California-based Roblox is expected to shell out US$30 million to its 1.7 million indie creators in 2017, making it possible for two of the user-generated game platform’s top developers to earn more than US$2 million per year.
With the announcement, the company’s developer earnings acceleration rate over the past three years has grown tenfold, from US$2.5 million in 2015 to US$5.5 million in 2016 and now US$30 million in 2017.
The increase also means creators can now earn up to US$1 million per month, up from the previous maximum of US$140,000. Top Roblox creators are currently racking up more than US$100,000 per month.
The announcements were made over the weekend at the company’s annual Roblox Developers Conference in San Jose, which aims to help developers create games for the platform and capitalize on monetization opportunities. Using Roblox Studio—a development engine that lets kids build immersive 3D multi-player games—creators to date have churned out more than 29 million games for the Roblox community.
The payout news follows the closing of Roblox’s first equity financing round in more than five years—US$92 million from top-tier US investors Meritech Capital Partners and Index Ventures. The platform also recently surpassed popular user-generated competitor Minecraft in the favorite website/app category in Childwise’s latest Playground Buzz report of UK kids ages seven to 16.