Roblox shares down 70% as player numbers keep falling — and the fix is apparently AI

Roblox just had a rough earnings call. The company's share price dropped 70% after its second-quarter results revealed a steady decline in players and monetisation figures that came in well below expectations.

Roblox CFO Naveen Chopra blamed the shortfall on a lack of "vintage viral games" and a shift in player behaviour toward "new and evergreen experiences with lower hourly monetisation." Changes to Roblox's recommendation algorithm made things worse — Chopra acknowledged it now "optimises for long-term retention" at the cost of "near-term monetisation." The numbers back that up: daily active players have slid from a peak of 152 million to 123 million over three consecutive quarters, and monthly unique players have dropped by 10 million in just the last two quarters, sitting at 27 million now. Looking ahead, Roblox is forecasting a year-on-year decline of 14–18% in Q3, Chopra warned that "monetisation weakness is likely to continue," and the company declined to give any earnings estimate for Q4, citing "increasing variability."

Roblox built its platform on user-generated content and a virtual economy targeting a predominantly young audience — a model that made it one of the biggest gaming platforms on the planet during the pandemic years. But that same model has drawn sustained criticism over child safety and what critics describe as predatory monetisation aimed at minors. Roblox has made some moves to address safety concerns recently, though the platform's core economic structure remains largely intact.

Chopra maintained the company's "conviction" that it's making the right long-term calls, and pointed to heavy AI investment as part of the path forward — even while acknowledging that AI spending contributed to the underwhelming results. Whether layering AI onto a platform already struggling to retain players and monetise them will reverse the trend remains very much an open question.