Roblox shares plunge after bookings forecast cut

Roblox has lowered its annual bookings forecast, warning that new safety initiatives could impact user growth and spending on its widely used video game platform, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.

The company now expects fiscal 2026 bookings of $7.33 billion to $7.6 billion, down sharply from its previous forecast of $8.28 billion to $8.55 billion.

Following the announcement, Roblox shares fell more than 22% in premarket trading on Friday.

Roblox has invested heavily in recommendation systems and higher developer payouts to attract millions of users who play free games and socialize on the platform. However, concerns over child safety—including cases of exploitation and grooming—have led to lawsuits, investigations, and bans in some regions, putting pressure on its safety policies.

To address these issues, the company introduced age-based accounts and age verification measures earlier this year to reduce interaction between younger and older users. It has also expanded content monitoring across the platform.

Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra told Reuters that the rollout of age-gating features has reduced communication engagement on the platform.

“What we have observed since we started rolling out age-gating of communications features in January is less communication engagement on the platform,” Chopra said. “That does tend to have some knock-on effects in terms of content virality, which can then impact things like App Store ratings and the like.”

The company also expects a sequential decline in daily active users in the second quarter. First-quarter average daily active users stood at 132 million, up 35% year over year.

For the second quarter, Roblox forecasts bookings between $1.55 billion and $1.61 billion, below analyst estimates of $1.83 billion, according to LSEG data.

At the same time, Roblox announced a new initiative called “Roblox Reality,” aimed at enabling developers to create photorealistic games by combining game engines with AI world models. The company said the project reflects growing industry interest in artificial intelligence tools to accelerate game development and reduce costs, despite ongoing debate about AI’s role in game creation.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev