The teenage entrepreneurs making ‘millions’ in Roblox 

In childhood bedrooms across the world, teenagers are toiling away in the hopes of making playing their favourite game – Roblox – a full-time job.

Some pocket enough to pay for degrees, others earn more than their parents, and a growing number are en-route to becoming millionaires.

Roblox is a multi-platform game that allows people to play a wide variety of games, create their own games or chat with others online

It boasts 202 million users a month with players logging in from across the world.

The game recently came under fire for a number of inappropriate games such as ‘depression rooms’ and ‘sex roleplays’.

But for the majority, playing the game is a safe, even lucrative, experience.

Usernames such as Loleris and badcc may mean nothing to the older generation, but in the Roblox world these people are celebrities.

They made their fortunes as teenagers by developing in-game experiences that reached widespread popularity.

Young people are now doing everything in their power to follow in their footsteps.

It’s a growing and bustling young industry with millions of pounds at stake.

But the skyrocketing popularity of the game is still relatively unknown in the offline world and – crucially – to many children’s parents.

Ammon Runger, based in Washington State, America, is one of those Roblox users making thousands throughout the year.

He hopes to turn his profits into millions one day.

Ammon started playing the game as a shy high school student and quickly grew in confidence and skills.

He began playing in 2015 and launched a YouTube channel two years later. Now, Roblox is essentially his full-time job besides his tender age of 18.

Ammon told Metro.co.uk: ‘I don’t think the public really understands what Roblox is like nowadays and how much it has grown.

‘There’s literally 15-year-olds helping to run multi-million dollar game studios from their bedrooms.

‘I’ve grown up with the game and worked or dabbled in every corner of the Roblox ecosystem so I have spoken about this a lot to other developers. Some teams are turning around a million dollars a month, it’s insane.’

Ammon saw his rise to success come as a result of getting involved in ‘Mad City’, one of the most popular in-game experiences in Roblox.

He became community director of the game and also spent his time with various other users to create video content and edit footage.

Ammon speaks with a wisdom beyond his years, and the use of words such as ‘client’ demonstrates how these ‘jobs’ aren’t just teenagers playing pretend, they’re taking their work seriously.

He said: ‘My parents were hesitant when I started investing time into this.

‘But when I started making thousands of dollars by playing Roblox, they were far more open to me pursuing it.

‘I know not to put my eggs in one basket, with the Internet in general things can be built up and taken away so easily.

‘We don’t know what YouTube or Roblox will be like 20, 40 years down the line or if people will still be watching gameplays. This is all still fairly new so there’s hard to predict.’

Roblox are aware of their young workforce, and say everything is being done to support them.

It may take ‘years’ to hone profitable skills, but anyone can get started.

A Roblox spokesperson told Metro.co.uk: ‘At its core, Roblox is all about supporting creation and self-expression – today there are more than 32 million virtual experiences on the platform, built by a growing global community of creators and developers.

‘Anyone can start building on Roblox straight away, for free, with no upfront costs and no coding experience needed.

‘And while not everyone can turn a hobby into a source of income, and those that do often take years to hone their skills, we’re incredibly proud of the growing number of developers who started on the platform as hobbyists and were able to do that so successfully that they are now running their own development studios.

‘Today, more and more people and professional studios are able to find success doing what they love on Roblox – bringing their creative visions to life.’

Many young people are inspired by the YouTubers or creators they watch online, and diligently follow their every output.

But when trying to re-enact their success, many children and teenagers become disheartened when they struggle to grow the same audience.

Ammon stressed that patience is key.

The 18-year-old continued: ‘I started out as just a fan of all these youtubers that you see everywhere, like I was just your average viewer.

‘I was just another person in the huge bucket – one view out of the hundreds of thousands on all these people’s videos.

‘But I really put in the work and I made connections with all of all these creators – it’s possible for anyone to do that with consistency.

‘If you’re on YouTube, you may not be like zero to a million subscribers. It may not be even zero to 100,000 subscribers, but you will see something.

‘As long as you have a computer and you have the ability to learn, anybody can start something like this. And that’s why it’s so prevalent and why so many people are doing it.

‘If you learn how to program and code then you never know, you could make a game that blows up and next thing you know you’ll be running a multi-million dollar game studio for Roblox. It’s a pretty cool vertical.’

To find out more about Ammon’s journey through Roblox, click here

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.