After I spoke to Roblox in 2020, the corporate was within the midst of rebuilding its whole underlying infrastructure. It had been operating into points with downtime as a result of inadequate assets to satisfy demand and wanted to construct a contemporary, cloud-native system to deal with its rising consumer base.
However past the nuts and bolts of that system rebuild, Roblox had some concepts for his or her developer customers as properly. The gaming platform was additionally its developer instrument set and the way it might put together for a world the place the venerable net browser was not its foremost supply mechanism.
Roblox goals to democratize sport growth, letting its customers construct video games no matter their technical ability. You would be a 10-year-old in Peoria or a staff {of professional} sport builders in Tokyo — no matter your ability degree or motivation, the concept is to offer a platform the place folks can construct video games.
However the firm believes that the Roblox platform might have extra makes use of and is constructing a brand new strategy to accommodate the required flexibility whereas maintaining it straightforward to make use of. By hiding the underlying complexity from much less skilled builders and constructing a versatile new system for extra technical customers, Roblox is trying to transfer past video games into different experiences like digital concert events, commerce and extra inventive approaches.
“We glance in some methods like a really specialised cloud supplier, and our neighborhood is available in and builds all these things on prime of it.” Dan Sturman, CTO, Roblox
We lately caught up with Roblox CTO Dan Sturman to get an inside have a look at how this undertaking is coming collectively, the challenges of constructing a tech stack for the lots and the corporate’s foray into digital forex.
Rethinking the instrument set
Whereas the phrases “web3” and “metaverse” get tossed round very often today, particularly when speaking a couple of social gaming platform with a monetization engine, Roblox desires to keep away from the jargon. As an alternative, the corporate desires to construct a versatile platform that strikes content material seamlessly throughout gadget varieties, whether or not it’s telephones, headsets or desktop computer systems.
“Metaverse is a time period that’s been blown up and overused and it’s non-specific. However I have a tendency to return to those two core parts: 3D and social. There’s so many fascinating issues you are able to do when it’s a 3D atmosphere. It’s inside a collaborative kind of mode with some group of individuals — your mates, your colleagues, folks with the identical pursuits, no matter that’s. These two coming collectively, I believe, have a ton of energy behind it,” he stated.