This past weekend, the San Jose Marriott was home to over 200 eager Roblox builders, staff members, partners, and chaperones, all gathering together for the biggest Roblox Developers Conference EVER. That’s right – this was an RDC for the record books, folks. And it’s no surprise that for such a huge attendee turnout we brought along some big announcements about new platforms and Studio enhancements, fun and educational panels from your favorite admins, and awesome revelations about where the future of Roblox is headed. In case you missed it or if you want to revisit what everyone saw and experienced last weekend, we’ve got you covered.

Keep on reading for a brief recap of the event and be sure to check out the archived videos on our Twitch channel to watch all the exciting panels and presentations from RDC 2016 on Saturday, including some interviews between a few developers and jackintheblox!

Welcome to RDC 2016

RDC 2016 kicked off with a bang on Friday night, welcoming attendees to an eclectic mix of food, drinks, music, and of course, tons of games and prizes at the Arcadia Restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised by the huge reception, and even more so by the overwhelming buzz on the dance floor. While some guests mingled with others nearby the party-sized foosball table, the Pac-Man Battle Royale arcade cabinet, or the jumbo Jenga blocks, many more were snapping fun pictures at the photo booth or rushing to fill in those last few boxes on their Bingo Ice Breaker cards. All in all, it was an exciting night and we hope we’ve successfully hyped everyone up for the big day on Saturday.

The Conference Begins!

It’s the event you’ve all been waiting for… Our record-breaking show brought in a bustling crowd of new and veteran Roblox developers alike, all anxiously waiting to see, hear, and learn about the future of Roblox first-hand.

The day started off with a flurry of cheers as David “builderman” Baszucki stepped onto the stage early in the morning to greet all of the attendees, as well as discuss Roblox’s long-term vision and incredible year-over-year growth. In his presentation, he revealed that the number of monthly active users on Roblox has tripled since last year’s RDC and that our presence on the Xbox, iOS, and Android marketplaces is continuing to rise or even top the charts. Given our astounding success on Xbox One, builderman hinted that there’s one mystery console that’s only logical for us to expand to next. Hmm, what could it be…?

Following builderman’s presentation, we also announced an array of enhancements coming soon to Roblox. Here’s just a sneak preview at some of the features that were shown or announced last weekend:

• Mobile Upgrades
  • Mobile emulator, companion app improvements
  • Mobile chat and push notifications, as well as various upgrades to parties and groups
  • Cross platform 2D GUIs
• R15 Avatar
  • Mobile avatar editor
  • Dynamic avatar poses
  • Fully UGC catalog
• Client Upgrades
  • Dynamic weather and time-of-day system
  • Upgraded lighting system for enhanced visuals
  • Hand controller support for VR

We had plenty more awesome features and presentations to show attendees (too much to fit in a single blog post alone!), so make sure to check out the archived videos on our Twitch channel for more details and live demonstrations.

The rest of the day featured various panels on topics such as monetization, game design, Roblox events and sponsored games, accelerator and intern programs, how to promote your game via social media channels, a Roblox engineer Q&A, and much more. You can browse through some of the presentations by clicking on one of the links below.

• Product Kick Off
• Roblox Developer Tools Roadmap
• The Future of Avatars
• Roblox Player and Client Features Roadmap
• Leveraging Developer Products and Monetization
• The Best in Game Design and How to Get Your Game Featured
• Roblox Events and Sponsored Games
• Promote Your Game for Success

Last but not least, RDC 2016 attendees could visit our VR Testing Lab to try out all sorts of Roblox experiences on Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, and more. It was great fun, and we hope everyone had a fantastic time!

The RDC Game Jam Heats Up…

During the Game Jam on Sunday, builders were tasked with creating never-before-seen experiences that revolved around a new theme this year: Time! We saw over two dozen amazing projects built from the ground up by many, many talented developers spanning across a wide variety of genres, but only one could take home the coveted Roblox Game Jam trophy – a first for RDC!

After four grueling hours of coding, scripting, and designing, teams were given a chance to present their unique Roblox experiences to a group of floor judges who then decided the final eight contenders. Whether they were selected for the final round or not, we couldn’t be more impressed by the sheer amount of effort that these developers put into their projects in such a short amount of time. We encourage all of our participants to continue polishing these experiences to create something even more spectacular.

The final eight teams went on to present their experiences in front of everyone, including our lead judges, on the big screens in the conference room. Our lead judges this year were made up of the following well-known Roblox staff members: jackintheblox, Sorcus, NobleDragon, ReeseMcBlox, and zeuxcg. After some intense deliberation, eight teams narrowed down to three. These are your Game Jam 2016 finalists! Cue drum roll…

Third Place: Time Hero, by jody7777, yourock101, Leg0brick, EndorsedModel, and x_o

Second Place: Time Lapse, by berezaa, Crykee, and Biostream

First Place: Flashback, by badcc, Defaultio, Nexx, Dued1, and Seranok

Great work, everybody! We can’t wait to see (and play!) your experiences again.

And there you have it! If we could sum all of RDC 2016 in a single word, it would have to be, “Wow.” For everyone who made the trip to San Jose to hang out with us and your fellow developers or watched our live stream on Twitch, we thank you for making this year’s conference a huge success and continuing to passionately support our mission to power imagination. As always, we’re thrilled to see and hear about your enthusiasm for Roblox and we can’t wait to make next year’s RDC even bigger and better.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!