TLDR
- Roblox stock fell 18% on Friday, closing at $45.13, and is down 44% year-to-date
- The company lowered its 2026 guidance after a rocky rollout of its age estimation safety feature
- Only 51% of daily active users have completed the age verification process as of late March
- Players who can chat spend up to 7x more than those who can’t, directly hitting revenue
- Analysts maintain a Moderate Buy consensus with an average 12-month price target of $74.71
Roblox (RBLX) stock closed Friday at $45.13, down 18% on the day, after the company released revised 2026 guidance that disappointed the market.
The stock is now down 44% for the year.
The selloff followed Roblox’s decision to lower its full-year outlook, driven largely by slower-than-expected user adoption of its new age estimation system.
In January, Roblox began requiring users to verify their age before accessing any communication features on the platform. The move was designed to address child safety concerns, which have led to multiple lawsuits from U.S. states and individuals.
The rollout has been slow. As of late March, only 51% of daily active users worldwide had completed the process. That means nearly half the platform’s user base is currently locked out of social features.
That’s a real problem for the business.
Data from gaming analytics firm Gamebeast shows that players who use chat spend up to seven times more on the platform than those who don’t. Chat metrics dropped sharply in January and, while they’ve recovered slightly, they remain well below prior levels.
Safety Rollout Hits Revenue Hard
Roblox has been under pressure from regulators and legal systems over its handling of younger users. The age estimation system is the company’s attempt to get ahead of that. But it’s the first time any major social platform has implemented age-gating at this scale, and the second and third-order effects are still playing out.
CEO David Baszucki has made clear this is a long-term play. His stated goal is to build a platform where one billion people gather daily in virtual worlds. Safety, he has said, is a core part of making that work.
The company is also investing heavily in infrastructure this year, using cash generated during a strong 2025 to build out its cloud backbone and add new developer tools.
Guidance Points to a Tough Second Half
The revised guidance wasn’t just weak — it pointed specifically to a difficult second half of 2026. Roblox faces tough comparisons to year-ago quarters that included major viral hits on the platform. Those kinds of viral moments depend heavily on social interaction, which is currently limited.
The third quarter, when students are on summer break, is historically when Roblox sees its biggest engagement spikes. The company has indicated it doesn’t expect the chat issues to be fully resolved by then.
If something does go viral this summer despite the limitations, it could serve as a near-term upside surprise. But the company isn’t counting on it.
Analysts on TipRanks rate RBLX a Moderate Buy, with 15 Buy ratings and 10 Hold ratings over the last three months. The average 12-month price target sits at $74.71, implying roughly 65.5% upside from Friday’s close.
The last time Roblox went through a heavy investment cycle like this was 2022, when the stock fell 72%. It bottomed at $28.46 and went on to recover strongly.
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