In this episode, host Kalie Moore talks with Zach Letter, Co-founder & CEO of Wonder Works Studio, the makers of hit Roblox experiences, including three SpongeBob titles this year. We dig into how creator roots shape game design and distribution, how influencer-native teams launch differently, and Wonder Works’ long-term bet on licensed IP.
The conversation dives into launching without paid UA, weekly live-ops that drive creator content, and when brands should integrate into hit experiences versus build standalone worlds. Zach also shares what makes an IP “Roblox-ready,” how transmedia loops amplify impact across YouTube, Discord, and merch, and why he believes UGC’s rise is unstoppable.
We’d like to thank Overwolf for making this episode possible! Whether you're a gamer, creator, or game studio, Overwolf is the ultimate destination for integrating UGC in games! You can check out all Overwolf has to offer at https://www.overwolf.com/.
We’d also like to thank Lightspeed Venture Partners for making this episode possible! With its dedicated gaming & interactive media practice, the firm invests from an over $6.5 billion pool of early and growth-stage capital. If you’re interested in learning more, go to https://gaming.lsvp.com/.
This transcript is machine-generated, and we apologize for any errors.
Kalie: Welcome to the Naavik Gaming Podcast. I'm your host, Kalie. And today we're digging into what happens when a creator-led studio builds for UGC at scale. My guest today is Zack Letter, the founder of Wonder Works Studio, maker of hit Roblox experiences, including three Sponge Bob titles this year alone.
And if you're thinking Roblox again, we just listened to the Naavik episode about The Gang, don't worry. In this episode, we're gonna dive into how creator roots shape game design distribution, how influencer-native teams launch differently and Wonder Works long-term bet on licensed IP. So thanks for joining us.
Zack, can you start by introducing yourself in Wonder Works Studio?
Zack: Yeah, no, that intro was amazing. Yeah, so. a little bit about my background. I was a lifelong gamer, always loved video games since I was like two. When I graduated high school, you know, YouTube was pretty new. In 2007, my brother showed me the website and I kind of fell in love with the idea of making content on video games.
But it was like such a new idea and like technology wasn't great back then. It was like a lot of roundabout ways to make it happen. But, uh, over about an 11-year full-time influencer career, I amassed millions of subscribers, billions of views, and really carved out my space in the YouTube gaming scene.
Especially very early on, I was one of the first YouTube gamers that hit a million subscribers and was just really there early back in the MCN days, like Machinima and things like that. Met my wife, and she was also an influencer in 2017. She began her career on Roblox, making videos on the platform about all different experiences on the platform.
And she's amassed tens of millions of followers and billions of views as well. And like because of her exce success on Roblox, in 2019, we decided to co-found Wonder Works Studios, and our thesis was, Hey, we can make original IP using our influencer marketing knowledge to really ramp up these experiences on and off the Roblox platform.
Because in my opinion, Roblox functions very much like YouTube when servicing games via the algorithm, just like servicing videos via the algorithm. So if you make a good video or you make a good game, you have a chance of success on either platform. Um, and we started with an original IP, released it in 2020.
Um, it exploded, generated millions of dollars in revenue. Led our studio to raise some financing and we expanded a little bit. Right now, we're a team of about 14 full-time people all here in the U.S. We have one Brazilian employee as well. He's great. But our goal is really to lean into licensed experiences as we're kind of looking forward, where the platform has a lot of noise, there's a lot of successful experiences.
Experiences are constantly churning in and out of the top 25 and holding a mainstay position. There has become harder and harder over the last few years, especially over the last six months. So for us, we believe licensing allows us to tackle a popular genre on the platform, and also already gives us like an amplified voice as soon as we make that entry.
So, we can enter a crowded genre and break down some of that noise because we have SpongeBob or, or some other very popular IP backing our experience. And then with our experience that we have on the platform, we're making good games that monetize well, that retain users. And uh, yeah, that's, that's kind of our thesis going forward.
Kalie: That's great and I can't wait to dive into the IP licensing part of it, but I really wanna start with the backgrounds that you and your wife, like as you mentioned, are also co-founder. Being influencers in the gaming space, I think is really unique. Like we see, I think a lot of creators coming in and making different mods or in game creations, but I haven't seen that many creator to developer pipeline of studios.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about how your creator DNA shaped your game strategy and specifically the type of games you build on Roblox?
Zack: Yeah, I mean it definitely had influence. We had so much experience growing channels and brands on YouTube that we felt like it would translate to Roblox. Like my wife and I, between the two of us have like dozens of channels that have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of subs each.
And we really just had like. A lot of success on that platform. Even with SpongeBob Tower Defense, we made a YouTube channel for that, and it has a hundred thousand subs, and it gets great viewership. So, like we really understood that platform and we figured that the audience on that platform is very much the audience on Roblox.
Especially in gaming, they're younger, they're more in tuned with what's going on in social media. We figured everything we learned about them over the last decade would translate to Roblox. So, like when we come to Roblox and make an experience, it's really like how do we create that flywheel?
Where one we can acquire users on platform and, you know, service what the algorithm wants to see. Like good day one, day seven, good average revenue per paying user, but also how does it leave the platform and become something bigger, like become a moment in pop culture. So, when we're building out our games, we wanna make sure that there's mechanics, that influencers feel compelled to make videos around.
Like we wanna make sure it has a great live ops cadence. So, there's always new content to cover and we're always at the forefront of. Creator's minds. And I think, like one thing I've always said is like, our games will make billions. And this is like long term, will make billions because our influencers that cover them make millions.
So it's really about feeding them and building and creating like a full economy off platform for those users.
Kalie: That's perfect. And I actually wanna dive a little bit deeper into that. My next question is in that, that kind of genre, but, so my question is gonna be kind of what's the edge with influencer marketing, but I'd really, you had a great example of the SpongeBob YouTube channel and the, you said a hundred thousand subs, but I really love to hear about like a recent launch from end to end in which format, short, long term versus TikTok.
Like what creator collaborations have really moved the needle for you guys.
Zack: Yeah, SpongeBob Tower Defence is nine months old now, so we launched that last December. When we dropped that, you know, within about eight days we started getting algorithm support on Roblox and started seeing some users come in.
And during those eight days, that's when we had our first major influencer cover the game organically. And when they made a video on the experience, and this is like part of our strategy, it's like there's so many tower defence games when we release this game, but like no one thought SpongeBob would ever be a tower defence game.
So it's like that was like a really fun like video idea right in itself. Like to where that influencer thought, oh, I'm gonna make a video on this so easily. We knew all of the influencers that made videos on other tower defence games. We'd like make a video on our eventually, so he was like the first domino to fall and then that like caused dozens more to fall.
And we just had within two weeks an ecosystem of influencers that were getting millions of views a week, just covering our experience. And then that really over the first 45 days of the experience released, led to its peak. And we maintain that for months on end. And it's a combination of weekly live ops.
In those weekly lab apps, considering how our, our influencers are going to be able to create content. And what we really don't want is one video, because we dropped one update. Yeah. We wanna create updates that generate, you know, three or four videos and then maybe you're trying to really think outside the box until the next update, for a couple more.
But really that's, that's our goal in every, everything we do.
Kalie: And is it all organic influencers because you've kind of figured out the model or do you—
Zack: Yeah, we don't pay for anybody. We don't pay for user acquisition in our experiences. So, uh, if we do spend on Roblox ads, it's less than a penny per user we acquire.
So, we really understand how to create them nails and icons that are appealing to people on the platform, and then obviously create like the right content that generates those organic videos and keeps feeding us on all other platforms.
Kalie: Can we dive a little bit deeper into that? Specifically, like for the LiveOps content, like what have you seen really work to, to garner interest from influencers?
Zack: Yeah, so one thing that helped SpongeBob monetize so well, but also helped create so much more content was building like a really healthy trading economy and like an ecosystem around asset value. So, for us it's like how do we control the flow here to where when we're dropping assets, we can ensure not.
Not all of our users are able to obtain them, like create that scarcity, create that fomo. And then that creates a lot of great video ideas. Like I was the first one to get X unit like, or trading X unit because it's so valuable and everyone wants to see like, oh, what is that worth? Like, so for us it really was like creating a sense of scarcity, creating that fomo, and then that makes people wanna make videos immediately because everyone's gonna wanna see the thing they can't get.
They're gonna wanna see what it's worth. They're gonna wanna see how it works, like how powerful is it? Obviously that like kind of depends on what game it is. But for Tower Defense, like that was our goal, like create. False sense of scarcity, which will drive up unit values, which will make every update that much more important to be on day one and put that grind in.
A lot of our assets are limited in time, so it's a two week event or it's a weekend only drop, and it's like something you have to be there for.
Kalie: And was the Tower of defense genre picked specifically because of the different types of content and influencers? What other genres were you playing around with when you were looking at the SpongeBob IP?
Zack: Tower defense was like the best way to prove what we were thinking. So,there was five experiences that were tower defense in the top 25 earning. So, it looked extremely saturated like, okay, like this is basically 20% of the top 25 games, our tower defense. But then we looked at the quality of the experiences and we're like, okay, there's places to improve there.
Not that that super matters on the Roblox platform. Like quality doesn't necessarily mean a better game and more players. But we thought, okay, there's places to improve. We noticed that they were lacking basically engagement and monetization mechanics, but then we were like. Is SpongeBob interesting to the audience that we're witnessing from these other five experiences?
And like the other five experiences were like, SC toilet, five nights at Freddy's, uh, some anime based IPs. And it's like, okay, so it's, it's male. It could be a little bit young if you're looking at skiddy. But it could also be a little bit older if you're looking at the anime. So, it felt like it had a broad male audience.
And then we knew SpongeBob was 26 years old, so it's like we know that there's an older audience there. And, , so for us it's like we feel like this could prop this up. We feel like we can make a better kit, so like a better tower defense game and then slap this IP on it and then we can cut the noise so we can cut.
The necessity to spend to acquire users and just the fact that that IP is on it will drive users. And then we have a good game, which will retain them.
Kalie: All right. There's been a little bit of beef when it comes to Fortnite creators versus the game developers who are creating custom maps. So, two weeks ago, Alex Lee, who's a reporter at Digiday, published an article that looked at Fortnite maps and how branded Fortnite maps and how brands are measuring success.
And creators came on board and said that they think these bid budgets for custom branded worlds are. Experiencing lower CCUs, right? Like we're only seeing, you know, a couple hundred and they think that they could do a better job if they were integrating these brand experiences into their islands that have already proved successful.
On the other side, we have game developers, studios like Look North World, who partnered with the Glitch to do the general campaign, which has garnered 50 million views. So, when you look at success metrics, are you looking at. CCUs, are you looking at overall brand awareness? How, how do you judge the success for kind of each angle?
Zack: Yeah, and I mean, I can speak to this because we were a work for hire studio, for a couple of years and you know, I think my opinion's gonna come from a place of, obviously we're not doing that anymore. So, but I can speak to how I feel about it overall. I mean, if you're a brand that. Like a beverage or a food item or something that doesn't make sense to like, have its own standalone experience, integrating is gonna be like 20,000 times better.
Like, you're gonna get so much more out of it. We just worked with OP and SpongeBob Tower Defense, like they have hundreds of millions of impressions, like what you would pay like through Google AdSense, like would be astronomical for what we've delivered. But also spinning up an experience has such a cost attached to it that you might as well just market because you're going to save a little bit of money.
Or even if you break even, you're gonna get a, like a hell of a lot more impressions. So if it's the right brand, like SpongeBob that already has games like that's already proven to work in, like AAA and AA and mobile, like it is like a really great IP that can be expanded into its own universe and add depth and kind of validation to an experience. Like it can deepen it for the users, but if you are like L'Oreal or Maybelline, like you probably don't need an experience and integrating into one that has tens of millions of users is, is gonna benefit you so much more.
Kalie: That’s really helpful, thank you. And then just throwing this out there, you guys are just building on Roblox right now, right?
Are you interested in exploring other UGC platforms? Are you Roblox all the way?
Zack: Yeah, not really. I think we're Roblox all the way. The platform just has such an advantage when it comes to discovery. It's already so well capitalized too, in terms that the users understand that. You know, the, I guess the psychology beyond the behind, behind the spend.
So, it's not like, it's not like old school YouTube where people didn't like when a YouTuber did a brand deal, it felt like you were selling out. It felt like, you know, you were corporate. Like this audience understands micro transactions. They understand freemium games. Like, so Fortnite isn't there yet.
Those users don't understand microtransactions outside of just the Fortnite skin shop. Like they don't understand pay to win. So it's like that is such a harder ecosystem for someone like us to enter and like. Be able to capitalize as well as we are on Roblox. Um, plus the discoverability, like if you do need to spend, it's usually less than a penny per user, which you can't say that about any other platform anywhere.
Like it's 500 times cheaper than mobile, which is crazy. And then also just how much time each of these users spend on platform every day. Like it's meaningful, it's super significant. We did play with U-E-F-N-A few years ago, maybe two plus now, and the discovery on there is just not even close.
Like you can't shadow drop a game and have a million CCU tomorrow. And on Roblox you could.
Kalie: Yeah, makes sense. Okay. I wanna shift gears a little bit to talk about SpongeBob specifically. So, I saw you post on LinkedIn, I feel like this is in the last week, but you tell me if these numbers are out of date.
So, I saw that SpongeBob Tower of Defense has 78K concurrent users, which is a record for you guys, but I thought the most interesting part of this experience is. That it's nine months old, which is rare stand Amina in a culture speed market. Have you been able to continue the momentum? Is it just live ops?
Like what are the ingredients?
Zack: I think it's a mix of community engagement and live ops. So, like we're very engaged with the community. We have a discord that's almost 200,000 members. We're constantly taking feedback from them. We're constantly dropping leaks and then getting their opinions on those leaks.
And then we kind of take those opinion and those feedbacks and design our updates live. So, it's like if a lot of people are like. I want more vehicles or I want more of this. We're not necessarily telling them that we're taking that feedback, we're just showing them we are and we're like building out updates that really feel like they're coming directly from the community.
And I always like draw the reference that we work like South Park team does. Like they're making the episode the week that it airs. We're making the update the week that it airs, like on Friday morning, we're still buttoning it up to drop it Friday afternoon. So, because we're just so live with everything we do, we can be a finger on the pulse of what the community wants, and that's why we drove to nearly 80 KCCU last week, and I think a hundred KCCU is with within the next few weeks for sure.
Kalie: Wow, that's really impressive. How long did it take you to build up that Discord community? Did it snowball at one time or was it just steady?
Zack: Yeah, within a month we grew, that grew up pretty much to that point, maybe like minus 20 5K that have slowly trickled in. So really at the explosion of the game where everyone was super excited and interested, they just wanted more and more and more.
And that's when we spun up the YouTube channel too, about two months into the games release. And then I was able to make all the videos on that channel be a personality and a voice. Like right now in Roblox, a lot of games do this, this thing called admin abuse where the main developer can come into the experience and do these live events where they're actually talking to the global community, dropping little assets or booths or bonuses, um, during like a 30 minute or one hour live session.
And like that's drawn the community to feel so close to the developer, and it's given the developers a personality and an influence. So, like we've been doing that off platform forever. And now we're starting to adapt the on platform version. But because we have the YouTube and the Discord, we've always had that voice.
When I go into the game, everyone's like, oh my gosh, it's Zach, because like, I'm that personality for this experience.
Kalie: That's really incredible. You already own the community, so I'm sure it's even more special when you jump in in game. One other thing that I found super interesting is that this is your third SpongeBob title this year, correct?
Zack: We have, yeah. So, SpongeBob Tower Defense was the first and Steel a SpongeBob was the second, and we have a third coming this October. We're super excited about it. So, SpongeBob Tower Defense was like a big swing. It's a big game. There's so much going on. Steal a SpongeBob we made in a week. It was a fast follow, hyper casual game that did like 70 million visits in like a month and now this new game we're making is a SpongeBob horror game. So, horror and SpongeBob have never been done together, ever. Um, so we get this opportunity to cast this entire universe in a totally different light. And again, like that's part of our overall goal. It's like, what is polarizing?
Like when you see something like that on platform, you're gonna be like. Whoa. Like I never thought about SpongeBob that way. Same, same like effect as like I never thought of SpongeBob as like a tower defense strategy game. 'cause also SpongeBob characters aren't violent. They're not usually doing like combat.
So, it's like putting these characters in like these different situations and letting you experience that universe in that different light is what already gives us like such a leg up.
Kalie: So, my next question was gonna be about how you're creating experiences that compliment each other and not compete with each other, and how do you spin up a new title versus expanding to an existing one?
But it sounds like you just have these ideas of completely different experiences, so it's, you aren't stepping on toes at all, is that correct?
Zack: Yeah, yeah. We don't cannibalize our own experiences. I think what we look at is like, what are the top three to five genres on platform right now? What do we believe their audience is?
Like, their demographic? Do we believe it's a saturated genre that's actually spinning down and gonna go away? Or do we believe that it's a mainstay, uh, like Brookhaven and role play and like, does, does it have an opportunity to stick around for a few years? Um, so if we can identify a genre that's popular, has the right demo, and we believe is it has longevity, like that's worth a big swing for us.
And that's why we're doing the horror game because. Horror on Roblox right now, I feel like is more popular than it has been in in recent years. If you go back to like Rainbow Friends and Doors, that was already two or three years ago. And those have died down, but now you have like 99 nights in the forest and forsaken and like these new horror games that are like redefining what horror is on Roblox.
So, for us, we want to make that entry and SpongeBob will help prop us up and hopefully we can take good market share.
Kalie: Also perfect time with Halloween coming up too.
Zack: Exactly. Yeah.
Kalie: All right. I wanna zoom out a little bit. So, obviously we've talked about SpongeBob, this is part of your licensing relationship with Paramount.
So, I wanna, I wanna hear more about that relationship with Paramount, and also your long-term licensing strategy for Roblox.
Zack: Okay. Yeah, definitely. So, I met Paramount. Well, we worked on like a, a couple of contracted projects, like a concert for a charity and stuff like, like 18 months ago or a little bit more.
But we, I didn't really have like, access to the full Paramount Games team. But at RDC last year in September, I, I went to the convention. I met with Jennifer Sharp, who just left Activision to go to Paramount like two weeks before I met her, and I pitched her on my idea of, Hey, if you license me SpongeBob, I will have a Tower Defense game for you in six weeks.
We will release and we'll capitalize on all of the holiday hype and be able to run an experience that I feel like could be a top experience on Roblox. At the time WonderWorks Studio was just work for hire. Like we kind of got away from making original experiences because we kind got trapped into making work for Hire to stay afloat and I was just like willing to bet the company and take this risk.
So if SpongeBob Tower Defense wouldn't have worked, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. You wouldn't even know who I am. But. I felt like we had to make that big bet, and Jennifer was just absolutely amazing. Truly believed in what I proposed to her. And we shook hands at RDC on handing us over the SpongeBob license and letting us make that game so quickly.
So they've just been an absolutely amazing partner.
Kalie: That's amazing. So it was always about SpongeBob for you, like that was the IP you wanted more than any other IP out there.
Zack: And there was three or four that we were talking to, and it was really about like. All of these we felt like were great and like of nearly equal level.
But who would be willing to be as experimental as possible, work as fast as possible, and be willing to throw away some of their processes? Like, oh, we have a two week approval process for every asset. Like we, we needed a partner that understood Roblox is four to six week dev cycles. And we need to move fast so we can capitalize.
We don't like to be married to an idea and be in production for three months because the platform does change. So if we can get it out soon, even if it's MVP and live opted into a full release, like that's always better. So, absolutely. And Paramount was the right partner.
Kalie: Well, can you talk to me a little bit about, more about your long-term licensing strategy? Like what's next for you guys?
Zack: Yeah, so what we're doing right now and, and what I'm been working on for like the last. Six or so months is really building out like a library of licenses that, that we have access to at any given time. So like signing multi-service agreements with all of the biggest entertainment companies like in the world and being able to have access to their entire library.
With Paramount, we have that kind of deal. , So like I, if I wanted to make a proposal for Top Gun, I could, and like, then we just do a one sheet and I have Top Gun., So it's just like that's the relationship we've built over these last nine to 12 months, , with them. And now I'm, I'm working with the two other major entertainment companies to do the same.
And my overall goal is to have that huge library to where I have commitments to nobody, but I have access to everything. And then when we identify a genre, it's like. Wow, this like fighter genre is so hot. I could go grab this IP right now, no questions asked, and just go and I can pull from like 100, 200, 300 ip so that that's what we're working on.
All in entertainment now, but also starting to talk to the big gaming companies about what it look could look like. But the hardest thing for us right now is speed to market. So, the companies have to be comfortable moving really, really fast.
Kalie: Yeah. This is, I feel like the perfect segue to the next question, which is what makes an IP Roblox ready?
Are you looking at demographic overlap, meme, mobility, specific loop structures? Is it just what's in the cultural discourse?
Zack: Yeah, I think it's a mix. So, it's like with SpongeBob it was like very large demo, multi-generational IP, 'cause 26 years old, like I was nine when it came out. So it's like ultimately it touched millennials, it touched Gen Z, it's touched Gen Alpha, it still has like a theatrical release this December, like it's still active in kicking.
So, like that was really exciting because it cast like a very wide net. Now if it was a newer IP, like only a year or two old, but was hot, like K-pop Demon Hunters, we'd have to like understand like, okay, how hot is this? What does their pipeline look like by on Netflix's side to like support this with new content?
If it's three years to the next movie, it's like, is this worth a risk? Right now because people are gonna forget and then they'll remember in three years. Or is it like squid games where there's like all these episodes in a new season, dropping every single year and like you're constantly feeding that loop and there's enough content there to like maintain excitement.
And also like on the meme side, you know, like the brain rot stuff. Like if that was super hot and you got there early, we'd be willing to experiment with something like that. Like K-pop demon hunters to me feels like if you knew the movie was coming and you had the, the 2020 vision to know it was gonna be a massive success, you would release in tandem with the movie.
Because it's like an IP that has like no history. So for us, like we do, like the longer tail IPs, like the decade plus ones, like I think about SpongeBob and Shrek and South Park, other Dreamworks IPs as well. Like I think there's a lot of, and then if you go to gaming, it's like Sonic and anything from Nintendo and, and a few things from Sony, like DC and Marvel at Disney Side.
Like those are great IPs 'cause they touch so many demos and have been around so long. They fit so many different games. Like another big thing for us is like we did one SpongeBob game. We didn't only want to do one. So, it's really like, can it have multiple entries on the platform? Is it a big enough IP to do so?
Because once you make all the art assets, that's like 90% of the lift for most of these games. Like that's time consuming. It's expensive, It's the most tedious process in the back and forth with the studio. So, once you have those and they're already approved, it's like, how can we spin them 20 different ways and can it support that?
Kalie: Let's talk a little bit more about the transmedia loop here 'cause you know, as you mentioned, SpongeBob is 26 years old. I also remember when it came out, ah. Are you working either with Paramount? Are you guys doing this on your own to measure whether Roblox play is driving either show viewership, YouTube minutes, or any type of retail?
Like what indicators are you looking at from a transmedia perspective?
Zack: Yeah, so with SpongeBob and the games we're doing with the SpongeBob license, we are going to be doing merchandise. So like we're going to have something that we can look at and be like, okay, what's the one for one, how interested are people in SpongeBob Tower defense and buying those toys versus just SpongeBob branded things?
We do believe it's striving meaningful impact, like our community, basically, paramount has access to 27 million monthly active users that. All choose to engage with SpongeBob. So, if they want to, we, we put the trailer for the new movie in the experience. And that had a hundred million impressions in two weeks.
So, it's just like, yes. Like now those people know about the movie or are reminded that it's coming. So, I think it is like a great marketing tool and engine for them. And then also for a company like Paramount that has access to so much IP, it's also a great way for them to prop up other IP. So, Sponge steal. SpongeBob has 22 million monthly active users. We could easily do a Ninja Turtles integration into that, and it props up another Paramount IP, but it's also exciting to our audience. So, like we're always looking to experiment like that. So Paramount benefits from not only the monetary gain that we're seeing on platform and how successful these experiences have been, but also we're able to drive more sales to retail.
We're able to drive more impressions to their theatricals or even to other IPs that are in their network.
Kalie: Great. One thing we haven't touched on, but I've been thinking about, especially when you talk about how quickly you build and specifically the art that you mentioned for SpongeBob, how are you guys utilizing AI for game, game and or art development?
Zack: Yeah, we're really not using it for art, or, or game development right now. Mm-hmm. I mean, I like to use it to bounce ideas off of it. So, like I'll have like this idea and I'll like actually just go in voice mode and we'll just be like talking back and forth. Like I just kind of use it to kind of brainstorm and just work out what's in my head.
So, it's almost like a therapy game development session. Mm-hmm. But I've gotten a lot of benefit from that and like it now knows me so well that I feel like I'm just like talking to myself. But like it helps me work through the process. So that's been great. I know like we played around with it, but like we already move so fast on Roblox, like we're not looking for like a one day time save here.
I, it feels like it's more of a distraction. One year development cycles. Four to six weeks. Yeah. I can't imagine our development cycle being one to two weeks because of it, because. It's such an iterative process that like I like to get in there with my hands once things are working, and then make lots of changes and then do that again and make lots more changes.
So it's like we're already moving. I feel like as fast as we should.
Kalie: I think it's wild that you're moving that quickly without using AI. Yeah. Impressive.
Zack: I know. Yeah, we're a very well organized team.
Kalie: Sounds like it. Okay. So, to close and then I'm gonna open it up for you, to you, if there's anything we didn't discuss that you wanna cover.
I think this is the era of UGC, and I think what you're building is a perfect proof point, but what do you think is the single biggest risk that could stall UGCs rise?
Zack: Yeah. I don't know. It's hard because I don't feel like, I feel like it's inevitable, like it's going to happen no matter what. Like when you look back to YouTube and, and what that did to television and how it like, kinda changed the way people consume content and how it helped probably the evolution of streaming even.
And on the go content watching. And I feel like YouTube was that next step to why TikTok and reels and things like that were able to have success because people were so used to consuming content on their device already. And now YouTube's become more television and shorts and TikTok have have become more of what you you're watching on the go.
So, I really feel like. It's not like copyright's gonna prevent UGC from taking off. Like it never stopped YouTube, all of those battles. It's not like, you know. Child safety or anything like that is going to prevent, like, obviously those steps need to be taken to protect people, but YouTube went through the same growing pains as they exploded, and you're gonna see every platform that gets to this size experience, those growing pains and adapt and try to make change.
So, I really feel like nothing can get in the way of this. It's just like the next act, natural evolution in gaming, in content, in social media, and just how we. Find fun and communicate with one another on a daily basis. So yeah, I, I really think nothing will stop it.
Kalie: I like that answer. And then, is there anything else you'd like to share?
Anything coming up that the Naavik gaming audience should know about?
Zack: I mean, don't look away from Roblox. It's going to be the biggest gaming platform in the world. It's already proving that it can have titles on it that are the biggest games to ever exist in terms of CCU. And now you have games on the, on the platform generating over a billion dollars in revenue a year for so low standing experiences.
This is just the beginning. And I really feel like you're going to have the next multi-billion dollar IP birthed on Roblox that can transcend the platform, that can be like that five nights at Freddy's, with movies and with toys, and with like multi decade IP. Like this is the place that's all gonna be born.
Kalie: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time, Zack. I really appreciate it.
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