Roblox closes at $69.50, valuing it at $38.26B, after opening under RBLX at $64.50, up 43% from its January funding round
and a reminder of the importance of patience in company building. My partner @joshk made this slide, which captures it well: https://twitter.com/... David Baszucki / @davidbaszucki : In 2004, we founded @Roblox with the vision of connecting the world. Today, as we celebrate our direct listing on the @NYSE, we recognize the potential ahead of us: to build the platform where billions of people come together to learn, work, and play. #RobloxIPO Dean Takahashi / @deantak : At its $45 billion valuation, Roblox is worth more than: Take-Two Interactive ($18.98 billion), Unity ($27.76 billion), Ubisoft ($8 billion), Electronic Arts ($37.4 billion), Square Enix ($6.6 billion), and Zynga ($10.7 billion). https://twitter.com/... @prestonattebery : Youtube in 2012 vs Roblox in 2021 exact same form factor 🙊 https://twitter.com/... Francois Laberge / @seflless : People may have noticed this already in the Stratechery article on Roblox (see attached), but Apple allows Roblox an “App Store” in their iOS app and none of the games are reviewed by Apple. https://stratechery.com/... Not putting this on Roblox, but Apple cc @TimSweeneyEpic @dhh https://twitter.com/... David Frankel / @dafrankel : Two VC concepts that can be tough to grasp: 1. The exponential potential of small investments. 2. How long it takes for those investments to mature. Congrats to our friends at @firstround @chrisfralic @joshk for their uncommon vision and exceptional patience! https://twitter.com/... Trevor Loy / @trevorloy : This is a fascinating graph. Kudos @chrisfralic, @aplee, and everyone else involved in this “overnight success that took 13+ years.” https://twitter.com/... Eric Balchunas / @ericbalchunas : $RBLX up 55% and is the 5th most traded stock overall on Day One w/ $6b, which is about 5x what Zoom and Peleton traded altho nowhere near $20b+ of $BABA & $FB https://twitter.com/... Chris Fralic / @chrisfralic : I spent several years on the board. The company remained under the radar. When I'd mention Roblox, I'd usually get the response “ROAD BLOCKS?” Investors weren't fawning over them. Sometimes they made their numbers, other times they missed. Sometimes key hires didn't work out. Dominic Chu / @thedomino : Roblox opened for trading @ 132p ET, $64.50 per share, valuing $RBLX @ $35.5 billion...intraday high so far $73.25, low $60.50. Reference price was $45. https://www.cnbc.com/... (via @levynews @jbursz @CNBCtech @cnbc) Kellen Browning / @kellen_browning : Roblox's huge surge over the past year demonstrates how the pandemic has led to a financial bonanza in the gaming industry, which has seen a frenzy of acquisitions and startups getting funded at a record rate. https://www.nytimes.com/... Kellen Browning / @kellen_browning : Roblox, the massive online gaming platform popular among children, has just opened for trading ($RBLX) at $64.5 per share, valuing the company at $41.9 billion (!!!!) — up from $4 billion just over a year ago. https://www.nytimes.com/... Dan Primack / @danprimack : As noted in today's newsletter: More than 7% of Roblox is held by friends/family of CEO Dave Baszucki, most of whom he met as a kid in Minnesota (and who then helped seed the co), Including someone whose lawn he used to cut. @dhh : Great example of Apple's infinite contradictions with the App Store. Roblox is a game store and engine. It lives happily in the App Store, and thank heavens for that. Why can't Microsoft's Xbox streaming service do the same? **BECAUSE REASONS** https://twitter.com/... Bill Gurley / @bgurley : Huge shout-out to David for doing the right thing for his employees and shareholders by choosing to protect @Roblox from the free give-always from the broken IPO process. Let 'em be “30x oversubscribed” on someone else's business. https://twitter.com/... Dave Morgan / @davemorgannyc : In-game advertising is already part of the brick-and-mortar of @Roblox ... nascent, but enormous opportunity for brands to reach children and teens in engaged environment if they are smart and respectful about it ... @megancgraham https://www.cnbc.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Roblox entered the market after the NYSE set a $45 direct-listing reference price, while earlier coverage had framed its core differentiator as a creator-led game ecosystem in which more than 300 developers earned at least $100,000 in 2020. The first-day trading establishes a public valuation for that model rather than for a conventional studio slate.
The roughly $6 billion traded on day one and top-five trading rank show immediate market attention. That matters because Roblox operates an in-app game marketplace that Apple permits without reviewing each individual game.
First-order effects
- Roblox and its shareholders, including the friends and family who hold more than 7% of the company, now have a liquid public market price following the direct listing.
- The closing valuation gives Roblox a highly visible market benchmark for its creator-operated platform as investors begin pricing the company independently of its January funding round.
Second-order effects
- Roblox's creator ecosystem becomes more central to the public-company narrative: the developer-income model highlighted before the listing is now a metric investors can use to assess platform engagement and content supply.
- Apple's allowance for Roblox's in-app game marketplace becomes more commercially significant, because the public valuation is tied to a platform structure in which Roblox, rather than Apple, organizes individual games.
Third-order effects
- If public investors continue to reward creator-led game platforms, game-company value will be judged less by internally developed titles and more by the durability of creator incentives, marketplace rules, and social participation.
- The listing points toward greater scrutiny of the distribution arrangements that let a platform host a marketplace inside a mobile app, especially where platform take rates and review responsibilities are divided among Roblox, creators, and Apple.
The trend: Gaming is shifting toward creator-powered platforms whose marketplace economics and distribution privileges become as important to valuation as the games themselves.