Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Video game platform Roadblocks the shares on the up and up.
Speaker 2: Of course, the company reported large and expected to jump
Speaker 2: and users for the first quarter, with its daily active
Speaker 2: players jobbing twenty six percent ninety seven point eight million
Speaker 2: now and that was for the first three months ending
Speaker 2: in March. Dave Pazuki, Reblock CEO, joins us and Dave,
Speaker 2: are you economic anxiety proof? Are you recession proof.
Speaker 3: Ed? Carolyn, thank you for having me on the program.
Speaker 3: I want to highlight significant performance in Q one. We
Speaker 3: just shared yesterday on our Earnie's Call on our really
Speaker 3: mission to get ten percent of the global gaming software
Speaker 3: market running on the platform. Roadblocks is virtual, Roadblocks is digital.
Speaker 3: We do not have any supply chain issues. There is
Speaker 3: no shortage of Roadblocks, and we are contributing to the
Speaker 3: US trade import export ratio. We're bringing cash.
Speaker 2: Into the and you're paying some of those content creators,
Speaker 2: in particular developers. Dave, I'm interested in that ten percent figure, Like,
Speaker 2: what sort of timeframe are we talking here? Because what
Speaker 2: you're about three percent?
Speaker 3: Now? Am I right? We're at about two and a
Speaker 3: half to three percent. We have shared consistently that we
Speaker 3: believe we can grow at greater than twenty percent year
Speaker 3: on year. We highlighted in Q one growth rates much
Speaker 3: higher than that, including revenue growth rates of twenty nine
Speaker 3: percent year on year, daily active user growth rates of
Speaker 3: twenty six percent year on year, and a couple really
Speaker 3: interesting highlights. Over thirteen users on the platform, DAUS grew
Speaker 3: by thirty six percent year on year and India huge
Speaker 3: market grew by seventy seven percent year on year. So
Speaker 3: we really think it's attainable.
Speaker 1: Dave, I'm a passionate gamer in the over third category,
Speaker 1: and I'd say that the biggest headlines right now are
Speaker 1: the delay of GTA six high fidelity game and the
Speaker 1: delay of switch to on the console side. Is that
Speaker 1: way you think you're going to compete when you aim
Speaker 1: ten percent market share? How did those two headlines impact
Speaker 1: roadblocks and the platform.
Speaker 3: We have shared a roadmap, including highlighting genre expansion into
Speaker 3: RPG sports and racing battle games on the platform. We
Speaker 3: are seeing more of this on the platform. For example,
Speaker 3: we recently NASCAR has teamed up with Driving Empire, Paramount
Speaker 3: teamed up with SpongeBob simulator, PGA Tour has teamed up
Speaker 3: so we're seeing more and more of this. We shared
Speaker 3: that these three genres, which will contribute to us getting
Speaker 3: to ten percent of the gaming space, we believe grew
Speaker 3: over sixty percent year on year on the platform growing revenue.
Speaker 1: What role is advertising going to play?
Speaker 3: We think we already have some creators on our platform
Speaker 3: who are making more money on advertising than they are
Speaker 3: with virtual currency. We believe it's a natural compliment. What
Speaker 3: it's not big enough yet for us to break out
Speaker 3: the numbers. We just released a partnership with Google that
Speaker 3: will provide more video advertising for some of our our developers.
Speaker 3: So it's part of building an economic ecosystem, you know.
Speaker 3: We also shared that over one hundred creators on the
Speaker 3: platform made over a million dollars in the last twelve months,
Speaker 3: So there's a huge variety of creators starting to make
Speaker 3: good businesses.
Speaker 2: And Wedbush, for example, the analyst, they're saying that payment,
Speaker 2: when it improves the content, it draws more people there.
Speaker 2: Dave Weber also say, look, when you actually tell us
Speaker 2: exactly you break out the numbers advertising, that's the next
Speaker 2: cat list for roadblock shares. Any timeframe and when you
Speaker 2: will be able to break out the advertising numbers.
Speaker 3: We want to break out those numbers sooner as soon
Speaker 3: as we can. They are growing, stay tuned, we're looking
Speaker 3: forward to that. That said, we're growing at enormous rates
Speaker 3: with the core business of virtual currency, both on engagement
Speaker 3: and on users, really significant outperformance in Q one.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to the delicate side because last
Speaker 2: time you joined us, Dave, it was all about parental controls.
Speaker 2: It's all about the focus on safety. Now since we
Speaker 2: last spoke, there's been a couple more legal cases come
Speaker 2: your way. Look, these lawsuits aimed at you and at
Speaker 2: Discord and once again is about alleged grooming, sexual exploitation
Speaker 2: using the platforms. How are you dealing and responding to
Speaker 2: those particular lawsuits. How you're feeling, Dave? As well as
Speaker 2: I know you have your own family using it and
Speaker 2: you think seriously about this stuff.
Speaker 3: I would say both optimistic and as well a humility
Speaker 3: for the responsibility we have. You know, any single inci
Speaker 3: and on our platform is one too many, and there's
Speaker 3: almost one hundred million daily users on the platform every day.
Speaker 3: We take this as an enormous responsibility. We are taking
Speaker 3: leadership here in that all communication on our platform is
Speaker 3: filtered and goes through AI filters, which are getting enormously better,
Speaker 3: including voice. There's no image sharing on our platform, so
Speaker 3: there's less risk of some of the things that happen
Speaker 3: in that area. And more and more we're focusing not
Speaker 3: just on under thirteen, but on thirteen through seventeen year olds.
Speaker 3: That's also a delicate age. We're starting to lean into
Speaker 3: age verification around this. We work very heavily with local, state,
Speaker 3: and federal law enforcement. Roadblocks is a dangerous place for
Speaker 3: bad actors, so we have a big responsibility here.
Speaker 1: Dave, you talked about M and A actually in the
Speaker 1: roadbox ecosystem during the call. Give me some solid numbers
Speaker 1: on what that looks like and some MNA for the
Speaker 1: company as well. Going forward.
Speaker 3: We have shared that there are over there's now three
Speaker 3: creators on a run rate of over fifty million a year.
Speaker 3: You can put some multiples on top of that and
Speaker 3: estimate what their businesses might be worth. At our Developer
Speaker 3: conference last year, we shared a prediction there'll be a
Speaker 3: billion dollar valuation studio on the platform. We think that's
Speaker 3: very very possible. Internally, we haven't announced any M and A,
Speaker 3: but we are generating a fair amount of cash. You know,
Speaker 3: we have well north of three billion dollars of cash,
Speaker 3: but no roadblocks. M and A plans right now.
Speaker 1: Dave Zukier roadblocks. Thank you very much for joining us
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Technology