Fashion's biggest takeaways from a year on Roblox

Roblox, the online gaming platform and game creation system, has had a record year. Its global community grew from 32.6 million to nearly 50 million daily active users across 180 countries with the median daily active user visiting 40 unique experiences over the course of 2021.

The fashion industry got on board, too, with users looking for immersive experiences and novel ways to express their digital identities, and brands looking to capitalise.

Companies like Gucci and Nike were quick to form partnership experiences, which could be anything from a music launch party to a fashion show hosted on the platform, such as The Fashion Awards.

The most popular event was the Gucci Garden, an interactive virtual exhibit inspired by Gucci Garden Archetypes, an immersive journey through a randomized series of themed rooms, each taking a cue from the ad campaigns, design history, and muses of Gucci as designed by Alessandro Michele. There was even a boutique of limited-edition virtual items from the Florentine luxury house, created by RookVanguard.

Nearly two million users visited the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Awards event in November, where a digital red carpet could be walked as a high profile guest.

In Nikeland, users can dress their avatars in Nike gear and unlock their sporting superpowers, which isn’t bound by the rules of physical games.

Fashion companies are embracing the Metaverse’s limitless opportunities for self-expression, body shapes, hair, accessories, and clothing from the Roblox Avatar Marketplace. Digital identity is important to the gaming community, and Roblox says it sees this in the variety and number of items created, acquired, and worn on the platform.

2021 summary

• 25 million+ virtual items were created by the Roblox community.
• 5.8 billion+ virtual items (both free and paid) got acquired.
• 165 billion+ avatar updates were performed.
• 1 in 5 daily active users updated their avatar on any given day.
• Most updates included body and face, followed by accessories.

Top five countries with the most Roblox developers include United States, Brazil, Russia, Philippines and the UK. This echoes in engagement where The UK had the third most engagement time, behind Brazil and the US.

Interestingly, Roblox’s developer and creator community saw a 353 percent year-over-year growth in the number of first-time female users compared to 323 percent growth of male creators.

As fashion companies turn to the Metaverse for new economic possibilities, there seems to be no slowing of the 25 million virtual items that were created, and more than 5.8 billion virtual items that were acquired.