We’ve got a bunch of Roblox news on deck today. First, there’s the Q2 2021 investor report. Readers will remember that in Q1, the company behind the game had just gone public and was just issuing its first earnings report, which was eye-opening, as it reported gross revenues of $387M but net losses of $134.2M. This quarter, the company hauled in $454.1M in gross revenues and a net loss of $140M. That’s… concerning, but once again, the company is reporting to stockholders that its engagement and daily active users are at their highest ever, which caused analysts to bump up their predictions for the stock.
Second, the company has acquired Guilded, which is a chat company we’ve covered that raised $7M from investors in 2020.
And finally, we come to the “this is why we can’t have nice things” portion of our report, as The Verge has a piece up on how Roblox players are using the game to construct re-enactments of scenes of mass murder, including the Christchurch shooting in 2019. Roblox says it has no tolerance for maps like that, but one Anti-Defamation League researcher keeps finding examples that have somehow made it through the moderation.
I swear to God, I would like one time to search for "Christchurch" on Roblox and not find a new recreation of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting on a game platform aimed at very young children. https://t.co/SovJq00knY pic.twitter.com/0BvRtGYZHE
— Daniel Kelley (@danieljkelley) August 13, 2021
