Roblox's Zhen Fang On The Gaming Platform's Arabic Expansion

Roblox, the global gaming and creation platform that boasts 85.3 million active daily users, is now available in Arabic across all major devices, marking a significant step in its expansion into the MENA region.

The announcement was made by Roblox CEO and co-founder David Baszucki during a fireside chat at the World Governments Summit, which was held in Dubai from February 11-13, 2025. 

Roblox’s decision to introduce Arabic support comes amid a boom in the region’s gaming industry. Between the third quarter (Q3) of 2021 and 2024, daily active users and hours engaged in five MENA countries grew by an average of 80 percent and 76 percent, respectively.

In addition, in 2024, Roblox also ranked as the second and fifth most downloaded gaming app in MENA on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store respectively. The introduction of Arabic support is thus expected to accelerate this momentum, fostering a more inclusive environment for both players and creators. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Zhen Fang, head of international at Roblox, emphasized the importance of this expansion, stating, "We’ve been building this environment for almost 20 years, with popularity in the MENA region increasing in recent years. This is part of why we recently announced that the Roblox app and website are now available in Arabic. That means the Arabic language is supported in our text chat filtering, moderation support, and automatic translation features, which will enable more creators and developers to bring their imagination to life through virtual experiences." 

Beyond gameplay, Roblox offers a robust creator ecosystem, with 2.8 million developers globally working on six million active experiences. This user-generated content model has allowed many developers to make gameplay and development a career. "For many, this provides a creative opportunity to get together with friends and play through creation; but there is a subset of developers who’ve also found career and commercial success through Roblox," Fang explained. 

The MENA region has already shown signs of embracing this creator-driven economy. "For example, one creator based in the UAE has sold more than 30 million avatar items during their time creating on the platform," Fang noted. She also pointed to Roblox’s research highlighting its growing economic impact, with its contribution to MENA’s gross domestic product (GDP) increasing by 55 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2024. "That earning potential for creators will have an even greater impact with the launch of the Arabic platform," Fang added. 

Arabic support has also been integrated into Roblox’s parental control features, demonstrating the company’s commitment to fostering a safe and positive environment. "This also extends to additional access for Arabic-speaking parents in the region; who will not only be able to create and play with their children, but will also have access to recently updated parental controls in Arabic," Fang said. "The parental controls enable parents to view and manage their child’s account through their own linked account, reviewing friends lists, managing spend controls, and, where desired, setting restrictions around the content they can access. The safety of our community has been, and always will be, foundational to Roblox. We can continue to enable this through local language support, alongside regular, ongoing updates and adds to the technology and teams supporting safety." 

Fang added that safety remains a top priority for Roblox, which originally launched as a space for children. Indeed, in the first two months of 2025 alone, Roblox launched 30 updates to its safety tools and settings. "We use innovative technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) to review images, text, and avatar items, moderate on-platform content and activity via advanced safety-oriented machine-learning technology, and invest in a dedicated team of investigators who proactively look for violative content on the platform," Fang revealed. "As Roblox continues to scale, with a vision to connect a billion people across the world, this focus on safety will continue to be part of our DNA. We never stop working to create the safest environment possible, from policies to community standards and across tools."

With the region’s digital economy rapidly expanding, Roblox sees itself as an enabler of the next generation of creators. "At Roblox, we believe that education, creation, and AI can unleash the next generation of creators, and that growth is already evident in the MENA region," Fang said. "The key to that growth is ensuring the platform remains widely accessible across device types and languages and supporting the Roblox mission to connect a billion people with optimism and civility. The focus on playing, building, and learning is a shared value that we see in the MENA region, as we have seen educational institutions begin to offer game development classes to show young people how to build critical skills for the digital economy as well as how to monetize and grow a business."