In Graphic Detail: As ‘Grow a Garden’ booms, a new report shows the marketing power of Roblox
By Alexander Lee • June 30, 2025 •
Ivy Liu
Roblox is officially the home of the most popular video game of all time — but marketers are still unsure of the platform’s value as an advertising channel.
This is despite a recent boom in attention on the platform. On June 16, “Grow a Garden” — a Roblox experience in which users can feed and grow virtual plants and animals — surpassed 16.4 million concurrent active users, overtaking Fortnite’s 2020 Galactus event to become the most popular video game in history by peak concurrent players. Last week, the game shattered its own record, swelling to 21.6 million concurrent users.
The expansion of “Grow a Garden” has put a spotlight on the continued growth of Roblox, regardless of marketers’ demands for more transparency about the value of Roblox advertising.
Although advertisers have not purchased inventory in “Grow a Garden,” the writing is on the wall: DoBig Studios and Splitting Point Studios, the game’s co-owners, have already integrated brands like Lego into their other Roblox experiences. Global strategy firm Altman Solon’s Leveraging Roblox report, published on June 25, polled 1,026 global respondents about their knowledge of Roblox and their spending behavior in and around the platform in May 2025. The results reveal a significant connection between in-game Roblox purchases and real-world purchases. As “Grow a Garden” continues its domination of Roblox, more data is gradually emerging to meet advertisers’ demand and interest in this nascent medium.
“These metaverses are all so global; we’re looking at major geographic regions, and there’s different levels of internet adoption and availability of some of these platforms,” said Altman Solon partner Matt Rivet. “We sought after respondents in 10 different countries.”
Roblox creators drive real-life purchasing behavior
Altman Solon’s research found that 52 percent of users who spend money on in-game Roblox purchases also spend on real-world products linked to Roblox properties. Of those users, 33 percent cited a love for the games as their primary motivation to spend, with 19 percent listing influence from social media or YouTube and 18 percent putting down endorsements from influencers or friends. That means 70 percent of Roblox users’ real-life purchasing behavior is motivated by either the platform’s creators or the fandom around their creations.
“User-generated content is at the forefront of everything that we’re seeing, and it’s where a lot of our clients on the corporate and investor side are looking to go,” Rivet said. “As we’ve been doing more in gaming, user-generated platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft are all coming to the forefront.”
Top Roblox brands are moving beyond the platform
Top games on Roblox, such as “Grow a Garden,” are becoming popular brands in their own right, able to exist — and drive consumer spending — both on and off of the platform. Of the current Roblox players surveyed by Altman Solon, 75 percent said they would be likely to buy media related to their favorite game, with 78 percent saying they would be interested in engaging with their favorite Roblox brands off-platform.
“It’s still IP, right? It’s just gaming IP that was started by individuals and creators that people are gravitating towards — they’re identifying it and want to continue to purchase around IP that they love,” said Publicis Media svp of gaming strategy and innovation Samantha Lim. “So, I’m not surprised, because I do think that there is a huge fandom around these games, and it goes beyond the game.”
“Grow a Garden” is the most popular game of all time — by far
With a peak concurrent player count of 21.6 million, “Grow a Garden” is arguably gaming’s high-water mark as an entertainment medium. This player count figure dwarfs the second-highest peak of 15.3 million, achieved by Fortnite in November 2020, and is nearly triple the peak numbers of the third-highest title, “Garena Free Fire,” according to an analysis by Justin Yuan, a partner at the venture firm Tirta Ventures.
What makes the numbers from “Grow a Garden” particularly impressive is the fact that they show regular users logging into the game for normal gameplay, rather than a spike in players caused by a one-off or limited-time event. In contrast, Fortnite’s highest peaks, including the aforementioned 2020 figure, have all come through special events. The popularity of “Grow a Garden” is more than a flash in the pan.
Roblox is the second-most-popular gaming platform after Steam
At its peak of 21.6 million last week, “Grow a Garden” accounted for over two-thirds of the roughly 30 million players logged into Roblox during that period. This number makes Roblox the second-most-popular gaming platform in the world, coming after only Steam, whose concurrent user count peaked at 38.6 million last week, according to an analysis by Ben Sarraille, a founder of the user-generated content talent management firm Makeshift. And thanks to significant user activity driven by “Grow a Garden,” Roblox is nipping at Steam’s heels: Last week, the peak number of concurrent players inside Roblox far exceeded the peak number of Steam users — 11.6 million — who were actively in-game at any point.
“All across the entertainment industry, creator-driven platforms are disrupting incumbents. What YouTube is doing to television, Roblox will do to gaming one day. But for key stakeholders outside the scene, it’s hard to keep track of this growth, and know when to jump in,” Sarraille told Digiday. “That’s why watershed moments usually happen when a single creator shows the ecosystem’s potential — and just as MrBeast did that for YouTube a few years back, ‘Grow a Garden’ is doing that for Roblox today.”
https://digiday.com/?p=582002
