History of Roblox

ROBLOX was created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006.

Development and beta
In August 1989, David Baszucki founded Knowledge Revolution, a company which concentrated on educational physics and mechanical simulation software. There, he wrote a general-purpose physics simulator called Interactive Physics. He was the president of Knowledge Revolution until December 1998 and during this time has been joined first by Erik Cassel, then in 1997 by Keith Lucas.

Knowledge Revolution was acquired for $20 million in January 1999 by MSC Software Corporation, for which David Baszucki served as vice president until he left with Erik Cassel to create ROBLOX, in 2004. They were soon joined by other employees of MSC Software.

ROBLOX was created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004. Its beta version, DynaBlocks, was launched in 2004. It was renamed to ROBLOX in 2005 due to the name being hard to remember, During this time, it was also called ROBLOX v.10 according to DomainTools Screenshots. The website came out of beta and was officially launched in 2006.

Early history
The original currency, ROBLOX points, could be earned by logging in daily or by playing minigames. Features added in 2006 and 2007 included private messages, search, and avatar customization. ROBLOX badges were added on December 22, 2006. In March 2007, ROBLOX became compliant with COPPA, with the addition of safe chat, a chat mode which limited users under the age of thirteen to communicating by selecting predefined messages from a menu.

ROBLOX points were replaced by ROBUX, introduced on May 14, 2007. A new currency, tickets, was introduced in August 2007, and a premium membership, the Builders Club, became available on August 16, 2007.

From 2009 to 2012
A first ROBLOX convention, the ROBLOX Rally 2011 was held in San Francisco on August 1, 2011. A similar event called the ROBLOX Game Conference 2012 was held in 2012. The subsequent BLOXcon 2013 was held in Chicago, London, and New York, then completed by the Virtual BLOXcon 2013 which could be watched through a live stream.

On April 1, 2012, the ROBLOX website was compromised. Malicious users decreased the price of some goods, took or awarded ROBUX from and to users, and used site-wide notices to display objectionable messages. The site was taken offline for a brief period of time and ROBLOX staff reverted the changes.

A trading system allowing users to trade limited and limited unique items was enabled for all premium members on July 12, 2012.

On December 11, 2012, ROBLOX started supporting mobile devices.

Contemporary history
On September 24, 2013, ROBLOX established a price floor for clothing in the catalog. The minimum price to sell a T-shirt was set to 10 ROBUX and the minimum price to sell shirts or pants was set to 20 ROBUX (or 120 tickets).

The Developer Exchange program was released on October 1, 2013. This program allows developers with Outrageous Builders Club membership to earn money by exchanging ROBUX.

On March 15, 2016, David Baszucki announced that tickets would be discontinued after thirty days. During the thirty days before they were removed, items that could only be bought with tickets were released. Tickets were removed on April 14, 2016, at the same time as the Trade Currency system which allowed trading of both currencies.

A text filtering feature using the Community Sift service replaced the safe chat menu in 2016. This allows users under the age of thirteen to create content on the website and to use messages in games that are not predefined.

Events
ROBLOX has held contests, tournaments, egg hunts, conventions and other events regularly since 2007 and the frequency of events has increased over the years.

Conventions
Since 2011, ROBLOX has hosted conventions in multiple cities where could go to meet the ROBLOX staff, view demonstrations, and participate in activities.

ROBLOX Rally 2011
The first convention was held at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California on August 1, 2011. It was called the ROBLOX Rally 2011. Players who attended the event received a free lunch, as well as a poster, a T-shirt, a water bottle, and a lanyard.

The purpose of the conference was for players to meet up with each other and to discuss ROBLOX, ask questions to the ROBLOX staff, and find out about future updates to the game. One of the most notorious updates that was discussed at the ROBLOX Rally 2011 was the new ROBLOX terrain.

Tickets were sold for $10.00, and participants who were under the age of 12 had to attend with someone over the age of 16.

ROBLOX Game Conference 2012
The second convention was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center on July 14, 2012. The convention was named the ROBLOX Game Conference 2012. Players who attended the event received a poster and a lanyard, plus extra items if they purchased tickets before certain dates.

At the conference, players could meet each other in real life, share ideas about ROBLOX to other users as well as ROBLOX staff, and find out about some of ROBLOX's plans for the future. There were several conferences at the convention about future updates to ROBLOX, as well as user feedback and suggestions. Multiple awards were given in specific categories.

BLOXcon 2013
The ROBLOX BLOXcon 2013 was the first convention held outside of California. Three different conventions were hosted, at separate dates and in three cities. The first convention was held on July 13, 2013, at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. The second, BLOXcon London, was held at the Royal Air Force Museum in London, England. The third, BLOXcon New York, was held at the Intrepid Sea, Air &amp; Space Museum in New York City, on August 10, 2013. A final convention, the Virtual BLOXcon 2013, was announced in June and held online on September 21, 2013 for all players who could not attend one of the previous conventions.

ROBLOX Developers Conference
Since 2015, ROBLOX has hosted every year a conference where game developers and ROBLOX staff were gathered for a showcase and to share ideas.

In 2015, three conferences took place in San Francisco, Atlanta, and Europe. The first conference, RDC West, was hosted in San Francisco from March 6 to March 8. The second conference was RDC East, while the third was RDC Europe. Only users who had been invited could attend the events.

In 2016, the RDC 2016 conference took place in San Jose. It had more than 200 attendees. There were conferences about mobile upgrades, the R15 avatar, and client upgrades.

In 2017, there were two locations and dates for the ROBLOX Developers Conference 2017. The first conference happened in San Jose, between July 21 and July 23. It allowed creators to learn about the fundamentals of game development, including design and monetization. The second conference happened at the YouTube Space London in the United Kingdom from August 4 to August 5. There were informative sessions, a gaming tournament, and a Game Jam session where participants had to team up with other creators to build a game in a limited amount of time.