If anyone knows Big Tech’s worst nightmare — seeing a once massively scaled platform hemorrhage audience — it’s Chris DeWolfe.
The co-founder and former CEO of MySpace had a front-row seat in the early aughts to how easily the most popular social media destination can go from sensation to disaster. Now a gaming executive, he rang the alarm in LinkedIn posts earlier this month, warning of another potential crash on the horizon: Roblox.
DeWolfe shared anecdotal evidence that Roblox’s core 10-15-year-old demographic could be drifting away, comparing the perceived erosion to what he witnessed at MySpace.
“There are precedents to the notion that we may be seeing early signs of trouble at Roblox,” DeWolfe wrote. “Historically, social networks don’t die because of a sudden crash — they die because the wrong people leave first.”
But if Roblox has a problem with its userbase, it’s not showing up yet in key metrics.
Overall engagement for Roblox is about as good as it’s ever been, per Roblox’s quarterly tracking. The coming of age of such a coveted demographic doesn’t appear to seriously affect Roblox as those users transition to young adulthood and migrate elsewhere. Virtual events, such as a Bruno Mars concert in January, are still huge audience draws.
An older audience skew amid this degree of engagement isn’t such a bad thing, either.
While Roblox became a phenomenon for drawing young consumers to its platform for endless gameplay and creation, the maturation risk of its audience base isn’t necessarily a new trend. Research firm Newzoo noted last fall in its Global Gamer Study that Roblox users between 10 and 15 — its largest demographic — account for close to a third of overall users.
Child safety concerns plaguing Roblox, Discord and other platforms remain relevant after years of reports showing extensive grooming and abuse of underage users. This continues to culminate in attempts at legal intervention, with Georgia attorney general Chris Carr opening an investigation last week and Los Angeles County filing a lawsuit soon after.
But as we saw with both MySpace and Facebook, there’s a price to be paid when a platform loses the cultural cachet that comes with being a magnet for kids and teens.
For Facebook, losing that core segment hasn’t necessarily dented its topline growth worldwide, though replenishing younger users could become more problematic in the longer term.
In the worst-case scenario of MySpace, DeWolfe knows all too well not even the most dominant digital darling is immune to nothing less than the destruction of a global brand. “By the time your growth metrics show a decline, the migration has already happened,” he said. “And once that momentum shifts, it is almost impossible to reverse.”
