Roblox’s ninth annual Roblox Developers Conference (RDC) took place last month at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Every year, the event brings the most innovative creators from across the global Roblox community together to connect with one another and learn about the newest features and products. There were some exciting announcements made at this year’s event – below, we’ve highlighted our Top 4 for brands looking to get into the Roblox space.
AI Avatars
Creating realistic avatars using AI. The platform will soon have an AI that will automatically construct a customised avatar for each player based on their text-based prompts. The most thrilling aspect of this feature is that players can instruct the AI to create an avatar based on their appearance by sending a photo of themselves in the prompts bar – which means that the future of avatar creation could be as simple as snapping a selfie and uploading it to Roblox!
Roblox on Playstation
For those of you who love playing Roblox on your mobile device while owning a PlayStation, you’ll soon have the flexibility to switch between the two from October 10th when Roblox will be available on Playstation! Although Roblox is also available on PC and Xbox, not everyone has access to those platforms, making this an exciting development for fans of the gaming platform and providing parents with more visibility into their child’s Roblox experience.
During his keynote address at RDC, Roblox CEO David Baszucki dropped a hint about potential expansions to other platforms, with many speculating that Roblox is on the verge of arriving on Nintendo’s gaming hardware. It’s not certain, but we’re certainly keeping our fingers crossed for it!
Roblox Connect
Roblox is launching its own take on video chat called Roblox Connect. The feature, which is set to launch later this year, places you in virtual spaces and will allow you to chat with other people as your Roblox avatar while mimicking your real-life facial movements. Players will be able to capture their motion, communicate in real-time, use the gyroscope on their phones to move their avatars, and utilise a cinematic view to gain a broader perspective of them and their companion on the call.
Roblox CEO Baszucki said of the new feature: “It’s possible that in a very professional business situation, at some point, we’ll all choose photorealistic avatars on Roblox. And when we’re doing a business call, it will look like this office. But we’ll probably [see] a few other avatars, too, and younger people may lean more ‘cartoony’.”
As a business working in the games industry, we’re excited to see if Roblox Connect could replace the traditional video call platforms such as Google Meet or Zoom. It’ll certainly add an element of fun to our weekly meetings!
Safety First
As Roblox is a platform on the internet that appeals to a majority Gen Z and Gen Alpha audience, it’s crucial to have safeguards in place. Fortunately, Roblox is taking steps to enhance its safety measures by implementing machine learning (ML) technology capable of identifying policy violations in voice communication.
Additionally, the platform is gearing up to introduce BanningAPI, a tool designed to provide users with added security by allowing them to block interactions with undesired individuals. This functionality extends even to alternate accounts, as the new API possesses the capability to link these secondary accounts to specific users. This means that if you decide to block someone once, they won’t be able to sneak back into your friends list by disguising themselves behind a different account.
It’s safe to say that as always, RDC was an info-packed event with the roadmap for future updates and tech looking the strongest it has ever been. The Roblox product team is constantly adding new features to the list and more importantly, consistently delivering what they have set out to on time. As these tools are released, or as new tech is added to the roadmap we will continue to highlight the most interesting news and update you here. Please follow us to stay up to date!
Bronwen Ellis (she/her)
Studio Operations Manager @ Talewind
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