U.S. Roblox creators generated a gross domestic product impact of $752 million in 2025, a 69% increase from 2024, according to an economic impact study commissioned by Roblox and conducted by Nordicity, an economic analysis firm. Creator activity that year also supported 7,525 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs, up 55% from 2024, and contributed $212 million in combined federal and state tax revenue.

Much of the year-over-year increase traces to a shift in creator behavior: creators withdrew more of their platform earnings as cash income in 2025. Nordicity’s 2026 “U.S. Creator Survey,” which informed the 2025 economic modeling, found that the average share of earnings left on the platform fell from 58% to 28% year-over-year. When creators withdraw earnings and spend them in the broader economy, Nordicity explains, it expands the indirect and induced components of economic impact through supply chain activity and household spending. The firm identifies this behavioral shift as the primary driver of the 2025 GDP and FTE gains, noting it amplifies indirect and induced impacts more than it does direct ones.

The report’s own characterization of its figures is worth carrying: Nordicity describes them as conservative estimates. Ancillary creator income from activities adjacent to the platform, including live-streaming Roblox games and selling Roblox merchandise, was excluded from the analysis. Earnings still held on the platform at the time of the survey were also not counted, though Nordicity notes they are likely to generate further economic activity when creators withdraw them in future years.

Accumulated across the nine years from 2017 through 2025, Roblox creator activity contributed an estimated $2.37 billion in U.S. GDP, supported 29,109 full-time equivalents on a cumulative basis, and generated $628 million in federal and state tax revenue. The study draws on Roblox payment data for that period, 737 survey responses collected in March 2026, and U.S. Census Bureau wage data, processed through Nordicity’s MyEIA economic impact modeling tool. Roblox does not employ creators directly; the FTE figures represent cumulative person-year estimates encompassing direct, indirect, and induced economic effects.

Creator Payments Reach Beyond Established Tech Centers

In 2025, Roblox distributed creator payments to 5,257 ZIP codes across the United States. Nordicity found that 66% of those payments, totaling nearly $444 million, went to areas where tech worker concentration was below the national average. Nearly $292 million, representing 43% of all 2025 creator payments, reached areas where tech worker concentration was more than 20% below the national average.

On an absolute basis, the top states by cumulative employment impact over the nine-year period were Texas at 5,430 full-time equivalents, Florida at 4,530, and California at 4,266. Nevada, Maryland, and Colorado followed.

The tech intensity analysis Nordicity ran alongside the state-level figures, which measures creator payments relative to local tech workforce size rather than in absolute dollar terms, shows a different distribution. Areas with between 300,000 and 400,000 total workers generated the highest Roblox creator payments per tech employee in 2025, at just under $26,500. Jurisdictions with between 50,000 and 100,000 total workers ranked second at just under $19,000 per tech employee. Nordicity concludes that Roblox creator activity carries more economic weight in smaller and midsize communities, relative to their local tech economies, than in large established tech hubs.

Eighty-three percent of surveyed U.S. creators identified as individual operators rather than studio employees, a slight increase from 78% in the prior survey.

Attribution to the Platform

To assess what share of the measured impact is directly attributable to Roblox, Nordicity asked survey respondents whether they would have earned comparable income through other interactive game development without the platform. Based on the response distribution, the firm calculated that 69% of the total national GDP and employment impact from 2017 to 2025 would not have occurred without Roblox. Nordicity describes the figure as conservative: creators who said they would have earned equivalent income elsewhere received no attribution weight; those fully dependent on Roblox were counted in full; respondents expressing uncertainty received partial credit.

Global Scope

Roblox released the U.S. study alongside regional reports covering Australia, the European Union, Mexico, and the Middle East and North Africa. Per Roblox’s own figures, creators globally earned over $1.5 billion in 2025, up from $923 million in 2024. The platform reported approximately 132 million daily active users worldwide in 2026.

Roblox said the number of creators eligible to receive payouts grew 70% annually in the EU between 2020 and 2025, 83% annually in the MENA region, and 84% annually in Mexico over the same period. Within the company’s Developer Exchange payout program, more than 42,000 creators participated during the 12 months ended June 30, 2026, with the median participant receiving approximately $1,500.

Creator Profiles

The U.S. study profiles several creators whose trajectories are reflected in its findings. Henry Hollyday, a North Carolina developer who built the studio HD Games on Roblox, including Saber Simulator, which has surpassed 500 million total visits, described the platform’s role in his career. “Roblox opened the door for me to start making games and earn a living from them,” Hollyday said. 

Rush Bogin, a 21-year-old Colorado creator who runs his business Rush X almost entirely within Roblox, whose virtual avatar catalog has generated more than 55 million individual sales and reached an estimated 30 million buyers worldwide, described the skills the platform developed. “Building a brand, managing partnerships, even handling taxes,” Bogin said, “there’s so much I’ve learned about running a business that I never expected to learn just from creating on Roblox.”

Image source: “Economic Impact of Roblox in the U.S. in 2025”
The full report is available here

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