Roblox: Future Games by Voice and AI

In a future not too far off, creating digital games for both desktop and mobile platforms might become as simple as speaking to an AI. Morgan McGuire, the Chief Scientist at Roblox, recently shared this revolutionary vision during a TechFirst podcast, suggesting that voice commands could one day replace traditional coding. According to McGuire, “I think we’ll get to the point where in the future you could, if you wanted, make a game entirely with voice. So by talking to the system, working with it over the course of an hour, and it’s just up-leveling what you’re doing. Instead of typing every single thing using your mouse, we can have AI take your intent and produce it for you.”

Roblox, currently a leading force in the gaming world, boasts an impressive user base. The platform serves over 300 million monthly players and maintains an average daily player count of 80 million, outpacing competitors like Steam, PlayStation, and even Minecraft. Roblox users collectively spend around six billion hours per month on the platform, a figure that significantly exceeds the time spent on Disney+. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball remarks, “It’s likely Roblox has more monthly users than the entire AAA gaming ecosystem combined.”

However, managing such a vast and active user base presents significant challenges. Roblox’s success demands enhanced safety and moderation systems, continual development of new games and experiences, and improved cross-cultural communication. With a large portion of its users being young individuals, the platform faces heightened scrutiny regarding safety and moderation. In 2023 alone, Roblox reported over 13,000 instances of child exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Addressing these needs effectively requires innovative solutions, particularly in AI. Roblox is harnessing AI to revolutionize its moderation systems. The platform handles real-time voice and chat communications in 45 languages, processing 50,000 text messages per second—an undertaking that would be impractical with human moderators alone. AI now oversees 100% of these interactions, capturing nuances and context that human moderators might miss. McGuire asserts, “We deploy when we hit superhuman levels. So we don’t deploy when we see 80% of human performance, but there’s a cost savings. We actually target saying, is this the best way to do it? And when it is, we’ll switch over.”

This shift to AI-driven moderation has already yielded substantial cost savings for Roblox. In a recent shareholder letter, the company revealed that its infrastructure and trust & safety expenses in Q2 2024 were 8% lower than in Q2 2023, thanks to enhanced AI-driven moderation and efficiency improvements.

AI is also poised to transform game development on Roblox. Unlike traditional game studios, Roblox relies entirely on user-generated content. The platform hosts over five million “experiences” created by its community, which presents unique challenges in 3D modeling and programming. McGuire acknowledges that while Roblox’s tools, such as Studio, are among the most accessible for 3D content creation, they still require a solid understanding of 3D modeling and programming.

To address this, Roblox is leveraging AI to simplify the game creation process. McGuire envisions a future where users can build game tools and avatars using conversational AI, making these tasks quicker and more intuitive. This approach is a step towards the broader goal of enabling users to develop entire games and environments through voice commands alone.

In addition to game development, Roblox is exploring AI applications for communication. With users from diverse linguistic backgrounds, real-time voice translation is a critical feature for fostering community interaction. The company is also working on “voice fonts,” which would allow users to modify their voices to match different characters, enhancing the role-playing experience. McGuire explains, “Ultimately, we want to do voice translation so you can speak to people in different languages. We want to ultimately do voice fonts … so basically voice role-playing kind of transitions. So I’m speaking in my voice, but you’re hearing a dragon. So it fits my character, right?”

The potential for AI to drive creativity and innovation on Roblox is immense. As McGuire points out, “A million people are making new ideas on Roblox every day, and if one of them is a winner, then it’s great for all of us. We all get to experience that new thing.” This vision of a future where AI facilitates game development and enriches user experiences could unlock vast new possibilities for creativity and interaction in the gaming world.