00:00There is a lot to digest here and a lot about age verification, a lot about verifying the developers of
00:05the games too, Dave.
00:05Just talk us through what changes you make.
00:08Hey, thanks for having me on.
00:10And, you know, when we've talked in the past, we've shared our commitment to setting what we believe is the
00:16global gold standard for healthy, safe, age-appropriate digital engagement.
00:23We've been innovating on this for years and years.
00:25We started with AgeCheck in January for communication.
00:31What we're rolling out today is the next phase in that implementation of that global gold standard.
00:37That, of course, includes all the other things we've done in the past, including innovating on text filtering and non
00:43-sharing of images.
00:45So today we're announcing kids' accounts and select accounts.
00:49We use age estimation to automatically assign people to the right account, and we connect them with appropriate content.
00:59For kids' accounts, they get mild content, things like grow a garden.
01:04For our older users in select accounts, they get moderate content as well, things like emergency response.
01:11And users who are over 16, of course, get regular Roblox accounts.
01:16So this, for us, is just a continuous evolution in our commitment to this establishment of a global gold standard
01:24for safety and healthy digital engagement.
01:27Let's talk about the underlying technology.
01:28And as you iterate, it gets better and better.
01:31But age verification is very tough.
01:33How good has it been?
01:35How many people's age is it getting right?
01:37How many people push back or try to dispute?
01:39Yeah, we started experimenting with facial age estimation middle of last year, late of last year.
01:46We saw that it was more than good enough to estimate age.
01:52And in addition to that, we use additional signals.
01:55We're constantly incorporating other signals in addition to facial age estimation to put people in these right categories.
02:03It's enabled us to do a lot of future things that not really many other social networking or social media
02:10apps are doing.
02:11And that includes connecting people with people of the right age, not connecting older people with younger people when they're
02:19chatting.
02:19And with this new innovation today, of course, doubling down on connecting people with the right content.
02:26Dave, the balance is between sort of codifying, taking action on age verification, which you've done, and then the impact
02:33on engagement daily active users.
02:36What have you and the team modeled for on how you see daily active users and engagement responding to this
02:42new set of rules?
02:43Yeah, yeah, thank you for highlighting this.
02:46And I do want to highlight as we run this company, we're always leaning in on doing what we believe
02:52is the right thing for our huge community, almost 150 million daily active users, and respecting that community and building
03:02an innovative product with safety built in by default.
03:05We've seen 65% of our U.S. daily users now age check.
03:13That number continues to grow, and we're optimistic about it.
03:17So we have modeled this in.
03:19We have a lot of other things coming throughout the year as well.
03:22And we continue to focus on doing the right thing for our community.
03:28How much does whether a game is addictive or not factor into this, Dave?
03:34And as you know, the broader question is whether games, gaming platforms should be talked about in the same conversation
03:43as what we're seeing in social media bans around the world and the conversation on social media addiction.
03:50I want to speak out for the gaming industry as a whole relative to social networking and social media.
03:56There's something really important about multiplayer gaming and experience.
04:01It's a connection activity rather than a being alone activity.
04:07It's an activity that typically involves creation and imagination rather than raw consumption.
04:14So we see gaming very differently than social media and social networking.
04:20And in many respects, gaming is the future extension of what I used to do on a rainy day, which
04:26is call my friends on the phone and connect with them that way.
04:29So we're optimistic going forward.
04:32Gaming is very much in a different category.
04:35We build a platform so people can have fun and connect more than what you're mentioning.
04:43With a safer environment, not only comes, well, parents and children more willing to use, but probably advertisers even more
04:50willing to come on.
04:51And that's an area that you've been developing, and particularly a revenue share with ads that are going to be
04:56based within developers' games.
04:58How is that being taken on by the developers that you work with?
05:03And how are you thinking about the revenue share?
05:05What sort of amount are we thinking?
05:07Yeah, I want to highlight once again, we always put building a healthy, safe and age-appropriate environment first amongst
05:15everything.
05:16And once again, respecting that community.
05:19But as you correctly mentioned, in immersive 3D environments, if I go to a NASCAR race, for example, I may
05:27see some interesting products on the cars or on the billboards.
05:31And those are typically things that are appropriate for people of all ages.
05:35So we continue to build out that advertising opportunity on Roblox.
05:40In addition to those immersive types of ads, more and more of our creators are actually buying ads to help
05:47people recognize that they have a new creation.
05:51So we're still early in the advertising opportunity, but we believe it's very large.
05:56How large could the revenue split be?
05:59Have you got an idea of where that percentage will edge out on particular developers?
06:03We do have kind of internal models, and we're very optimistic that for creators building games and experiences on Roblox,
06:13they primarily monetize right now with virtual currency, with our Robux system.
06:19There are millions of creators on our platform, and a portion of them actually build creations that monetize.
06:26And we've shared how this vibrant community is really building a new place for people to work and to build
06:35small studios and beyond.
06:37Advertising is another complement for how they may monetize.
06:41Dave, I'm looking at your company's shares up almost 5% in the session.
06:45I'm trying to work out what the market's really responding to here.
06:48And Friday night, Roblox launched this new subscription plan.
06:51It goes live April 30th, I think, but it basically replaces the premium tier.
06:56There seems to be a lot of good vibes around that.
06:59What was the rationale, and how do you see it playing out?
07:04Well, more and more, we see two types of subscriptions on our platform.
07:08A large number of parents, you know, the future of what we see happening on Roblox.
07:14When I was younger, I got an allowance to go buy comic books at the local drugstore.
07:21Today, a lot of young people are learning about digital finance by getting a Roblox allowance from their parents.
07:29So we do have a subscription for Roblox, so parents can give their kids recurring Roblox, and they can learn
07:36about digital finance.
07:38In addition, we announced Roblox Plus, which is for those highly engaged users that want a discount on the Robux
07:47that they're spending,
07:48want free digital servers, and a few other things like that.
07:51It's a complement to the allowance.
07:53But more and more, Roblox is a place where young people are learning about digital finance.
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