'Chotongryeong Game' Roblox Soars 54% on First Day of Listing

Virtual World 'Metaverse' Also Draws Attention

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Suhwan] The game developer behind 'Roblox,' considered one of the major IPOs on the U.S. New York Stock Exchange this year, succeeded in its listing debut, soaring 54% on the first day. Attention is also focusing on the concept of the virtual world, 'Metaverse,' which Roblox is based on.

According to the New York Stock Exchange on the 10th (local time), Roblox opened at $64, a 43% increase from the initially set reference price of $45, and closed the session at $69.5. The closing price represents a 54% rise compared to the reference price. The market capitalization is expected to exceed at least $38 billion (43 trillion KRW). This surpasses the market cap of Electronic Arts (EA), a leading global game company with a 38-year history, known for producing games such as 'The Sims,' 'SimCity,' 'Battlefield,' and 'Star Wars.'

Roblox is a game where players create their own characters and interact with other players within a virtual world. In this space, players can engage in various social activities such as visiting theme parks with friends, attending concerts, and playing games created by other players. David Baszucki, CEO of Roblox, described the game as "the answer to the question of how to connect people around the world."

Roblox was one of the representative games that benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic last year. The average daily active users for the past year, counted as of December 31, surged 85% year-over-year to 35.2 million. According to Roblox Corporation, 75% of American children aged 9 to 12 have played Roblox at least once. It is interpreted that elementary school students in the U.S. used Roblox as a channel to communicate with other children when they were unable to attend school due to the COVID-19 situation.

Meanwhile, the success of Roblox has also drawn attention to the concept of the Metaverse, which inspired the game. The Metaverse is a compound word of 'meta' and 'universe,' meaning a three-dimensional virtual world. As a game-type virtual world, gamers who access this world can interact with other gamers. 'Pok?mon Go,' a game that achieved global success by utilizing augmented reality (AR) technology to overlay virtual objects onto the real world, is also a representative game that employs the Metaverse concept.

As the Metaverse emerges as a hot topic in the gaming industry, major U.S. IT companies are also diving into Metaverse technology development. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the world's largest graphics card manufacturer, stated at a developer conference last October that "the Metaverse is coming," setting the implementation of this technology as one of the company's core goals. Facebook, the world's largest social networking service (SNS), also officially entered the Metaverse industry last year by launching 'Facebook Horizon,' a service where users wearing the company's VR (virtual reality) devices can hold meetings and converse with other users in a virtual world.