The 2020 program had more women participants than ever, for example, with 12 in a class of 50. But as we’ve watched the program evolve, we’ve been getting so many new interesting teams,” notes Program Manager Christian Hunter. “I would say, in the beginning, it was mostly young males. The demographics of the accelerator have been shifting in other ways as the developer base grows more diverse. And for us, the decision to choose Roblox was more down to like, well it’s what we know, why not give it a bash?” “But we only started developing on the platform in 2019. “We all joined Roblox way back in 2008,” IndieBox’s Frank Garrison says. IndieBox is representative of many of Roblox’s early developer teams - younger gamers that have spent more than a decade learning the ins and outs of the evolving Roblox gaming platform. “We’ve actually never once met in real life, like, we’ve been friends for going on, what, nine years now,” Michael Southern tells TechCrunch. and Kentucky spent their time during the accelerator scaling up their photorealistic title called Tank Warfare. The developers at IndieBox Studios saw the program as a chance to double down on their game development side hustles. The promise and challenge of Roblox’s future in China The 2020 program saw Roblox receiving the largest number of applications ever - five times the usual number.Īs a result, the class included participants from five countries: The Philippines, South Korea, Sweden, Canada and the U.S. Instead of limiting the program to only those who could travel to San Mateo and stay for three months, the program was opened up to a more global and diverse audience. Participants had weekly standups, talks on topics like game design and production, and weekly feedback sessions where they asked Roblox engineers questions.īut by its nature, a remote Accelerator broadened who could attend. The actual Accelerator content, however, remained fairly consistent during the remote experience. Meanwhile, to get to know one another when they couldn’t meet in person, developers would have game nights where they’d play each other’s games or others that were popular on Roblox, and bond within the virtual environment instead of in face-to-face meetings and classes. They could also participate in the Roblox company Slack to ask the team questions, and there were more playtests being scheduled to gain reactions and feedback from Roblox employees. Developers could join the program’s Discord server to talk to both current participants and previous classes, and reach out and ask questions. The remote program, though differently structured, offered several benefits. Instead of being able to invite developers to spend three months participating in classes hosted at Roblox’s San Mateo office, the company had to revamp the program for remote participation.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic threw into disarray the company’s plans to run the program. Having been through the experience himself, Hunter brought to the program an understanding of how the Accelerator could improve, based on a developer’s own perspective.
ROBLOX HOME 2015 FULL
That means more than 100 developers per year are working directly with Roblox to gain mentorship, education and funding opportunities to get their games off the ground.Īs the company’s efforts on this front have grown more formalized, Roblox in 2018 hired former Accelerator alumni Christian Hunter, a Roblox gamer since age 10 and game developer since 13, to run the program full time.
Over the years, the program has expanded from one annual class to now three, each with around 40 developers participating. Since 2015, Roblox has been running an accelerator program focused on enabling the next generation of game developers to be successful on its platform. As Roblox eyes what could be a historic debut on public markets in the coming months, investors who have valued the company at $29.5 billion are certainly eyeing the gaming company’s dedicated and youthful user base - but it’s the 7 million active creators and developers on the Roblox platform that they are likely most impressed by.
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