Roblox Fans Rejoice! This Roblox Game Is Getting Turned Into A Television Series

Video game company Roblox Corp RBLX is partnering with a media company to adapt one of its leading platform games. Here are the details.

What Happened: Roblox shares are soaring Wednesday after announcing fourth-quarter bookings of $899.4 million, which were up 17% year-over-year.

The bookings came in ahead of Street consensus estimates of $881.4 million, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

On Tuesday, it was announced separately Wind Sun Sky Entertainment and Productivity Media were teaming up to turn the Roblox game, Creatures of Sonaria, into a scripted series.

Deadline reported the media companies were inspired by the success of “The Last of Us,” a series on HBO Max that is an adaptation of a video game from Sony Group Corp SONY. “The Last of Us,” which has seen strong viewership, was renewed for a second season and had praise from the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Creatures of Sonaria is published by Twin Atlas and a popular game on Roblox that “spans exotic worlds of monsters, dragons and critters.”

Catherine Winder, CEO of Wind Sun Sky Entertainment, will oversee the adaptation of the game into a “narrative universe.” Productivity Media will finance the series.

Wind Sun Sky is also adapting “Twilight Daycare Series,” another Roblox game, into a series.

“I am very excited to work with Catherine, Jay and the innovative team of storytellers at WSS to add narrative depth to our characters and in turn further engage and delight our fans in a whole new way,” Twin Atlas’s Samuel Garcia said.

Why It’s Important: Winder was one of George Lucas’ producers at Lucasfilm; he worked on “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” Winder also previously adapted mobile game Angry Birds into “The Angry Birds Movie.” Winder was behind the success of the Ice Age franchise and most recently helped adapt Robert Kirkman’s comic book “Invincible” into a series for Amazon Prime Video.

“As the partnership of PMI and WSS expands, we will continue to look for rich universes with cross-platform, immersive potential, like Creatures of Sonaria, to partner up with and extend into the kind of gamified story worlds that global audiences and fans are looking for in the metaverse,” Winder and PMI’s William Santor said.

Roblox ended the fourth quarter with 58.8 million average daily active users, up 19% year-over-year. Despite being out for years, Roblox has seen growth and kept users on the platform.

One of the reasons Roblox has been successful is the gaming company acts more as a platform than as an individual video game. Roblox allows users and companies to create games within Roblox, which was something recently highlighted by Ark Funds Portfolio Manager Nick Grous.

Roblox has also been a leading play on the metaverse with companies like Nike Inc NKE launching its own virtual worlds within Roblox. Rather than trying to launch their own metaverse, companies such as Nike can take advantage of the existing user base Roblox has.

The fourth quarter also had a key item for growth that could show Roblox was keeping users on the platform for more years or attracting older users.

“Growth was strong across all geographies and age groups with particular strength among users above 17 years old,” Roblox CFO Michael Guthrie said.

Roblox could continue to be a success story in the gaming space with its platform the place for gamers to create games and companies to launch their metaverse ambitions. Add in movie companies circling successful games for adaptations and more gamers could join the platform in the future.

RBLX Price Action: Roblox shares are up 24.84% to $44.53 on Wednesday morning versus a 52-week trading range of $21.65 to $59.

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

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