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Roblox isn’t a “game” in the conventional sense: It’s a platform, one that hosts over 40M user-generated worlds known as “experiences”. Roblox is an example of the metaverse, where people meet inside a virtual world for a range of experiences like virtual concerts. This social focus is perfectly suited for transferral onto live-streaming platforms.
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One such collaboration emerged in the past couple of months, when the Roblox Dress To Impress experience became a hit among mega-popular streamers. In a throwback to early 2000’s browser-based dress-up games like My Scene, Dress To Impress allows players to design and showcase their own outfits before modeling them for friends to be judged. The game is at once cooperative and competitive, fitting perfectly into the emerging “co-opetitive” genre on Roblox.
In this article, we’re looking at how the popularity of Dress To Impress caused Roblox viewership to reach new heights and why this game has connected with both streamers and their viewers alike.
Viewership for Roblox over the past year had been holding steady at around 8-9M hours watched per month. But in July, monthly viewership for Roblox shot up to a peak of 18.4M hours watched – easily double that of recent months and the game’s second-highest monthly live streaming viewership, ever. Across this entire period, YouTube consistently outperformed Twitch, with 61.9% of all viewership in July alone. Viewership kept rising from here, hitting a monthly viewership of 19.4M hours watched in August.
While these viewing numbers are strong, they don’t nearly match up to Roblox’s massive player base. For Q2 2024, Roblox was the 38th most watched “game” on live-streaming platforms with 36.3M hours watched. But the top 12 games all hit above 100M hours watched, and even Minecraft – a similarly creative sandbox experience – hit 6th position with 177M hours watched.
A couple of factors might explain the disconnect between Roblox’s massive player base and its popularity on Twitch. Firstly, 41% of Roblox users are under the age of 14 while Twitch requires users to be at least 13 years old (hence why most Roblox content is on YouTube). Secondly, Roblox is F2P and is a platform in and of itself. Users may feel that instead of watching streamers engage with experiences, they could simply jump on the platform and start playing.
This second point is backed up by Roblox’s in-platform community events, like this year’s “The Hunt: First Edition”. The Hunt was a cross-experience event hosted on Roblox that challenged players to participate in around 100 experiences in return for in-game rewards. This exchange of engagement for in-game loot is similar to Twitch Drops events in that it rallies the community together. Given this similarity, it’s no surprise that Roblox users drove live-streaming viewership up to 36.3M hours watched in Q2 2024 – a 43.1% jump from the previous quarter.
YouTube remains the go-to platform for Roblox viewers and streamers alike. The two most popular Roblox streamers by hours watched over the past 13 months are both YouTube streamers: KreekCraft and WindPress with 8.2M and 3.6M hours watched, respectively. This is a dramatic drop in viewership from first to second place of 4.6M hours watched, demonstrating how dominant KreekCraft is in the space. KreekCraft has built a loyal fanbase with his consistently energetic personality and audience-focused content, such as Robux giveaways and allowing fans to choose his content.
Looking at Twitch streamers, they are typically more casual Roblox fans who stream Roblox content for a few dozen hours annually. Caseoh_ is the best example, having streamed only 48 hours worth of Roblox content but generating 2.7M hours watched. For Twitch audiences, Roblox may be more of a novelty than a lifestyle. Still though, caseoh_ exemplifies how curious streamers can bring a host of new fans to Roblox that would otherwise never have been reached.
In mid-2023, there were an estimated 15K Roblox experiences being created every single day. For a single experience to rise above the others requires not only an initial hook, but also some quality that deeply appeals to the tastes of Roblox users. The recent success of Dress To Impress, therefore, shows what Gen Z audiences value most: Opportunities to express themselves digitally. In fact, 56% of Gen Z say that styling their digital avatar is more important to them than their IRL style (according to Roblox’s own studies on the subject).
This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in western countries. Looking at the top 10 Roblox Dress To Impress streams sees popular streamers from the U.S., Germany, and France trying their hand at the experience. Notably, singer-songwriter Madison Beer also tried out Dress To Impress, with her stream generating 101K hours watched. KreekCraft jumped on the Dress To Impress trend in a collaboration with Lana Rae, with his YouTube VOD sitting at 634K views.
The intersection between fashion and lifestyle is nothing new for younger audiences, seen on Instagram and TikTok among other social media apps. But the sheer range of customization on display in Roblox is unparalleled and, crucially, mostly free. Apparel brands are eager to get their designs in front of younger viewers, with Gucci creating their own in-game luxury handbags (priced at over $4000 USD) and Nike debuting its Nikeland experience back in 2023. With such a brilliant confluence of metaverse, live-streaming, and marketing interests, Dress To Impress is the perfect storm of interactive entertainment for the gaming industry.
The popularity of Dress To Impress proves that Roblox can leverage the personality of its user-generated experiences to excite streamers. Live streaming thrives on community, and nowhere is that stronger than in Roblox’s metaverse. In an upcoming article, we’ll be deep-diving into Roblox’s relationship with live-streaming platforms to see how live streaming can expand Roblox’s audience and advertising opportunities.
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Over the past two years, Kai Cenat has
Twitch emotes are an oft overlooked aspect of
As the Switch nears the end of its
