SBJ Gaming: What happens when Roblox players age out?

I’m not putting a lot of stock into the fears that EA Sports may be getting shaky on the College Football series . Yes, it may not be selling as well as it did in its freshman and sophomore seasons despite a strong 2026 sales start , but with news that the publisher is pursuing an open-world football game (a kooky but fascinating idea) and bringing back Fight Night after a 15-year hiatus, it sure doesn’t look like it’s trimming sports any time soon. (Though if you’d tell me EA Sports somehow found a way to make an NIL deal just with the Power Four schools, Notre Dame and a few select Group of 6 schools and conferences ...

I’d buy that, especially with the new CFP deal wanting P4 schools to schedule 10 P4 opponents .) Speaking of EA, on the entertainment side, EA Games shut down BioWare. Once one of, if not the leading, studios for role-playing games (it even made a pretty good Sonic the Hedghog RPG!).

RIP to one of the most influential game studios of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Today in SBJ Gaming : Where Roblox players go after aging out The sponsors soldiering along with Dreamhack in its 32nd year Eric Haalang enlists with Call of Duty Where Roblox players are, and where they’re going FIFA Super Soccer remains a gateway for Roblox players to bigger soccer games, like EA Sports FC.

Gamefam If I’ve learned one thing about the gaming efforts of the major sports leagues, one platform weighs heavily in their strategies: Roblox. Millions of young people log into it and play games every day, like FIFA Super Soccer , Driving Empire or Super NFL Tycoon . Thursday, market research firm Newzoo (a sister company under Leaders Group with SBJ), released its latest report on how players interact with Roblox and what happens when they age out of the platform or seek deeper games.

A few high-level highlights: Even if Roblox is the most-played “game” on PC and console by total hours, it remains a mobile-first audience. Engagement, not reach, is also what drives this audience. Its players over-index on arcade, co-op and survival-horror outside the platform, and they under-index “sharply” on premium triple-A games, a stark difference from traditional gamers.

They also over-index on anime/animation and youth entertainment IP. Newzoo suggestions this is strong enough to shape their future buying habits. If you want to connect with Roblox players, it’s better to integrate into existing hits on the platform than create original games, especially for traditional game publishers.

The under-indexing on triple-A games, though, doesn’t include sports, said Tianyi Gu, manager/market analysis at Newzoo. “Sports over-indexes overall: in H1 2026, 54% of Roblox players on console also played a sports game, vs. 41% of all console players.

Two sports titles, Descenders [3.12x] and Riders Republic [2.25x], are in the top 10 games for overlap with Roblox players. That reinforces the pull toward arcade-style play.” And how does it work with the mainstream sports games? Per Gu, the over-indexing for NBA 2K26 is 1.40X, 1.26X for Madden NFL 26 and 1.12X for EA Sports FC 26.

The one under-indexing the PC/console average? That’s MLB: The Show 26 at .76X. But the biggest insight may come from Roblox’s Q2 2026 report.

While it shows 123 million daily active players — up 10% year over year — that DAU is down from Q1’s 132 million players. Roblox points to its recent age-verification procedures for this decline (along with a shift to lower-monetizing games), and it’s not only withdrawn its guidance for the fiscal year but also projects a bookings decline of 14%-18%.

Gu cited Roblox noting it faced “‘greater-than-expected headwinds’ from its age-check rollout, which slowed new user acquisition” but also pointed out that it had a “very high 2025 base” of players that fell off viral hits such as Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot, which helped push Roblox Q3 2025 DAUs and bookings up 70% year over year.

But even with that decline, Roblox remains far and ahead in terms of playtime hours on PC and console, per Newzoo’s game performance monitor (which does not include China and India). Newzoo Another nugget that stands out, and if I were in charge of gaming strategies or a publisher interested in Roblox, it would worry me: The platform averages about 14 million concurrent players over 6.7 million games, but around 7 million of those players are engaging with just the top 50 games on Roblox.

As Newzoo states in its report, “about 52% of players are concentrated in 0.0007% of experiences. Breakout hits aren’t a fringe part of the platform; they’re where the audience is, which is why identifying what’s spiking matters for any brand or IP holder considering Roblox.” What’s next?

Plenty of Roblox players age out, wanting deeper, better-looking games. Where do they go? The live-service giants such as Fortnite (29%) and Minecraft (28%) absorb 46% of lapsed Roblox players.

Another 26% head to Grand Theft Auto/Grand Theft Auto Online. But 30% also take up a Call of Duty game. Gu notes this stands out because Roblox players under-index on realistic military shooters, but Call of Duty: Warzone (the series’ free-to-play option) has similar in-game transactions that other Roblox games emulate.

And at some point, some Roblox players do crave deeper, more intense games. The sports game that catches more of these players than any other? It’s EA Sports FC at 12%, which makes sense as children grow older and start adopting sports fandoms or play sports themselves.

What stands out among the games on this chart? They all offer in-game transactions, and this shows the spending habits that Roblox players pick up can continue when they adopt more robust games. Dreamhack adds another major sponsor in its 32nd year as the ‘Coachella of gaming’ As its 2026 slate ends, Dreamhack continues to add sponsors to its series of gaming festivals and break attendance records.

ESL/FaceIt Dreamhack , the series of gaming conventions (“festival” may be a more apt term) under the ESL/FaceIt corporate umbrella, recently made a deal with Elgiganten AB, the Swedish electronics retailer. I thought it would be a good time to check in with the long-lived event and look at its existing sponsor roster and what the resilient live experience Dreamhack actually is in its 32nd year, especially since the series’ final show of 2026 is Nov.

27-29 in Stockholm. “Dreamhack has been here for ages,” said Andreas Jernberg, the VP/brand development at ESL/FaceIt, looking at its growth from an event where people played on LANs and were coding games, file-sharing and showing off demos. “And now, it’s more like the ‘Coachella of gaming.’” What does this three-day Coachella include, one that survived the COVID pandemic and continues to draw massive crowds?

In Sweden last year, it broke its previous attendance record with over 60,000 people , and this year’s stop in Atlanta drew more than 53,000 over three days in May. You’ve still got people playing games against one another (but not the massive LAN setups any longer), but it also includes esports competitions (the April 2027 show in Birmingham, England, hosts a Call of Duty Major ); cosplaying contests; demos, panels and discussions; exhibitions; art contests; awards; and more.

The post-COVID surge of collectible card games, such as Pokémon, are also a part of Dreamhack, with competitions and open areas to play. This post-COVID surge got new life from streamers in recent years cracking packs in videos. Jernberg says Dreamhack pays attention to such trends, and if the festivalgoers want these incorporated into the show, it does so.

“Not everything is digital, so what we’re doing this year is taking back that part a little and boosting it, so that community also gets recognized,” Jernberg said. Jernberg said Dreamhack also detailed how sponsors adapt to the festival’s growth and changes. In the immediate aftermath of COVID, they saw sponsors back off a bit, but now “the trend is that more and more partners want to come in and be a part of what we’re doing.” But in the past, where it might be a logo slap and a booth, sponsorships include becoming part of the festival, such as a deal signed with Lamborghini last year that saw not only some of the sports car manufacturer’s vehicles (both gas and electric) decked out in Dreamhack livery but also become part of the sim racing challenges.

“Everyone that’s working commercially in Dreamhack knows that it involves so much more than bringing in a partner. It’s about more than educating them on what Dreamhack is. Gaming is important, and helping them tell the right story to the right audience, in their own way, is [one of the changes] I’ve seen so much of in recent years.” And who are those sponsors?

Dreamhack’s Tier 1 sponsors include: Red Bull DHL Lamborghini (new for 2026) Logitech G (new for 2026) Samsung Nintendo Lenovo Xbox Gaming speed reads Manchester City's Eric Haalang (r) takes on hip-hopper Aitch in a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 promotion. SBJ The latest athlete to sign up with Call of Duty?

That’s Erling Haaland of Manchester City (and the Norwegian national team). He’s been a noted and vocal Call of Duty player for some time ( even sharing gameplay ), and as part of the promotion for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, he took on U.K. hip-hop artist Aitech in a live match .

Activision worked directly with Haaland and his representation for the match. NBA 2K26’s September debut was so strong that it was became the bestselling game of the year. I don’t expect that to last when fellow Take-Two Interactive game comes out Nov.

19: Grand Theft Auto 6. This is the final weekend of the Steam Next Fest (a promotion with thousands of demos for upcoming games). If you’re interested in trying out some sports games, here they are .

On my list: Up-Beat!! , Fight Like a Chicken and Moon Basketball . Running from Thursday to Nov. 3, Sega is offering a free trial for Football Manager 27, which comes out Nov.

10 for PC. Why? Well, after skipping 2025 to focus on making a better game, Football Manager 26 launched as a buggy mess.

This is likely a way to earn back some player and community trust.