Monthly Archives: March 2021

Zack Snyder Explains Why His Justice League Cut Sets Up a Sequel That May Never Happen

Zack Snyder - who has previously explained that his version of Justice League ends on a cliffhanger – has explained why it sets up a direct sequel he doubts will ever happen. Snyder recently sat down with IGN's Matt Purslow to discuss his "director's cut" of Justice League ahead of the highly anticipated movie's release on HBO Max this month. In particular, he spoke about some of the decisions that he made when revisiting the project, specifically why he chose to end the movie on a "massive cliffhanger" even though a sequel is not likely to come to fruition. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/15/why-zack-snyders-justice-league-ends-on-a-cliffhanger"] "[The new final scene] mirrors another scene that I had in the movie originally, almost exactly" Snyder explained. "I didn't feel like I wanted to change the movie. If we were going to release the movie, I would really want to just release the movie exactly as it was designed, and that is what that scene is really indicative of." While Snyder acknowledged that he could have altered the ending of Justice League to better tie-up the events of the movie, he said that he doesn't feel like it's ever as "satisfying" to conclude a genre movie in that way. "It's in-genre to end these movies on a cliffhanger. That's kind of how they are, and I just felt like that's what I wanted to do," he said. "We had put so much work into, and so much thought into how the stories would continue, that it'd just seemed unfair to disrespect that work as well." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/27/zack-snyders-justice-league-the-mother-box-origins-exclusive-clip-ign-fan-fest-2021"] IGN also gained a little bit of insight into how the story could have been developed for the entire two-movie arc that had been originally planned. "There's a ton of cool stuff that we were going to do," Snyder explained. "I was talking about even just Joker [and] Batman in the telling, the reliving, of the death of Robin. [That] was going to be a fun kind of journey that we'd have to take. And of course, just putting the world back and fixing it, and then the battle with Darkseid. All that. It goes on and on." Plot rumors about Snyder's Justice League 2 have circulated for years, with Kevin Smith claiming the sequel would have seen the superheroes traveling to Apokolips to confront Darkseid and would have also included the Green Lantern Corps. There was even chatter the second film would have ended on a downbeat note in the vein of Empire Strikes Back, while a third and final film would have been the final end battle between the Justice League and Darkseid. Fans will be able to find out more about how Zack Snyder's Justice League sets up a potential sequel when the movie debuts on March 18. Until then, check out all of the details Snyder revealed about his version of Justice League during IGN Fan Fest and let us know in the comments how you feel about the Snyder cut ending on a cliffhanger. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=justice-league-snyder-cut-all-the-known-differences-from-the-theatrical-version&captions=true"] Zack Snyder’s Justice League available in the UK on Sky Cinema and NOW TV from 18 March. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Zack Snyder Explains Why His Justice League Cut Sets Up a Sequel That May Never Happen

Zack Snyder - who has previously explained that his version of Justice League ends on a cliffhanger – has explained why it sets up a direct sequel he doubts will ever happen. Snyder recently sat down with IGN's Matt Purslow to discuss his "director's cut" of Justice League ahead of the highly anticipated movie's release on HBO Max this month. In particular, he spoke about some of the decisions that he made when revisiting the project, specifically why he chose to end the movie on a "massive cliffhanger" even though a sequel is not likely to come to fruition. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/15/why-zack-snyders-justice-league-ends-on-a-cliffhanger"] "[The new final scene] mirrors another scene that I had in the movie originally, almost exactly" Snyder explained. "I didn't feel like I wanted to change the movie. If we were going to release the movie, I would really want to just release the movie exactly as it was designed, and that is what that scene is really indicative of." While Snyder acknowledged that he could have altered the ending of Justice League to better tie-up the events of the movie, he said that he doesn't feel like it's ever as "satisfying" to conclude a genre movie in that way. "It's in-genre to end these movies on a cliffhanger. That's kind of how they are, and I just felt like that's what I wanted to do," he said. "We had put so much work into, and so much thought into how the stories would continue, that it'd just seemed unfair to disrespect that work as well." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/27/zack-snyders-justice-league-the-mother-box-origins-exclusive-clip-ign-fan-fest-2021"] IGN also gained a little bit of insight into how the story could have been developed for the entire two-movie arc that had been originally planned. "There's a ton of cool stuff that we were going to do," Snyder explained. "I was talking about even just Joker [and] Batman in the telling, the reliving, of the death of Robin. [That] was going to be a fun kind of journey that we'd have to take. And of course, just putting the world back and fixing it, and then the battle with Darkseid. All that. It goes on and on." Plot rumors about Snyder's Justice League 2 have circulated for years, with Kevin Smith claiming the sequel would have seen the superheroes traveling to Apokolips to confront Darkseid and would have also included the Green Lantern Corps. There was even chatter the second film would have ended on a downbeat note in the vein of Empire Strikes Back, while a third and final film would have been the final end battle between the Justice League and Darkseid. Fans will be able to find out more about how Zack Snyder's Justice League sets up a potential sequel when the movie debuts on March 18. Until then, check out all of the details Snyder revealed about his version of Justice League during IGN Fan Fest and let us know in the comments how you feel about the Snyder cut ending on a cliffhanger. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=justice-league-snyder-cut-all-the-known-differences-from-the-theatrical-version&captions=true"] Zack Snyder’s Justice League available in the UK on Sky Cinema and NOW TV from 18 March. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Roblox Is Now Worth More Than Ubisoft and Take-Two Combined: What Does This Mean for Gaming?

Roblox, a kids' content creation tool featuring goofy, Lego-looking characters and popular games about going to magic school, dressing up cute pets, and basically trying to become Naruto, is now worth more than Take-Two and Ubisoft combined. Perhaps the most surprising thing about that news is that it’s… not all that much of a surprise.

That huge valuation comes thanks to Roblox the company (which makes Roblox the game) going public last week via direct listing, and impressing investors enough to reach a first-day valuation of $45 billion. That's a lot of money, more than Fortnite maker Epic Games was worth last anyone checked ($17.5 billion in August of last year), and a whole lot more than many other companies whose names you hear more often.

So why is Roblox so interesting to people with money, and what does that tell us about games as a whole?

What's a "direct listing"? For that matter, what's an IPO?

One key point to be aware of when thinking about Roblox going public is that unlike many other gaming companies that have gone public lately, Roblox has gone public through something called a "direct listing" rather than an "initial public offering."

In a typical IPO, a company basically creates new shares of itself ahead of allowing its shares to be sold publicly, enlisting outside help from intermediaries, networks of banks and other companies to determine the correct value of those new shares. This process can be a bit costly for companies, as they have to pay extra people to do that evaluation for them, but it also means that when new investors buy into the new shares, they get money right away.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Essentially%2C%20a%20direct%20listing%20is%20a%20better%20option%20if%20a%20company%20is%20tight%20on%20cash."]

However, in a direct listing, a company doesn't have to pay any outside parties to do that work for them -- because they don't create any new shares. All that happens is that the people who already own shares in the company -- investors, employees, and so forth -- can now sell the shares they already have to the public to new investors. That means the company usually doesn't get any extra money right away because it isn't selling newly-created shares, but it also isn't spending any. Essentially, it's a better option if you're tight on cash.

Rumors had been in the air that Roblox was planning an IPO for some time, and it explicitly filed for one back in November of last year. But it then delayed the IPO to 2021 in hopes of getting more value out of said IPO while it worked with its advisors to figure out what the best course of action was. Then, in January 2021, it switched its plans to a direct listing, which is what it ultimately ended up doing earlier this week.

How much is Roblox actually worth?

At the moment? A pretty good amount – at least if we're talking stock.

Roblox began to sell its stock to the public on Wednesday, starting at a suggested price point of $45 a share. Its price rose rapidly to close the day at $69.50, giving the company a market cap of over $38 billion and a total value of over $45 billion, and its stock price has been hovering in that vicinity still today. Assuming nothing really ridiculous happens, à la GameStop, the share value is likely to fluctuate somewhat for a while before eventually settling into something resembling a consistent price, though it's possible given how steady it's been in its first week that it already has.

What’s clear, however, is that Roblox is incredibly valuable, particularly by comparison to other video game companies. By comparison, Ubisoft's market cap is $9.6 billion at the time I'm writing this. GTA V and Red Dead Redemption publisher Take-Two Interactive's, meanwhile, is $19.5 billion. So Roblox is worth more than both of those companies combined. It's also worth more than EA, which is at $37.6 billion at the time this was written. It's still behind some other big gaming giants though -- Activision is worth $71.5 billion right now, and it's also obviously well behind companies that do more than just video games, like Microsoft and Sony. Tencent, the most valuable publicly traded company, is currently worth over $800 billion.

[caption id="attachment_248638" align="aligncenter" width="720"]roblox3 In November 2020, Lil Nas X performed a concert in Roblox, bringing in 30 million viewers across four performances.[/caption]

That's the primary indicator of a company's worth, certainly, there are some other things to know when assessing what Roblox is worth to people and why. You can look at the company's revenue, which passed $1 billion in lifetime earnings in 2019, and which reached a total of $924 million in 2020 alone. You can look at net bookings, which is basically a measurement of all total purchases made and includes in-game currency that users didn't actually spend -- Roblox had $1.9 billion in net bookings in 2020.

But you can also look at whether the company is profitable or not, and for Roblox, this is an interesting outlier. When Roblox filed its IPO last year, it was required to disclose its revenues for the last three years as well as other information about itself, during which it revealed that the company hasn't been profitable since it was founded in 2004. Basically, it costs more money to run than it's bringing in. For the full year of 2018, its net loss was $88.1 million. In 2019, that was $71 million. And last year, Roblox's net loss was $253.3 million.

Does its lack of profitability matter, though? According to multiple analysts, probably not. Ampere Analysis' Piers Harding-Rolls noted in an email interview with IGN that a lack of profitability so far was more on the fact that Roblox has been spending money to grow in recent years, rather than being an indicator of failure in some way.

Ideally, Roblox would be profitable, of course – but for investors that’s not really the point right now. It’s clear that the company has been more focused on scaling and building out the feature set of its platform rather than profitability," Harding-Rolls said. "It has laid out a roadmap for reaching profitability though including entering new markets, reaching new types of user, engaging with more brands, broadening its entertainment remit and monetizing more effectively.

"While the company has a roadmap it also acknowledges that its expenses are likely to increase and of course it needs to execute on its strategy to be successful, so there are also some risks."

Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad also noted that the company had been on a massive growth spurt in recent years, and benefited significantly from increased gaming time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"While it has mostly appealed to a younger audience in the past, the potential of expanding to an older audience, reaching players outside the US (Tencent has a license to launch the game in China) and additional content and monetization opportunities would allow Roblox to grow even further and reach profitability," Ahmad said.

Why is Roblox worth so much?

If you're not familiar with Roblox, it can be a bit perplexing as to why it's so valuable to investors. The most immediate answer is because Roblox is not just a game for kids, as it might appear to anyone who hasn't dipped in before.

Roblox is a platform, not unlike YouTube or Minecraft, where players can either create their own content to share, or participate in content others have made. It's targeted toward kids, so its creation tools are relatively simple and easy to use. Creators in Roblox make games, stories, role-playing spaces, social spaces, and more, after which anyone else in Roblox can come participate in those creations. By 2020, Roblox had a total of eight million developers and 20 million created experiences.

What's more, many of these experiences are monetized, and not just by Roblox, but by the people who make them. In 2020, over 345,000 creators were making money from content on Roblox, and ended up making a total of $329 million between them. That number's been steadily rising in recent years, and has grown to the point where some of Roblox's biggest games, such as social sandbox game Adopt Me, have gotten so popular that they now have entire paid development teams working on them. Adopt Me alone reached 1.6 million concurrent users in April of last year.

[caption id="attachment_2486386" align="aligncenter" width="720"]Roblox is actively investing into tech to make its game (and games within game) look even better. Roblox is actively investing into tech to make its game (and games within game) look even better.[/caption]

"Roblox is unique in that it is more of a gaming platform than a traditional video game," Ahmad said of Roblox's popularity with investors. "It is also one of the largest games as a platform with more monthly active users than Minecraft [150 million MAUs for Roblox in July of 2020 vs. 131 million MAUs for Minecraft in October]. Its platform focus has allowed millions of developers to create content and game modes for users to play, which has resulted in unique experiences that can attract new users and increase overall play time."

It's also worth reiterating Ahmad's point about Roblox's investment into expansion, especially in recent years. Aside from its planned launch in China that will expand the game to a new, massive gaming audience, it's currently available in over 180 countries and 11 different languages. It recently added new monetization features to further incentivize creators to make content that appeals to wide audiences. Roblox is also working on improving its tech and visual fidelity, and hired 400 new employees last year, mostly in product and engineering roles. And it held an official developers conference last year, too -- all virtual in Roblox, of course.

So why is Roblox worth so much? Most likely, because investors have noticed all this and more, and believe in the direction the company's going, thus motivating them to invest in their future.

What does this mean for Roblox, and what does it mean for games?

As mentioned before, Roblox going with a direct listing rather than an IPO means that it isn't suddenly getting a big influx of cash from going public. According to Harding-Rolls, this direct listing is, at least in part, about prior investors being able to exit and get a return on their initial investments.

"But this also puts Roblox in a stronger position to make its own acquisitions, to appeal to the best talent and to invest in the company to deliver on its strategic roadmap," he said.

Harding-Rolls' suggestion is backed up by the fact that Roblox has also had multiple successful funding rounds in the last few years, most recently raising $520 million in January ahead of its listing, meaning it didn't necessarily need the cash from an IPO to keep growing successfully, though the direct listing will still help matters. And it's not just acquisitions -- Roblox has already proved it wants to keep growing its own platform, and Ahmad believes that's likely to continue.

"The recent funding rounds and direct listing will help Roblox expand its platform to offer new and unique content to its players and further drive engagement," Ahmad said. "The company is already experimenting with the concept of branded worlds and collaborative content with brands. There is also a lot of hype around Roblox building out what many are calling the ‘metaverse concept’, a virtual space where users can gather to play, learn and socialise together, fuelled by the in-game economy, user-generated content and developer-created content.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=There%20is%20a%20lot%20of%20hype%20around%20Roblox%20building%20out%20what%20many%20are%20calling%20the%20%E2%80%98metaverse%20concept%E2%80%99"]

"The educational aspects of Roblox also have potential too, especially in China where Tencent first launched Roblox Education Edition to help teachers and students with coding, game design and other STEM related education areas. We note that the Ministry of Education (China) recently announced that it would promote STEM subjects and Computer Programming education at both the primary and secondary school level, which would be another key opportunity for Roblox."

This means you're likely to see a whole lot more of Roblox in the near future if these trends continue. But it's not the only company taking this tactic. Though it's relatively unique in games for opting for a direct listing, there have been numerous gaming companies either kick off IPOs or hint that they're imminent in the last year. TinyBuild (Hello Neighbor), Skillz (Mobile esports tournament platform), Huuuge Games (Mobile casino games), Playtika (Also mobile casino, plus hidden object game June's Journey), Unity, and Nacon (of Frogwares court battle infamy) have all filed IPOs in the last year. Krafton (PUBG) is actively preparing for one, and Epic Games is rumored to be joining these companies as well.

So why are so many gaming companies opting to go public? Ahmad and Harding-Rolls had similar answers.

"Generally there has been an increase in all types of investment, acquisition and listing activity because the perceived value of games companies has increased substantially over the last couple of years," Harding-Rolls suggested. "Higher valuations mean a higher likelihood of this sort of industry activity.

"There are a couple of key reasons for this: the demand for original IP driven by competition in the market is helping push up all valuations and also the huge amount of gaming activity that took place during 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 has made games companies more financially attractive. As such, activity may slow down a touch as things start to return to more normal consumption habits but competition for IP will remain high."

More IPOs means more money for companies to do more things. Those could range from developing out the things they already make, making more games, hiring more people, acquiring other companies, or expanding into more activities beyond whatever they're already doing. Point being? Video games are, as we already know, a big deal. And a lot of people with money increasingly think so too.

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Roblox Is Now Worth More Than Ubisoft and Take-Two Combined: What Does This Mean for Gaming?

Roblox, a kids' content creation tool featuring goofy, Lego-looking characters and popular games about going to magic school, dressing up cute pets, and basically trying to become Naruto, is now worth more than Take-Two and Ubisoft combined. Perhaps the most surprising thing about that news is that it’s… not all that much of a surprise.

That huge valuation comes thanks to Roblox the company (which makes Roblox the game) going public last week via direct listing, and impressing investors enough to reach a first-day valuation of $45 billion. That's a lot of money, more than Fortnite maker Epic Games was worth last anyone checked ($17.5 billion in August of last year), and a whole lot more than many other companies whose names you hear more often.

So why is Roblox so interesting to people with money, and what does that tell us about games as a whole?

What's a "direct listing"? For that matter, what's an IPO?

One key point to be aware of when thinking about Roblox going public is that unlike many other gaming companies that have gone public lately, Roblox has gone public through something called a "direct listing" rather than an "initial public offering."

In a typical IPO, a company basically creates new shares of itself ahead of allowing its shares to be sold publicly, enlisting outside help from intermediaries, networks of banks and other companies to determine the correct value of those new shares. This process can be a bit costly for companies, as they have to pay extra people to do that evaluation for them, but it also means that when new investors buy into the new shares, they get money right away.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Essentially%2C%20a%20direct%20listing%20is%20a%20better%20option%20if%20a%20company%20is%20tight%20on%20cash."]

However, in a direct listing, a company doesn't have to pay any outside parties to do that work for them -- because they don't create any new shares. All that happens is that the people who already own shares in the company -- investors, employees, and so forth -- can now sell the shares they already have to the public to new investors. That means the company usually doesn't get any extra money right away because it isn't selling newly-created shares, but it also isn't spending any. Essentially, it's a better option if you're tight on cash.

Rumors had been in the air that Roblox was planning an IPO for some time, and it explicitly filed for one back in November of last year. But it then delayed the IPO to 2021 in hopes of getting more value out of said IPO while it worked with its advisors to figure out what the best course of action was. Then, in January 2021, it switched its plans to a direct listing, which is what it ultimately ended up doing earlier this week.

How much is Roblox actually worth?

At the moment? A pretty good amount – at least if we're talking stock.

Roblox began to sell its stock to the public on Wednesday, starting at a suggested price point of $45 a share. Its price rose rapidly to close the day at $69.50, giving the company a market cap of over $38 billion and a total value of over $45 billion, and its stock price has been hovering in that vicinity still today. Assuming nothing really ridiculous happens, à la GameStop, the share value is likely to fluctuate somewhat for a while before eventually settling into something resembling a consistent price, though it's possible given how steady it's been in its first week that it already has.

What’s clear, however, is that Roblox is incredibly valuable, particularly by comparison to other video game companies. By comparison, Ubisoft's market cap is $9.6 billion at the time I'm writing this. GTA V and Red Dead Redemption publisher Take-Two Interactive's, meanwhile, is $19.5 billion. So Roblox is worth more than both of those companies combined. It's also worth more than EA, which is at $37.6 billion at the time this was written. It's still behind some other big gaming giants though -- Activision is worth $71.5 billion right now, and it's also obviously well behind companies that do more than just video games, like Microsoft and Sony. Tencent, the most valuable publicly traded company, is currently worth over $800 billion.

[caption id="attachment_248638" align="aligncenter" width="720"]roblox3 In November 2020, Lil Nas X performed a concert in Roblox, bringing in 30 million viewers across four performances.[/caption]

That's the primary indicator of a company's worth, certainly, there are some other things to know when assessing what Roblox is worth to people and why. You can look at the company's revenue, which passed $1 billion in lifetime earnings in 2019, and which reached a total of $924 million in 2020 alone. You can look at net bookings, which is basically a measurement of all total purchases made and includes in-game currency that users didn't actually spend -- Roblox had $1.9 billion in net bookings in 2020.

But you can also look at whether the company is profitable or not, and for Roblox, this is an interesting outlier. When Roblox filed its IPO last year, it was required to disclose its revenues for the last three years as well as other information about itself, during which it revealed that the company hasn't been profitable since it was founded in 2004. Basically, it costs more money to run than it's bringing in. For the full year of 2018, its net loss was $88.1 million. In 2019, that was $71 million. And last year, Roblox's net loss was $253.3 million.

Does its lack of profitability matter, though? According to multiple analysts, probably not. Ampere Analysis' Piers Harding-Rolls noted in an email interview with IGN that a lack of profitability so far was more on the fact that Roblox has been spending money to grow in recent years, rather than being an indicator of failure in some way.

Ideally, Roblox would be profitable, of course – but for investors that’s not really the point right now. It’s clear that the company has been more focused on scaling and building out the feature set of its platform rather than profitability," Harding-Rolls said. "It has laid out a roadmap for reaching profitability though including entering new markets, reaching new types of user, engaging with more brands, broadening its entertainment remit and monetizing more effectively.

"While the company has a roadmap it also acknowledges that its expenses are likely to increase and of course it needs to execute on its strategy to be successful, so there are also some risks."

Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad also noted that the company had been on a massive growth spurt in recent years, and benefited significantly from increased gaming time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"While it has mostly appealed to a younger audience in the past, the potential of expanding to an older audience, reaching players outside the US (Tencent has a license to launch the game in China) and additional content and monetization opportunities would allow Roblox to grow even further and reach profitability," Ahmad said.

Why is Roblox worth so much?

If you're not familiar with Roblox, it can be a bit perplexing as to why it's so valuable to investors. The most immediate answer is because Roblox is not just a game for kids, as it might appear to anyone who hasn't dipped in before.

Roblox is a platform, not unlike YouTube or Minecraft, where players can either create their own content to share, or participate in content others have made. It's targeted toward kids, so its creation tools are relatively simple and easy to use. Creators in Roblox make games, stories, role-playing spaces, social spaces, and more, after which anyone else in Roblox can come participate in those creations. By 2020, Roblox had a total of eight million developers and 20 million created experiences.

What's more, many of these experiences are monetized, and not just by Roblox, but by the people who make them. In 2020, over 345,000 creators were making money from content on Roblox, and ended up making a total of $329 million between them. That number's been steadily rising in recent years, and has grown to the point where some of Roblox's biggest games, such as social sandbox game Adopt Me, have gotten so popular that they now have entire paid development teams working on them. Adopt Me alone reached 1.6 million concurrent users in April of last year.

[caption id="attachment_2486386" align="aligncenter" width="720"]Roblox is actively investing into tech to make its game (and games within game) look even better. Roblox is actively investing into tech to make its game (and games within game) look even better.[/caption]

"Roblox is unique in that it is more of a gaming platform than a traditional video game," Ahmad said of Roblox's popularity with investors. "It is also one of the largest games as a platform with more monthly active users than Minecraft [150 million MAUs for Roblox in July of 2020 vs. 131 million MAUs for Minecraft in October]. Its platform focus has allowed millions of developers to create content and game modes for users to play, which has resulted in unique experiences that can attract new users and increase overall play time."

It's also worth reiterating Ahmad's point about Roblox's investment into expansion, especially in recent years. Aside from its planned launch in China that will expand the game to a new, massive gaming audience, it's currently available in over 180 countries and 11 different languages. It recently added new monetization features to further incentivize creators to make content that appeals to wide audiences. Roblox is also working on improving its tech and visual fidelity, and hired 400 new employees last year, mostly in product and engineering roles. And it held an official developers conference last year, too -- all virtual in Roblox, of course.

So why is Roblox worth so much? Most likely, because investors have noticed all this and more, and believe in the direction the company's going, thus motivating them to invest in their future.

What does this mean for Roblox, and what does it mean for games?

As mentioned before, Roblox going with a direct listing rather than an IPO means that it isn't suddenly getting a big influx of cash from going public. According to Harding-Rolls, this direct listing is, at least in part, about prior investors being able to exit and get a return on their initial investments.

"But this also puts Roblox in a stronger position to make its own acquisitions, to appeal to the best talent and to invest in the company to deliver on its strategic roadmap," he said.

Harding-Rolls' suggestion is backed up by the fact that Roblox has also had multiple successful funding rounds in the last few years, most recently raising $520 million in January ahead of its listing, meaning it didn't necessarily need the cash from an IPO to keep growing successfully, though the direct listing will still help matters. And it's not just acquisitions -- Roblox has already proved it wants to keep growing its own platform, and Ahmad believes that's likely to continue.

"The recent funding rounds and direct listing will help Roblox expand its platform to offer new and unique content to its players and further drive engagement," Ahmad said. "The company is already experimenting with the concept of branded worlds and collaborative content with brands. There is also a lot of hype around Roblox building out what many are calling the ‘metaverse concept’, a virtual space where users can gather to play, learn and socialise together, fuelled by the in-game economy, user-generated content and developer-created content.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=There%20is%20a%20lot%20of%20hype%20around%20Roblox%20building%20out%20what%20many%20are%20calling%20the%20%E2%80%98metaverse%20concept%E2%80%99"]

"The educational aspects of Roblox also have potential too, especially in China where Tencent first launched Roblox Education Edition to help teachers and students with coding, game design and other STEM related education areas. We note that the Ministry of Education (China) recently announced that it would promote STEM subjects and Computer Programming education at both the primary and secondary school level, which would be another key opportunity for Roblox."

This means you're likely to see a whole lot more of Roblox in the near future if these trends continue. But it's not the only company taking this tactic. Though it's relatively unique in games for opting for a direct listing, there have been numerous gaming companies either kick off IPOs or hint that they're imminent in the last year. TinyBuild (Hello Neighbor), Skillz (Mobile esports tournament platform), Huuuge Games (Mobile casino games), Playtika (Also mobile casino, plus hidden object game June's Journey), Unity, and Nacon (of Frogwares court battle infamy) have all filed IPOs in the last year. Krafton (PUBG) is actively preparing for one, and Epic Games is rumored to be joining these companies as well.

So why are so many gaming companies opting to go public? Ahmad and Harding-Rolls had similar answers.

"Generally there has been an increase in all types of investment, acquisition and listing activity because the perceived value of games companies has increased substantially over the last couple of years," Harding-Rolls suggested. "Higher valuations mean a higher likelihood of this sort of industry activity.

"There are a couple of key reasons for this: the demand for original IP driven by competition in the market is helping push up all valuations and also the huge amount of gaming activity that took place during 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 has made games companies more financially attractive. As such, activity may slow down a touch as things start to return to more normal consumption habits but competition for IP will remain high."

More IPOs means more money for companies to do more things. Those could range from developing out the things they already make, making more games, hiring more people, acquiring other companies, or expanding into more activities beyond whatever they're already doing. Point being? Video games are, as we already know, a big deal. And a lot of people with money increasingly think so too.

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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League Seemingly Uses Halo Emblem for Deathstroke’s Sword

Zack Snyder's Justice League seemingly used an emblem created for the Halo video games on Deathstroke's sword. As reported by PCGamesN, Twitter user Geoff Reeves posted a close-up look at Deathstroke's suit, which is seemingly on display in Dallas, Texas. The Twitter user noted an emblem on the back of Deathstroke's sword and was taken as a reference to Ra's al Ghul and his League of Assassins (or League of Shadows). The apparent tie-in was even retweeted by Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello. But not only does the symbol have nothing to do with Ra's al Ghul or the League of Assassins, it's just a modified version of an emblem from Halo. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/27/justice-league-inside-the-snyder-cut-with-zack-snyder-ign-fan-fest-2021"] Christopher Barrett, a Bungie artist with credits on every one of Bungie's Halo games, shared the similarities between this emblem and one he worked on for Halo twenty years ago. "An emblem I made twenty years ago is on Deathstroke’s sword I guess?" Barrett said on Twitter. PCGamesN speculates the confusion arose from a Google search. By searching "Ra's al Ghul symbol," a fan-created website pops up very early in Google Image search results, bearing the slightly-modified Halo logo. The website claims the logo is related to Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows – which has seemingly, years later, led to a costume designer repurposing it for the movie. A comment on that fan page now even references the apparent mistake, reading, "I can't believe this was accidentally made canon holy shit." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=zack-snyders-justice-league-images&captions=true"] Tom & Jerry fans might've already gotten to see the new emblem as Justice League was accidentally uploaded on HBO Max in Tom & Jerry's place. The error was, unfortunately, fixed, and fans will have to wait until Thursday for the official launch of Zack Snyder's Justice League. We just awarded the new cut an 8/10 in our Zack Snyder's Justice League review. If only this Halo-Justice League news arrived sooner as IGN had DC movie producer Deborah Snyder and Studio Head of Halo Transmedia Kiki Wolfkil in a discussion about their careers bringing beloved geeky properties to a new life. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who is having nightmares about HBO Max pulling a reverse and uploading a copy of Tom & Jerry instead of Justice League. Correction: An earlier version of this story said Barrett claimed ownership over the emblem. The emblem belongs to Microsoft and the article has been updated to reflect this.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League Seemingly Uses Halo Emblem for Deathstroke’s Sword

Zack Snyder's Justice League seemingly used an emblem created for the Halo video games on Deathstroke's sword. As reported by PCGamesN, Twitter user Geoff Reeves posted a close-up look at Deathstroke's suit, which is seemingly on display in Dallas, Texas. The Twitter user noted an emblem on the back of Deathstroke's sword and was taken as a reference to Ra's al Ghul and his League of Assassins (or League of Shadows). The apparent tie-in was even retweeted by Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello. But not only does the symbol have nothing to do with Ra's al Ghul or the League of Assassins, it's just a modified version of an emblem from Halo. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/27/justice-league-inside-the-snyder-cut-with-zack-snyder-ign-fan-fest-2021"] Christopher Barrett, a Bungie artist with credits on every one of Bungie's Halo games, claimed ownership of the emblem on Twitter. The artist seemed confused about its inclusion. "An emblem I made twenty years ago is on Deathstroke’s sword I guess?" Barrett said on Twitter. PCGamesN speculates the confusion arose from a Google search. By searching "Ra's al Ghul symbol," a fan-created website pops up very early in Google Image search results, bearing the slightly-modified Halo logo. The website claims the logo is related to Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows – which has seemingly, years later, led to a costume designer repurposing it for the movie. A comment on that fan page now even references the apparent mistake, reading, "I can't believe this was accidentally made canon holy shit". [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=zack-snyders-justice-league-images&captions=true"] Tom & Jerry fans might've already gotten to see the new emblem as Justice League was accidentally uploaded on HBO Max in Tom & Jerry's place. The error was, unfortunately, fixed, and fans will have to wait until Thursday for the official launch of Zack Snyder's Justice League. We just awrded the new cut an 8/10 in our Zack Snyder's Justice League review. If only this Halo-Justice League news arrived sooner as IGN had DC movie producer Deborah Snyder and Studio Head of Halo Transmedia Kiki Wolfkil in a discussion about their careers bringing beloved geeky properties to a new life. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN who is having nightmares about HBO Max pulling a reverse and uploading a copy of Tom & Jerry instead of Justice League.

Fortnite Team Reportedly Disqualified from Cup After Team Member Aggressively Tweets Epic CCO

A Fortnite team has reportedly been disqualified from the Fortnite Champion Series after one of the team's members told the CCO of Epic Games to kill himself on Twitter. Eurogamer and Dot Esports report that this Fortnite team was last in the current standings of the NA East tournament, which still would've entitled the team to prize money. Six matches were left in the tournament when Fortnite player Wrigley targeted Donald Mustard, CCO of Epic Games, on Twitter. "Like literally f**king k!ll your$elf @DonaldMustard," Wrigley wrote. The tweet along with the rest of Wrigley's Twitter account has been deleted. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/01/fortnite-llambro-arrives-for-fortnite-crew-members-trailer"] Wrigley's teammate, Dictate, posted a screenshot of a section of an email on Twitter that claims the team has been disqualified. The email has not been verified and could be fake. The third teammate, Userz, has seemingly confirmed the disqualification on Twitter by denouncing Wrigley's actions and asking for permission for another player to substitute for Wrigley. "I wish we would be able to have an Opportunity [sic] for an emergency sub what [sic] wrigley [sic] did was completely out of our control and [sic] we put endless [sic] amount of time into the game for a chance at life changing [sic] money...," Userz wrote. Epic Games has not officially commented on the matter. Fortnite is about to launch chapter 2, season 6, which will come with Fortnite's first single-player story event. And players can do it dressed as the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man, which has been added as a Fortnite skin. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=fortnite-ant-man-tease-and-official-reveal&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN.

Fortnite Team Reportedly Disqualified from Cup After Team Member Aggressively Tweets Epic CCO

A Fortnite team has reportedly been disqualified from the Fortnite Champion Series after one of the team's members told the CCO of Epic Games to kill himself on Twitter. Eurogamer and Dot Esports report that this Fortnite team was last in the current standings of the NA East tournament, which still would've entitled the team to prize money. Six matches were left in the tournament when Fortnite player Wrigley targeted Donald Mustard, CCO of Epic Games, on Twitter. "Like literally f**king k!ll your$elf @DonaldMustard," Wrigley wrote. The tweet along with the rest of Wrigley's Twitter account has been deleted. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/01/fortnite-llambro-arrives-for-fortnite-crew-members-trailer"] Wrigley's teammate, Dictate, posted a screenshot of a section of an email on Twitter that claims the team has been disqualified. The email has not been verified and could be fake. The third teammate, Userz, has seemingly confirmed the disqualification on Twitter by denouncing Wrigley's actions and asking for permission for another player to substitute for Wrigley. "I wish we would be able to have an Opportunity [sic] for an emergency sub what [sic] wrigley [sic] did was completely out of our control and [sic] we put endless [sic] amount of time into the game for a chance at life changing [sic] money...," Userz wrote. Epic Games has not officially commented on the matter. Fortnite is about to launch chapter 2, season 6, which will come with Fortnite's first single-player story event. And players can do it dressed as the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man, which has been added as a Fortnite skin. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=fortnite-ant-man-tease-and-official-reveal&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Petey Oneto is a freelance writer for IGN.

Marvel’s Secret Invasion Series Reportedly Adds One Night in Miami Actor

One Night in Miami star Kingsley Ben-Adir has reportedly been cast in Secret Invasion, the upcoming Marvel series at Disney Plus. According to Deadline, Ben-Adir's role is being kept hidden away in a dossier for now, though sources suggest that he will be playing one of the main villains on the show, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn. Jackson is returning as Nick Fury, head of SHIELD, while Mendelsohn is reprising his meme-rable role as the shape-shifting Skrull leader, Talos, from 2019's Captain Marvel. Ben-Adir joins the MCU after gaining recognition for his portrayal of Malcolm X in Regina King's critically-acclaimed directorial debut One Night in Miami, which put him front and center for awards season this year. He also starred in a pivotal role playing former US president Barack Obama in The Comey Rule, a two-part political miniseries that aired on Showtime in September. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/01/04/what-to-expect-from-marvel-in-2021"] Despite this new addition, Secret Invasion is expected to have a small cast rather than a massive ensemble a la Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige previously hinted that the series would be a much more intimate story than its comic book inspiration, with episodes mostly revolving around Fury and Talos' investigations into a cosmic conspiracy. Fury and Talos were last seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home's post-credits stinger, which delivered a big shock reveal when Talos and Soren were unmasked as the impersonators of Fury and Maria Hill. Speculation then arose over whether the two Skrulls were worming their way into SHIELD in order to build up towards one of the most famous Marvel storylines of all time. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvel-cinematic-universe-every-upcoming-movie-and-tv-show&captions=true"] Feige officially confirmed the Secret Invasion series in December 2020 as part of Disney's Investors Day press event, alongside numerous other MCU announcements. That news included confirmation that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will connect to Spider-Man 3The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's release date, and Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau joining the cast of Captain Marvel 2. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Marvel’s Secret Invasion Series at Disney Plus Adds One Night in Miami Actor

One Night in Miami star Kingsley Ben-Adir has reportedly been cast in Secret Invasion, the upcoming Marvel series at Disney Plus. According to Deadline, Ben-Adir's role is being kept hidden away in a dossier for now, though sources suggest that he will be playing one of the main villains on the show, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn. Jackson is returning as Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D., while Mendelsohn is reprising his meme-rable role as the shape-shifting Skrull leader, Talos, from 2019's Captain Marvel. Ben-Adir joins the MCU after gaining recognition for his portrayal of Malcolm X in Regina King's critically-acclaimed directorial debut One Night in Miami, which put him front and center for awards season this year. He also starred in a pivotal role playing former US president Barack Obama in The Comey Rule, a two-part political miniseries that aired on Showtime in September. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/01/04/what-to-expect-from-marvel-in-2021"] Despite this new addition, Secret Invasion is expected to have a small cast rather than a massive ensemble a la Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige previously hinted that the series would be a much more intimate story than its comic book inspiration, with the episodes mostly revolving around Fury and Talos as they team up to investigate a cosmic conspiracy. This story is developing... [poilib element="accentDivider"] Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.