Just as they do in the physical world, goods, services, and entertainment power a thriving economy on Roblox. Our Economy Group develops the infrastructure that makes this possible; their vision is to create a vibrant, virtual economy that mirrors the real world.

“As a company, our goal is to have over a billion people on the platform. That ways that a lot of what happens in daily life needs to be possible on Roblox,” says Antoni Choudhuri, who recently took on the role of Head of Engineering for the Economy Group. “And a big part of that daily life includes the economic factors which exist in the real world.”

So what do those factors squint like on the platform—and what are the opportunities they enable? For Antoni, questions of how the Roblox economy will scale with the platform and how it will grow to serve the needs of the polity are intertwined. “We have a few cadre areas we are currently focusing on in the Economy Group: Marketplace, Advertising, Developer Monetization, and Payments & Fraud. Between these teams, Economy is responsible for powering a healthy economic ecosystem that supports commerce of UGC and enables some top-performing members of the creator polity to build thriving businesses on Roblox.”

To learn increasingly well-nigh the team overdue the tech, we spoke to four other members of the Economy Group: Product Manager Alex Amorati, Technical Lead Shweta Sharma, Senior Product Manager Shu-min Wee, and Senior Software Engineer Noah Crowley.

The Technical Challenges Overdue Towers a Thriving, Virtual Economy

To bring a thriving virtual economy to life requires tackling many tightly technical challenges. The team has been addressing several of these challenges already, ranging from innovations like towers technology to indulge UGC item scarcity (i.e. limited items & collectibles), to enabling Immersive Ads in experiences. Now they’re looking to modernize Roblox’s payments system to support greater scale.

Taking on these technical challenges starts with ”building empathy with the creator community,” equal to Product Manager Alex Amorati. As users buy and spend Robux, our creators can mart Robux for fiat currency, as in earnings, or can protract to reinvest in the platform. In 2022, well-nigh $624M was paid out to over 8,800 developers and creators who exchanged their earned Robux for real-world currency through our Developer Mart Program.

Alex Amorati speaks at Roblox Developers Conference ’22

There’s moreover a need to think well-nigh how to ensure the system is unchangingly misogynist and reliable as it scales. Millions of transactions move through our systems every day. “We are constantly testing the limits and boundaries. Whether it’s scaling on the infrastructure side or on the using layer, we are designing a system that can handle the scale,” says Shweta. “We have to think well-nigh fault tolerance, at each level, so that if something goes wrong, we have a contingency plan.”

Reliability is moreover hair-trigger when towers UGC item scarcity (i.e., when virtual items are made artificially limited). “When you’re trying to handle transactions and people’s very money, you have to make sure everything goes right. As we work on UGC limited and collectibles, that is one of the key things we have to contend with from a technical perspective,” says Noah.

Highlighting the culture of innovation in the Economy Group

This team’s work impacts not only Roblox, but moreover the creator community. “Building a system that is going to work for our polity is a key motivator for everyone to do their weightier work,” shares Antoni. “Shared responsibility, collaboration, and taking the long view are moreover aspects of the Economy Group’s culture that pushes the team to think outside of the box and come up with innovative solutions.”

Impact of work creates shared responsibility

Roblox measures its GDP using the same criteria and definitions used to measure those of unshortened nations. For reference, Roblox’s economy is currently well-nigh the same size as that of a small country. Roblox is powering a real economy, with real money and substantial real-world impact. This has created a shared sense of responsibility that is felt wideness the team.

For Noah, the potential for his work to impact the lives of this polity motivates him to do his weightier work. “I’m most proud of whenever I’m worldly-wise to well-wisher on behalf of our polity to make sure that they’re constantly front and center. Everything we do is going to stupefy them increasingly than anything.”

As a leader within the Economy Group, Shu-min says, “I like to remind people of the value of the work and how much it truly matters.”

Knowledge sharing accelerates progress

Over the ten years that Antoni has worked at Roblox, he has spent time in several roles wideness a number of variegated teams. As a newer leader in the Economy Group, he leaned on the expertise and knowledge of the team to help him quickly ramp up and navigate his new role. “There were a tuft of industry standard acronyms that were stuff used virtually razzmatazz and finances of the company. I knew some of them, but not all. I was really impressed with the expert knowledge that everyone had in the organization. Everyone knew so many details ranging from how the merchantry ran to our gross and net profit margins. It was quite impressive. Sharing that knowledge helped me get up to speed fast.”

Antoni Choudhuri chats with teammates outside of our San Mateo office

Sharing expertise from various members of the team has wilt a key mechanism for how the team works and collaborates. “What the Economy Group does really well is learn from each other,” says Shweta. “Even though we’re fairly large, we unchangingly prioritize knowledge sharing wideness the unshortened group to slide ideation and solutions.”

As Shweta began exploring towers out virtual subscriptions, one of the challenges that unfurled to come up was how to build the infrastructure so that it could scale effectively. To find the right guidance, she reached out to the Virtual Purchasing Team, who had recently overcome the same challenge. “I approached them, shared what we were looking for and asked them to share their experiences managing scale, what technologies they used. That information put my team on the right path. I’m grateful that we have a very collaborative environment.”

Taking the long view

From immersive razzmatazz to innovations in limited-quantity virtual items to the modernization of a payment solution employed by a vast polity of professionals and creators, many of the technologies that the Economy Group builds are on the wearing whet of the industry. That’s why taking the long view is critical.

“In typical Roblox style, we unchangingly operate with a long-term goal in mind, but start with the smallest of steps that move you in the right direction,” shares Shu-min. One recent example from her team: “Last year, we took our legacy payment system and moved to one that unliable for a increasingly seamless user experience. As we protract to roll out new features and ways for developers to monetize, we’ll be worldly-wise to build on top of this system and enable plane increasingly types of commerce.”

“What we superintendency well-nigh is that we’re solving the right problems for our community, our users, our creators, and ourselves,” says Antoni. “There might be a short-term win, but a long-term headwind. I think the Economy Group strikes the right wastefulness between long-term strategic thinking and innovation with tactical testing.”

Join the team towers the virtual economy on Roblox

The Economy Group serves as an engine helping to power Roblox’s megacosm loop: creators make engaging experiences, earn and reinvest in their experiences, go onto create plane increasingly engaging experiences, and thereby ensure greater engagement and earnings.

“Every time we work on a new feature, we have an idea of how it will be used,” says Noah. “We get excited thinking well-nigh how our polity will build their own merchantry on our platform using what we’re building. And then, without fail, they end up doing way increasingly than whatever we had thought of. The polity is what continues to alimony me here for sure.”

“The growth potential for Roblox and the creator polity through this flywheel is super exciting,” says Shu-min. “When I first heard well-nigh what was going on in Economy I knew I wanted to be a part of it and thought to myself, ‘sign me up!’”

Want to learn increasingly well-nigh what the Economy Group is working on? Tune in to the latest Roblox Tech Talks Podcast to listen to a conversation between VP of Product for Economy Enrico D’Angelo and CEO Dave Baszucki on their vision for the Roblox economy.

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