🐂 RBLX — Company Profile (Educational)¶
Educational site, not investment advice. Market cap / stock price / quarterly financials are volatile — not written here. Links to SEC + Yahoo Finance instead; verify real-time data yourself.
📌 Basics¶
| Dimension | Content | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Core business | Roblox UGC gaming / metaverse platform (players create games + play games + virtual currency Robux) + AI tools (Roblox Studio AI assist) | SEC 10-K |
| Founded / HQ | 2004 (launched 2006) / San Mateo, California, USA | wiki |
| CEO | David Baszucki (founder + CEO, since 2004) | DEF 14A |
| Primary listing | NYSE: RBLX (direct listing 2021/03) | — |
| Fiscal year | Calendar year (Jan 1 – Dec 31) | — |
💡 Real-time market cap / stock price / DAU / Bookings / Hours engaged / creator payouts: see SEC + IR links below
🏭 Industry Chain Coordinates (Part 1-C6 framework)¶
Upstream (Who RBLX depends on)¶
| Supplier | What flows | Key dependency |
|---|---|---|
| Creators (~millions of devs + tens of millions of UGC creators) | Platform games / content (RBLX is UGC platform, all content from creators) | Core asset, but platform takes 25-70% |
AAPL App Store + GOOGL Play |
Mobile distribution (RBLX primarily mobile) | 30% platform fee — high bargaining adversary |
AMZN AWS + own data centers |
Cloud infrastructure | Multi-supplier |
| AI / NVDA GPU (foundation model + Studio AI tools) | AI recommendation / content gen / moderation | Multi-supplier |
Downstream (Who depends on RBLX)¶
| Customer | Relationship | Customer concentration |
|---|---|---|
| Global DAU (~80-90M+ scale, primarily <17 + growing 17+ users) | B2C free + Robux purchases | Extremely fragmented |
| Brand advertisers (immersive 3D ads) | Ad platform (new business, growing) | Fragmented |
| Creators (economic incentive reverse-pays creators) | B2B platform share (creator income ~$700M+/yr level) | Fragmented creators |
Competitors¶
- UGC + metaverse:
EPICFortnite (Creative + Unreal Engine for Fortnite) ·MSFTMinecraft (post-MSFT acquisition) ·META(Horizon Worlds, declining) ·Sandbox / Decentraland(Web3, low activity) - Traditional game publishers:
EA(Electronic Arts) ·TTWO(Take-Two, GTA / NBA 2K) ·MSFTXbox (post-ATVI) ·SONYPlayStation ·NTDOYNintendo - AI content gen (emerging):
MSFTCopilot Studio /OPENAIGPT Store /Replit
💼 Business Model + Value Capture (Part 1-C7 lens)¶
- Revenue mix: Robux purchases ~95% (primarily mobile + console + PC) / Ads (new business) ~3-5% / Other ~1-2%
- Gross margin: 75%+ platform gross, but after creator + platform fee (AAPL/GOOGL 30%), net margin still ~loss / breakeven
- Pricing power: Robux purchase price relatively stable; platform take 25-75%, rest goes to creators
- Substitution difficulty: Medium - High — UGC ecosystem + creator network effects hard to replicate (Fortnite Creative is main threat), but AAPL ATT / platform policy risk high
(Quarterly DAU / Bookings / Hours engaged / creator payouts: see latest 10-Q)
🏰 Moat Assessment (Part 3-C2 Buffett 5-step lens)¶
| Type | Strength (0-1) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | 0.7 | "Roblox" strong brand in children + teens |
| Switching cost | 0.5 | Friends + inventory (virtual items / Robux) + creator content stickiness |
| Network effects | 0.8 | UGC two-sided network (creator + player), YouTube-like |
| Scale + cost | 0.6 | Global scale amortizes infrastructure, but creator payouts + platform fees don't scale-amortize |
Composite: 2.6 / 4 → Strong UGC network effects moat, but mobile platform fee + AAPL ATT structural threat
⚠️ Key Reverse Trigger Conditions (Part 3-C5 anti-thesis lens)¶
- Trigger 1 (quarterly): DAU YoY < 15% (vs historical 20%+, saturation signal)
- Trigger 2 (quarterly): Hours engaged YoY decline (stickiness decline)
- Trigger 3 (quarterly): 17+ user growth < total platform growth (age expansion stuck)
- Trigger 4 (event): AAPL / GOOGL further tighten IAP policy or UGC platform rules, RBLX impacted
- Trigger 5 (strategic): Content moderation / child safety regulation (PEGI / FTC / various global regulators; RBLX is < 17 dominant, regulatory fragile)
🔗 Cross-Chapter Teaching Links¶
- Part 1-C6 · 5 Roles in Industry Chain — Downstream D.5 social + UGC + gaming
- Part 1-C7 · Value Capture — UGC platform economics + two-sided monetization
- Patterns Investing Laws — #4 platform moat · #1 network effects · #14 platform policy risk (AAPL/GOOGL)
📚 SEC Primary Public Filings (look it up yourself)¶
- SEC EDGAR RBLX all filings — 10-K / 10-Q / 8-K / DEF 14A full history
- Investor Relations page — earnings calendar + monthly KPI metrics
- Latest 10-K search — full annual financials + DAU + risk factors
Real-time stock price: Yahoo Finance RBLX
Educational — numbers shift; learn the method, not the figures · investment decisions based on your own research + risk tolerance