
Not only will Rhythm City host events and shows from Warner’s artists, it will allow users to take on roles like DJ, producer, or dancer as they explore the virtual world and purchase digital items only available on Roblox. Rhythm City was developed in partnership with Gamefam, a metaverse-focused gaming and content company.
Warner is the latest music company to partner with Roblox, which has been around for more than 15 years but exploded in popularity with young users during the pandemic. Sony Music and BMG announced partnerships with Roblox in 2021. Spotify became “the first music-streaming brand to have a presence on Roblox” last year.
Earlier this month, Roblox announced that it had more than 61 million daily active users in December who spent close to 5 billion hours on the platform. It’s no surprise, then, that record companies are eager to find new ways to seed their music to Roblox users.
“Immersive online environments represent a meaningful opportunity for reaching a growing number of fans who want to use virtual communities to enjoy shared music experiences,” Dennis Kooker, Sony Music’s president of global digital business and U.S. sales, said in 2021. When BMG announced its Roblox partnership, Christopher Ludwig, BMG’s vp of global digital partnerships and strategy, noted that the platform “has transformed the gaming experience for millions and is proving a powerful way to introduce new generations to music they love.”
In a statement announcing Rhythm City, Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer and evp, business development at Warner Music Group, struck a similar tone. “As our lives become increasingly digital, exciting opportunities are opening up for artists and fans to engage and interact,” she said. “WMG is focused on facilitating the foundations of these new experiences by building and experimenting across evolving ecosystems. This partnership with Gamefam sees WMG creating a place for artists and audiences to come together to define and contextualize their communities within living spaces.”
Joe Ferencz, founder and CEO at Gamefam, added that “we are thrilled to have a chance to combine our passion for developing authentic, highly-engaging metaverse content with our love of music.” “WMG has been a brilliant partner in pushing innovative strategies, and together with our expertise, we’ve channeled that into production excellence creating a new community for music lovers in the metaverse,” he continued.
Warner acts, including Twenty One Pilots and David Guetta, have previously hosted virtual concerts on Roblox.
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