development of roblox

The beta version of Roblox was created by co-founders David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004,[22][23] with the initial name of DynaBlocks.[24] Baszucki started testing the first demos that year.[25][23] The website became available for PCs in 2005,[26] when it was renamed Roblox – a portmanteau of the words "robots" and "blocks".[23] The website was officially launched in September 2006.[23][27]

In March 2007, Roblox became compliant with COPPA, with the addition of safe chat, a change that limited users under the age of thirteen to communicating by selecting predefined messages from a menu.[28] In August 2007, Roblox added Builders Club, a premium membership, and applied server improvements.[29]

In December 2011, Roblox held their first Hack Week, an annual event where Roblox developers work on innovative outside-the-box ideas for new developments to present to the company.[30][31]

On December 11, 2012, Roblox released an iOS version of the game platform.[32][33] In an interview with Massively, CEO David Baszucki stated he also wanted the game platform to be available on the digital stores of "Android, Windows, Steam, Mac, Chrome, [and] Amazon..."[34]

On October 1st, 2013, Roblox released the DevEx system, allowing developers to exchange Robux earned from their games into real world currency.[35][36]

On May 31, 2015, a feature named Smooth Terrain was added, increasing the graphical fidelity of the terrain and changing the physics engine from a block-oriented style to a smoother and more realistic style.[37] On November 20, 2015, Roblox was launched on Xbox One, with an initial selection of 15 games chosen by Roblox staff.[38][39] New Roblox games for this console will have to go through an approval process, and are subject to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board standards.[40][41]

In April 2016, Roblox launched Roblox VR for Oculus Rift. At the time of release, more than ten million games were available in 3-D.[42] Also by this time, Roblox had 30 million monthly active users, and a peak of 900,000 concurrent users.[43] Around the same time period, the safe chat feature was removed and replaced by a system based on a whitelist with a set of acceptable words for users under 13 years old and on a "black list" for other users.[44]

In June 2016, the company launched a version compatible with Windows 10. While the game platform has had a PC presence since 2004 with its web version, this is the first time it was upgraded with a standalone launcher built for Windows.[45] The following month, during an episode of The Next Level, it was announced that Roblox would be ported to the PlayStation 4.[46]