Metaverse Predictions From Two Decades Ago, Roblox CEO: We've Been Innovating For 17 Years

Metaverse became popular recently thanks to Facebook. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - For almost two decades, Roblox founder and CEO David Baszucki has predicted the emergence of the metaverse. This term is increasingly used to describe an interactive and immersive virtual world.

Baszucki revealed that after a few weeks Facebook changed the name of its parent company to Meta. According to him, this reflects Facebook's ambition to expand beyond social media and into the so-called metaverse.

Meanwhile, Roblox has been trying hard to create its own version since 2004, “Our business plan for the past 17 years predicts this new category where people can congregate. Over the last 16 years, we've been innovating in this category, building an amazing community of not only players, but also an amazing developer community," Baszucki said during an interview with CNBC International, quoted by VOI, Friday, November 12.

"(A total of) 2 million strong (developer community) that makes everything on our platform a rich economy."

Baszucki founded Roblox with Erik Cassel. The company went public via direct listing in March.

“Our entire company is really focused on innovation to drive and shepherd the vision that some call the metaverse, or shared human experience into the future,” explains Baszucki.

But unfortunately, Baszucki did not explain further regarding the purpose of his metaverse. The company, known for its popularity with children, is benefiting from the COVID-19 pandemic as people are spending more time at home and turning to entertainment options like the Roblox app.

Previously reported, metaverse became popular recently thanks to Facebook, and the company even collaborated with Microsoft to integrate Workplace Meta and video conferencing application, Teams.