Building blox

Booting Up. The first week of the NFL wraps up later tonight when the Buffalo Bills meet the New York Jets. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the intersection of sports and gaming in the form of fantasy sports has been booming. The fantasy sports market is worth $27B today and is expected to grow at 13% for the next five years.

Let’s see how Josh Allen performs tonight to see if the Madden Curse lives on.

— Derek Neville, Jason Liu

HEADLINES

Roblox making moves. This past weekend Roblox held their Roblox Developers Conference. The platform, which claims over 65 million daily users, had some big announcements at the invite-only event. Here is a look at some of the highlights:

• Coming to PlayStation. Come October, Roblox will be fully available on both the PS4 and PS5. The company promised “the full catalog of Roblox experiences.” The company also announced updates to the Meta Quest app (currently in open beta) and Xbox App.

• AI chatbot. Roblox announced a new AI assistant that will help creators develop experiences within the platform. Creators will be able to type in prompts such as “I want to make a game set in ancient ruins” and the assistant will grab assets from the Roblox marketplace or your own asset library.

• Video chatting. Roblox will launch its own “video chatting” later this year called Roblox Connect. Roblox Connect will allow your avatar to mimic your real-time facial features while you chat with another user’s avatar in a shared space.

• Revenue share changes. Starting next year creators who sell on the Creator Marketplace will get to keep all of their revenue after taxes and fees. Currently, creators who sell on the Creator Marketplace get a 70% cut. The Creator Marketplace allows creators to sell plug-ins and 3D assets to other creators for use in their experiences.

• Company’s 10 predictions. Roblox shared its 10 predictions for the next five years, ranging from “A Fortune 500 company will use a Roblox experience as part of their recruiting process” to “For 17+ verified people in 17+ experiences: Thousands of adults will meet for the first time in Roblox dating experiences and subsequently form real-life relationships.” The company aims to hit 60-70% of their predictions, and shared they hit 58% of their predictions set 5 years ago.

HUD

• ✍️ Bethesda confirms official modding tools are coming to Starfield in 2024.

• 🛋 Do we need a resurgence in couch co-op titles? Diablo IV and Baldur’s Gate 3 seem to think so.

• 🍾 Fortnite boss Donald Mustard is retiring after 7 years as the Chief Creative Officer of Fortnite and 25 years overall in the industry.

• ❤️‍🩹 Solo developer pulls Twitch hit Only Up! from Steam to find personal healing.

MAJOR W

• 🚫 Overwatch 2 banned 250,000 accounts for cheating and malicious accounts.

• 🛠️ Starfield mod replaces all cops with Stormtroopers.

• 🚓 A Japanese YouTuber was sentenced to 2 years in prison for uploading copyrighted game clips that included spoilers.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🏴‍☠️ AC Black flag’s removal from the Steam store was interpreted by fans as a remake’s impending release — it was just an error.

• 🚒 A multi-floor fire hit the Prague office of Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World. Luckily nobody was hurt.

• 👮 A Roblox developer was arrested outside of the Roblox Developers Conference on 4 firearms-related charges.

CAREER CORNER

• Director, Product Management (NHL, UFC) — EA (Vancouver)

• Game Operations Manager — Tencent (Los Angeles)

• Sr. BizOps Manager (Destiny 2) — Bungie (US - remote)

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