Roblox shutting down – is it happening or not? This wildly popular platform is curiously beset by rumours of its impending demise.
Roblox – the game built on the power of blocks and imagination – has gone through some strange times in the last couple of years. It’s a wildly popular platform for both playing and creating games, so what is with the rumours about Roblox shutting down?
The speculation surrounding Roblox shutting down has even taken on a viral life of its own, with the creators themselves periodically attempting to snuff out the rumours before they caught fire. What is the tagline of Roblox? You’d think it was ‘is Roblox shutting down?’
The shutdown rumour was apparently kicked off by a now-deleted post on React2424.com, a website whose tagline reads, “Write an article and prank your friends for fun” – not really a paragon of journalistic integrity. To be fair, they’re not even trying to be.
Still, the whispers about the apparently impending demise of Roblox crescendoed. So much so that Roblox tweeted about it back in January.
Let’s set things straight: Roblox isn’t “shutting down.” The same hoax (with a few details changed) goes around every year or two.
Remember: don’t believe everything y’all read on the internet! 😆
— Roblox (@Roblox) January 14, 2020
Case closed? Not really. A group with more than 10,000 members has emerged with a mission to stop Roblox shutting down—even though the company itself said that it wasn’t going to happen. In the end, this phenomenon probably says more about the nature of rumours on the internet than Roblox itself.
In the meantime, Roblox continues to grow and was recently valued as a multi-billion dollar company. This makes the insistence that the party is all going to come to an end all the more baffling. But until the next wave of hysteria comes—which, judging by recent history, is inevitable—we’ll wait with bated breath.
FAST FORWARD TO 2021
Lending further credence to the fact that Roblox is indeed not shutting down, the company had a very profitable year in 2020, despite the chaos of the Coronavirus pandemic. The restrictions on travelling and people gathering, in general, has understandably caused havoc for the games industry, with many titles having to be delayed.
Yet the Roblox juggernaut goes from strength to strength. According to a report from the BBC, its revenue had increased by 91% in the pandemic year. Guess kids need to be doing something while they’re in lockdown. Further to revenue increase, Roblox raised a further USD $520M, in private capital, valuing the company at USD $29.5 bn.
