Roblox Q3 Results Show Revenue Growth Despite Drop in Daily Active Users

Roblox has released its financial results for the third quarter of 2026, revealing a period of mixed performance that ultimately beat market expectations. According to reporting from GamesIndustry.biz, the platform saw revenue climb 16% year-on-year to reach $1.6 billion. However, bookings saw a 12% decline to $1.7 billion, a shift the company attributed to difficult year-over-year comparisons against 2025 growth.

User metrics also saw a dip during this period. The company reported a 9% decline in average daily active users (DAUs) and a 15% drop in hours engaged, totaling 34 billion hours. Additionally, the average bookings per DAU fell by 3% to $12.29, and monthly unique payers decreased by 16% to 30.3 million.

AI Integration and Creator Tools

The company is betting heavily on artificial intelligence to drive its next phase of development. In the Q3 shareholder letter, Roblox noted that over 80% of its top 100 games now utilize AI tools to accelerate production. Furthermore, the platform’s AI-powered ‘Build’ feature—which allows users to create games through simplified interfaces—has already seen over 500,000 users publish 70,000 games during its alpha phase in New Zealand, Singapore, Serbia, and Thailand.

Roblox CEO David Baszucki expressed confidence in this direction, stating, “AI is fundamentally reshaping the gaming industry, driving a step function change in the pace at which content can be created.” He emphasized the company’s goal to become a platform where any game can be built once and run on any device at massive scale.

Targeting the Over-18 Demographic

Beyond AI, Roblox is aggressively shifting its strategy to capture the over-18 demographic. The company highlighted that this age group is currently its fastest-growing cohort, with US-based adult users monetizing more than 50% higher than the younger demographic. To support this, Roblox has updated its engine to handle higher fidelity content, adjusted its Developer Exchange (DevEx) rates to incentivize monetization from older players, and fine-tuned discovery algorithms to better serve adult audiences.

Why it matters

For players, these results signal a significant shift in the type of content and platform capabilities expected on Roblox. As creators leverage AI to speed up development and increase graphical fidelity, the platform is moving toward more mature, higher-quality game experiences intended for an adult audience.

While the current user metrics show a temporary dip compared to the previous year, the push toward ‘Roblox Everywhere’—a strategy aimed at making games playable across all platforms—suggests that users can expect more consistent performance and cross-platform compatibility moving forward. Players should keep an eye on how these AI-driven creation tools affect the variety of games appearing in the top charts as the company continues to scale these features globally.