The Roblox sandbox just got a whole lot bigger. Starting Tuesday, the gaming platform is opening up its Roblox License Manager and Licenses catalog to all eligible IP holders, TheWrap has exclusively learned. This means more creators than ever before will have the ability to make games using beloved shows and movies.
Roblox’s License Manager originally launched in July with Lionsgate, Netflix, Sega and Kodansha as its founding partners. Essentially, an eligible company could choose whether or not it wanted its intellectual property to be used by Roblox’s pool of creators and developers. For example, Netflix could give Roblox creators permission to make games about “Squid Game” and the streamer would then get a cut of the profits, as would the creators who made the games.
By the way, that particular partnership has been a popular one. The “Squid Game”-inspired game “Ink Game” by Games I Think has been played over 2.6 billion times, while Mr Ducky Studio’s “The Squid Game” has been favorited over 1.6 million times.
Now, Roblox is opening up this option to all eligible IP holders — so their 151.5 million daily active users have a higher chance of playing games inspired by top shows, movies and brands, as noted in a company blog post.
“We wanted to unlock IP licensing at scale between Roblox creators and IP holders in a way that is simple, streamlined and customizable,” Greg Hartrell, senior product director for the creator content ecosystem at Roblox, told TheWrap. “You just need one superfan creator who can make something their own and will bring their passion and personal experience into their creation, powered by branded IP.”
The goal is to streamline the historically laborious and time-intensive IP licensing process by giving eligible creators access to popular properties. In order for an IP holder to benefit from the new rollout, the company has to first register its IP then set up a platform license with customizable terms (revenue share is typically set between 10% and 25%). Once that is established, Roblox will scan its library of creator-made games for IP usage and automatically collect the agreed-upon revenue. Eligible IP users can range from major studios to brands with registered IP.
Since the launch of Roblox’s Lisence Manager this summer, creators have submitted a total of over 1,500 license requests for properties owned by the four companies that started this experiment. In addition to “Squid Game,” creator-made games using “Twilight,” “Saw,” the anime “Blue Lock” and “Now You See Me” have been popular.
This is also part of Roblox’s previously announced goal for 10% of all global gaming content revenue to flow through the Roblox ecosystem.
“For these creators, we seek to enable creation of anything, anywhere, by anyone,” Hartrell added. “A critical ingredient is making content based on intellectual property.”
Hartrell also noted that IP holders that provide real-time feedback and quick approvals to creators have been the most successful when it comes to the License Manager thus far. Popular properties have also been important, as have properties that can inspire memes. There’s also been early success from legacy IPs partnering with Roblox to reignite fandoms and bring in new fans — a great example of this is “Saw,” which also saw a seasonal boost thanks to the spooky Halloween season.
“This decades-long franchise is about more than just the plot or characters. It’s about escape, survival, fear, suspense and the universe. This comes to life in the many games based on the IP now on Roblox,” Hartrell said.
Roblox has also seen companies that were early adopters of the revised licensing system add in new properties — a sign that IP partners are interested in this offering. Ahead of Halloween, Lionsgate added “The Strangers,” “Blair Witch” and “Fall” to its catalog. Also, Mattel entered the program in October, starting with “Monster High” before letting creators make games with its “Polly Pocket” and “Street Sharks” properties.
The video game giant has also seen growing interest from movie and TV studios. Some of the Top 10 highest-grossing movies of 2024 had activations on the platform, including “Wicked,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Jurassic World Rebirth.” On the TV side, Cartoon Network’s officially licensed “Ben 10” game has surpassed 500 million visits.
