• The Hunt: First Edition attracted 34 million users who spent 128 million hours completing 212 million quests. 
• 100 creator teams built new quests showcasing a diverse range of experiences.
• Our users and creators provided valuable insights that will make future community-wide events even better.

For two great weeks last month, 34 million Roblox users tackled brand-new quests across 100 of our creator experiences as part of The Hunt: First Edition, our first community-wide event in three years. It was a success based on many metrics, including the 212 million quests our users completed and the 800,000 users gathered for the start of the event. The extensive engagement we saw from users and creators makes us excited about the future of community-wide events on Roblox. And, the invaluable insights we collected will help us plan them going forward. 

We designed the Hunt: First Edition, which ran from March 15 on mobile, PC, console, and VR, with something for everyone. Users interested in dipping their toes into participating could earn a reward after just five quests. Those eager for exclusive and rare rewards completed even more quests. And the most intrepid explorers earned the coveted Infinite Egg — a nod to the beloved egg hunts we’ve run in the past on Roblox — after completing at least 95 quests.

Here are some of the biggest highlights from the two weeks of The Hunt: First Edition:

• 100 of our top experiences had brand-new quests, including Doors by LSPLASH, Arsenal by ROLVe, Piggy by MiniToon, and Catalog Avatar Creator by ItsMuneeeb. 
• Video Star influencers put together incredible livestreams, never-before-seen collaborations, and a ton of hype content throughout the event. That included handing out Hunt-exclusive gold Vault Headphones to users who joined them in the event hub. 
• We were excited to see so much fan-made content emerge. For example, users created guides on the hardest and easiest quests to complete, as well as tips and tricks on how to beat quests.

The Hunt: First Edition is the latest example of what’s possible when our creators and users come together. Many in our community have great memories of popular hunts in the past like Metaverse Champions in 2021. 

That was especially powerful in showcasing and driving discovery of our creators’ fantastic experiences. Since then, we’ve listened to and heard our community’s feedback that events like this are important for them. “It’s awesome to see an official event back on the platform,” said MegaSquadMo, one of our Video Star members. “The effort some games put in was amazing. Watching the community come together to help each other complete badge quests and unlock avatar items was really cool after such a long break. Hoping this sets the stage for even better events in the future!”

So think of The Hunt: First Edition as a lightweight re-entry into community-wide events. In the coming months and years, we’ll continue our new series and explore fresh themes and ideas that will rev up our community.

Looking Into the Future

We learned a ton from The Hunt: First Edition and we’re already thinking about how to apply those lessons to future events. Throughout the process, our community provided valuable feedback on what energized them and the iterations they’d like to see in future community events. Among the insights that will help us plan great future community events: 

• Users loved trying out a broad range of new experiences.
• They appreciated the nod to past events, including the Infinite Egg, for those who completed 95 quests.
• Getting our creator and influencer communities involved in advance helped get them excited and, in turn, to reach out to their players and audiences. That drove more engagement. 
• We’ll work closely with creators in the future to define best practices for events like these.

But there’s still more to learn from last month’s hunt. That’s why Roblox founder and CEO, David Baszucki, will invite a user who heavily participated in the Hunt and the creator team behind one of the quests for The Hunt: First Edition to our headquarters in San Mateo, California to provide feedback. There, they’ll have dinner and put their heads together at a product planning brainstorming session based on their experiences during last month’s event.

We love that Roblox is driven by our community’s amazing creativity. The Hunt: First Edition was a great example of where our creators can take our platform when we empower them to take the lead. “We saw amazing engagement across several of our games, sometimes from players who haven’t played in years,” said alertcoderf, CEO of Twin Atlas. “It was a great opportunity to show them everything that’s changed since they last played!” 

We’re now working on new tools to help our creators hold their own events tied to major moments they want to share with their audiences. In the meantime, we will continue learning from our ever-evolving community, and we can’t wait for the next iteration of The Hunt. So stay tuned!

The post The Hunt: First Edition and How It’s Helping Us Plan for Future Roblox-wide Events appeared first on Roblox Blog.

At Roblox, our vision is to reimagine how people come together to play, work, and connect. We are building an immersive platform for communication and connection where 71.5 million users* in 190 countries spend 2.4 hours playing games and sharing experiences every day.

We want to empower any developer or creator to make anything anywhere on our platform, and at this week’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, we showcased many of the ways we help people create, scale, and monetize.

We unveiled two new AI tools that can significantly speed up creating on Roblox. In addition, we announced the evolution of our Creator Fund (previously known as Game Fund). As before, it focuses on funding next-level experiences with innovative gameplay, ambitious visual designs, and original ideas. And we’re also excited to expand the types of content in the program. That means we’ll be bringing beloved off-platform IP to Roblox, including Paramount’s iconic Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as content beyond games, like Neura Studios’ brand-new release, Clip It.

Roblox and members of our creator community also hosted sessions on topics ranging from doing business on Roblox to generative AI to the differences between free-to-play mobile creation and creating on Roblox. We want to thank the Roblox creators who shared their expertise onstage: @badcc, @Andybloxstar, @Erythia​, @Coffeenerd​, @CDDevelopment, @EncodedLua, @Toya_Studio, and more.

Here’s a deeper look at everything we presented this week that we’re confident will help enable more creators than ever to achieve their goals on Roblox. 

Create

One of the most important things we do for Roblox creators is develop tools and technologies that make creating 3D content easier and faster. So this week at GDC, we announced two new AI tools — Avatar Auto Setup and Texture Generator — that do just that.

With Avatar Auto Setup, it will be simpler than ever to create an avatar by quickly and automatically converting a 3D model into a fully animated avatar that people can use right away. This industry-leading tool also provides the ability to add facial animation to avatars and can cut the time it takes to set up an avatar from days to minutes.

With Texture Generator, creators will be able to use text prompts to quickly change and customize how 3D objects look. The textures the tool produces automatically conform to the shape of objects, significantly reducing the work required to bring an object to life.

Texture Generator (Before and After)

These are the latest examples of tools that can help creators proceed faster from an idea to reality in Roblox Studio. This free, advanced 3D development software makes it simple for almost anyone to create anything they can imagine on Roblox. Built on our platform’s multiplayer, real-world simulation engine, it provides creators with out-of-the-box access to advanced physics, our growing suite of innovative AI solutions, aerodynamics, and so much more.

Scale

At GDC, we delved into how creators on Roblox do best when they have access to transparent data showing how their experiences are performing and where there’s room to grow. We’ve been building out our robust analytics suite, which gives creators actionable performance insights, allowing them to adjust their content strategies to reflect how their experiences are doing. And they can rapidly iterate based on those insights by publishing updates in seconds, anytime they want, to mobile, desktop, console, and VR simultaneously.

We also explored our principles and plans for Discovery on Roblox, which helps connect creators with their ideal audiences and encourages them to continue improving their creations. At scale, that provides a greater diversity of terrific content for our users, connecting them with the creations and communities that best match their interests. 

Roblox features an algorithm that continuously refreshes the creations and updates users see. It’s part of a healthy discovery system built on network effects, engagement, and monetization that allows creators to maximize their reach with our global audience.

One great example is Gunflight Studio’s Gunfight Arena, which Roblox users have visited more than 228 million times since it launched last October. The team iterated on it quickly, and was able to frequently test its changes to achieve their business goals and to improve its discoverability. And by optimizing for performance, they made Gunfight Arena the most popular first-person shooter on Roblox. 

Monetize

Creators of all sizes, from individuals to large studios, are demonstrating the many ways anyone can create and monetize their work on Roblox. In 2023, our more than 25 million creators collectively earned $741 million, up 19 percent year over year, and we’re always looking to give them more opportunities to succeed. When they do, our entire ecosystem does too. So our goal is to empower all creators with a wide range of ways to earn money on Roblox, including in-experience purchases, immersive ads, and selling avatar items or creator plugins. 

We want to thank everyone who came out to see us at GDC. To learn more about what Roblox offers creators, please visit our Creator Hub page. We’re excited to see how our creator community grows and thrives in the months and years to come.

* As of Q4 2023.

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