Two numbers came out of Roblox's creator economy this autumn, and they describe two different places.
The first is the big one. At its developer conference in September, Roblox said creators had earned approximately $1.7bn through its Developer Exchange program in the past 12 months, and more than $5bn since 2013, according to PocketGamer.biz. The second is smaller, quieter and, for anyone thinking about building a game on Roblox, far more useful: as Dexerto reported, the median creator in DevEx received approximately $1,500 in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026.
Both figures can be true at once. They just aren't about the same economy. My argument is that Roblox is running two of them side by side, and that the big number is far easier to hear than the small one.
A note on sourcing: Roblox's own newsroom isn't cited in this piece, so every figure here is as reported by PocketGamer.biz and Dexerto, and attributed to them.
What each number is actually counting
DevEx is the program that turns Robux earned inside Roblox experiences into real money, and it's worth being precise about who is in it. Dexerto puts the number of DevEx participants at more than 42,000. So the $1,500 median isn't the typical figure for everyone who has ever sold a hat or a game pass. It's the midpoint for the people in the program, the ones cashing out at all.
That makes the median more striking, not less. By Dexerto's figure, half of the people in the program made less than about $1,500 over a year, which works out to roughly $125 a month. That's a nice bonus. It isn't a salary, and it would be a mistake to read it as one.
The top of the distribution looks like a different industry. Dexerto reported that, according to figures Roblox presented at the conference, the top 10 creators averaged $65.7 million each over the same 12 months. In the same report, Dexerto put the top 100 at an average of $10.8 million and the top 1,000 at $1.4 million. Dexerto pointed to games such as Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot as examples of the hits whose creators are earning tens of millions.
Put the two ends next to each other and the gap is hard to overstate. The top-10 average is around 43,800 times the median. Even the top 1,000, a group that would fill a modest conference hall, averages nearly a thousand times what the middle DevEx creator takes home.
Studios and hobbyists on the same storefront
A long tail isn't unusual on its own; app stores and video platforms have them too. What makes Roblox different, in my view, is who sits in the tail and how close the tail sits to the top.
On Roblox, a hobbyist's first game and a hit earning tens of millions are published through the same tools, found through the same discovery and paid out through the same exchange. That shared plumbing is a real strength. It also means the individual creator becomes the face of the whole creator economy, even though the top 1,000, averaging $1.4 million each, are by any reasonable definition running businesses. The image of a hit coming out of someone's bedroom is exactly why the story sells, and the platform's most powerful message is that the bedroom and the business share a storefront, separated only by a hit.
That's true in the narrow sense. It's also the logic of every talent show: the winner is real, and so is everyone who went home.
What Roblox is building, and for whom
The tools Roblox announced at the same conference suggest it knows it has two audiences. PocketGamer.biz reported on Roblox Wallet, which will let eligible U.S.-based independent creators aged 18 and over receive their earnings in real currency every business day, with a connected Roblox Card rolling out in 2027. Faster access to money matters most to people for whom a few hundred dollars is a real sum, so that one reads like a tool for the long tail.
The other headline feature points the opposite way. Roblox Everywhere, according to PocketGamer.biz, will let creators offer their games as standalone apps across mobile, PC and consoles. That's a tool for the studio tier: a hobbyist with a $1,500 year has little reason to run a separate app on console storefronts, while a team behind a Grow a Garden-sized hit has every reason to want its own front door.
I don't think that split is a problem in itself. A platform should serve both its hobbyists and its professionals, and it's good that a median is out there at all. The issue, as I see it, is emphasis. A $1.7bn total makes the better headline; a $1,500 median is the more honest guide. If you're 16 and deciding whether to spend your next year learning to build Roblox games, the median is the number you need.
Reading creator figures the right way round
So here's how I'd read the next set of Roblox creator figures, whenever they arrive. Start with the median and the number of people it covers. Then look at the top 1,000 to see how far the ceiling sits above it. Only then look at the total, because the total mostly tells you how big the hits were.
Read that way, Roblox looks less like one gold rush and more like two neighbouring towns: a small, very rich one where studios make games as a business, and a large one where most people make games because they love making them, and get some pocket money for it. Both are worth celebrating. They just shouldn't be read as the same place.
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