Roblox just made its own TikTok, and it could change everything

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The Roblox Developers Conference, or RDC, happens annually and usually brings huge updates for players, devs, and creators alike. Last year, we saw some minor changes to the platform, but this year, Roblox is stepping up its game, announcing the launch of Roblox Moments. The platform gives users the tools to upload and edit short-form content of their most hype gaming clips. So, an in-house TikTok, basically.

Currently rolling out in Beta mode, Roblox Moments is for those players over the age of thirteen and is currently available in the mobile app for testers. We’re sure it will roll out to desktop eventually, though, if not to follow the paths of TikTok and Instagram Reels. It will be accessible via the Home page in the Roblox app when the full release goes ahead, which we don’t have a date for yet.

Interface options allow you to capture up to 30 seconds of footage at a time in any Roblox game, trim the clip and add music, and write a caption for your new Moment. You can also find and react to other players’ clips through Discover, which is Moments’ version of the For You page. Creators can go one step further by designing their own tools and monitoring how their content is performing, as Roblox will release the Moments source code “soon”.

The launch of this platform and its accompanying tools could shake up the gameplay experience quite a bit. Aside from the obvious surge in clip-farmers, content could become much more accessible while in-game. Roblox has suggested that leaderboards might feature clips of the highest performers, for example.

This is also a pretty significant move for the market. Roblox generates huge amounts of traffic for sites like YouTube, which has had over one trillion views from ‘Blox players alone. If Moments takes off, which I think it will, it may encourage competitor sites that also provide a short-form content platform to up their game. There’s also a feature that allows players to view clips and then hop into the game shown on-screen, right there and then.

Then there’s the matter of the brain. I love a good doomscroll as much as the next Gen Zer, but to be honest – and you’d have the right to cry ‘boomer’ at me – I’m hesitant to get excited about another platform being taken over by short-form content. I’ve witnessed it happen with YouTube Shorts. I remember the day Instagram Reels was launched – it’s all just a big ol’ time-sink, and distracts from the things that make the apps good, which, in the case of Roblox, is just killing zombies on my phone or getting little dress-up outfits.

Who knows whether this move will draw players in or just make us all sick to death of the short-form video? Unfortunately, I fear this is a genius business move on Roblox’s part, and I ponder the death of my attention span once again.