Roblox bookings fall 12% and daily players drop 9% after age checks

Roblox has reported its first year-on-year drop in players since its 2025 boom. In its third-quarter 2026 shareholder letter, published on 29 October, the company said bookings, the money players spend on Robux, fell 12% to $1.7 billion, and daily active users (DAUs) fell 9% to 138 million. Hours spent on the platform dropped 15% to nearly 34 billion. Bloomberg reported that the shares fell more than 16% in after-hours trading.

A tough comparison, and stricter safety

Roblox frames the decline as lapping the "extraordinary growth" of 2025. It notes that bookings came in above the top of its own guidance, rose more than 50% over two years, and that DAUs grew 12% from the second quarter. Revenue, which Roblox recognises over many months, still rose 16% to $1.6 billion.

The quarter also shows how far its age checks have gone. By the end of September, 64% of global daily users had completed an age check, including more than 80% of users aged 13 to 17. In Australia the share reached 80%, and in the US and UK 75%. Among users who had checked their age, 34% were under 13, 37% were 13–17 and 29% were adults. Bloomberg linked the weaker engagement to these child-safety measures, which limit who younger players can chat with.

AI-made games and adult players

Roblox spends much of the letter on AI. It says more than 80% of the top 100 games used AI tools in the past month, and its prompt-to-game tool Build has been used by more than 500,000 people, who have published over 70,000 games during an alpha test in a few countries. Two games made almost entirely with AI broke into the platform's top 20.

The company also outlined "Roblox Everywhere", which would let creators publish standalone games to other app stores starting with select titles in the first half of 2027, and "The Universal Player", an AI-powered plan to bring existing console, PC and mobile games onto Roblox.

Outlook

For the fourth quarter Roblox expects bookings to fall 10–15% year on year, with revenue up 4–12%. Parents weighing which platforms are safe for kids may find stricter age checks reassuring. For other gaming news from this earnings season, see the Xbox hardware revenue drop, and if you play on lots of devices, our explainer on cloud gaming covers how streaming games works.