Gaming platform Roblox is making a significant push into the Middle East with the launch of Arabic-language support, a move designed to make it more accessible to millions of users in the region.
The announcement, made on the sidelines of the World Governments Summit in Dubai, is part of Roblox’s broader strategy to expand globally amid a boom in the creator economy.
Speaking to The National at the event, Roblox chief executive David Baszucki described the initiative as a major step in bridging cultural and linguistic gaps.
“We feel it's so big. We want to really bring people together around the world. Our mission is to connect the world with optimism and civility,” Mr Baszucki said.
With the new language update, users and parents can now interact with the app in Arabic, making it more inclusive for a wider audience.
“Parents who might even want to play with their [children] on our platform can use our Roblox app in either English or Arabic,” Mr Baszucki explained.
Beyond accessibility, Roblox is actively investing in local content creation and digital entrepreneurship.
The company reported that from 2021 to September last year, its impact on the gross domestic product of the Mena region (including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Qatar) was $15 million. With projected growth of 20 per cent or more next year, the platform aims to expand economic opportunities for creators in the region.
“One could infer more and more people making a living on our platform, literally people who are part of this digital economy, and we think it's growing very rapidly,” Mr Baszucki said.
Roblox’s creator ecosystem has more than 50,000 developers in the UAE alone. Some of these creators have already achieved financial success.
“We have a clothing designer in the UAE who has done over $30 million in sales of clothing on Roblox. We have a coder in Roblox who's working on an experience that's been visited over a billion times,” he revealed.
In a key development for UAE users, Mr Baszucki also confirmed that Roblox is now accessible in the country without the need for a VPN, indicating wider availability and acceptance in the region.
“I was playing with Roblox in my hotel room just locally, complimenting the internet speed of UAE,” he said.
The platform also offers more than just gaming, with digital experiences covering 3D shopping environments, educational simulations and virtual concerts. Last year, Roblox generated more than $4 billion in revenue, Mr Baszucki said.
“What we see happening on Roblox is, sometimes, for young people it's more interesting to build a game than to learn computer science, but when people build games on Roblox, they're actually learning computer science,” he said.
AI-powered content moderation
As user-generated content expands, Roblox is strengthening its AI-driven safety tools.
“Behind the scenes, over the last four years, we developed over 200 AI models that power all of our safety systems, complemented with great humans doing it as well. Every image on our platform, every communication goes through AI systems,” Mr Baszucki said.
One of Roblox’s most notable advancements is its AI-powered voice moderation tool, which has been open-sourced for wider industry use.
“Our voice model that we've trained ourselves, built ourselves, to keep voice safe on the platform … we've open-sourced it, and over 20,000 people are using it,” he said.
Additionally, Roblox has joined the Roost Consortium, partnering with major tech companies like Google and OpenAI to further develop AI-powered moderation tools.
Looking ahead, generative AI will play a larger role in enhancing experiences on the platform.
“So you'll be able to build a Roblox place, prompt AI to bring to life a famous character, and you and I will be able to learn history from that character,” Mr Baszucki said.
