As a user-generated content platform, the tides and trends of ROBLOX are largely dictated by our community’s tastes and preferences. That said, it’s always interesting to take a bird’s-eye view of the entire gaming ecosystem – and draw conclusions about what types of content are tripping players’ triggers. We pulled together game data for September and the first two-thirds of October; let’s see what is resonating among the community this fall.

Top 20 Games of Fall, 2014 (September 1 – October 20)

With a massive update to the game’s mechanics, content, and visuals in mid-September, Work at a Pizza Place skyrocketed (at one time boasting more than 12,000 concurrent players) back up the charts and has remained one of the top games ever since. It’s not surprising – the game blends three things that are clearly popular among ROBLOXians: life simulations, social hangouts, and unpredictable, physics-based gameplay. The latest rendition of Work at a Pizza Place is high-quality, its creator Dued1 is earning money (to the tune of $20,000 in October alone) off it, and players love it.

The esteemed Pizza Place.

Although it was only by a quarter of a million visits, that means Work at a Pizza Place dethroned the most visited game of the summer months, loleris’ The Mad Murderer. Still, The Mad Murderer held a firm grasp on the number-two slot, showing that the “murder-mystery” genre is still trending to this day. On that note, the genre’s newcomer, Twisted Murderer, was the fifth most visited game in September and October, racking up 2.2 million play sessions. The genre is alive and well.

There are a couple new games that quickly moved up the charts. Speed Run takes the concept of obstacle course to an all new level by drastically speeding up players’ movement speeds and progressing players through increasingly challenging levels. It’s something like Temple Run, in that it’s addictive and you always want to give it “just one more try,” but has a charm of its own in its simplicity. Super Bomb Survival came out of nowhere as the latest physics-based disaster survival game, only in this instance it’s raining bombs and TNT and homing missiles. We also saw a hint of Halloween creep into the ranks with the rise of Hospital Nightmare 3.

Of course, some games simply refuse to fade. Popular first-person shooters Call of ROBLOXia 5 and Paintball! continue to bring in players. Reason 2 Die, like the undead that inhabit it, just won’t go away. And the wild antics of disaster survival games like Natural Disaster Survival and Survive The Disasters continue to entertain.

Inside five top performing games

We took an inside look at the Developer Stats from top games representing a number of genres, from action to platformer to simulation to shooter. In particular, we were curious about what types of games tend to hold onto players longer than others. We looked at Work at a Pizza Place, Speed Run, Reason 2 Die, Super Bomb Survival!, and Call of ROBLOXia 5.

Of these five, the games with the lowest average visit session were Speed Run (roughly 12 minutes) and Super Bomb Survival (about 15 minutes). Now, before you assume that means they’re lesser games, let’s pause and consider the types of games they are: quick, round-based platformers. These types of games are perfect for gamers who have limited time to play, and even gamers who are playing on the go via ROBLOX Mobile. (Super Bomb Survival is, in fact, one of the best mobile games out there.)

Of the remaining three, Reason 2 Die absolutely wins the “longest average play session” battle, with an average time of about 23 minutes. We recently chatted with that game’s developer, PlaceRebuilder, and could argue that the unlockables, seasonal events, rotation of maps, and ability to keep playing even when you’re eliminated as a survivor contribute to players staying so long.

ROBLOX game developers are, as always, doing amazing things — the multiple millions of gameplay sessions and quality of the most popular games are a testament to that statement. We can’t wait to see what other games make it into the top tier during the coming months.