Roblox doesn’t exactly loom in the collective consciousness, but it apparently doesn’t need to. It has over 100 million monthly active users, and at their developer conference it was announced that people making games on the platform are set to share in $100m revenue in 2019.

It seems to have skipped all popular culture, at least in terms of traditional recognition, but the platform’s fifth annual developer conference made it clear that the game’s rude health means there’s room to grow in all directions.

There are now entire development teams working within the Roblox ecosystem, and so the tools are getting more useable. By the end of the year, Roblox Studio will be completely cloud-based, enabling all the work to be synced across the teams and platforms. The creative doodads are being upgraded, with new lighting and terrain options coming, and matchmaking tools will make multiplayer games more competitive. And it’ll be using Microsoft’s Azure PlayFab, giving real-time analytics to the top 10,000 teams.

They’re also working on a developer marketplace, much like the Unity Asset Store, where creators can share tools, plug-ins, models, and more.

This all reads like a GDC talk schedule, which shows just how serious and all-encompassing Roblox has become. I’m shame-faced in my ignorance of the platform, but I was aware that I should be paying more attention to it, and I’ll take some time to see what’s what. I think I'll start with Alex Wiltshire's exploration of its community before moving on to our guide of the best Roblox games.